{"id":34378,"date":"2015-01-16T12:34:23","date_gmt":"2015-01-16T19:34:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stage.headlessnauedu-b6hgdzckfdgxgzhe.westus-01.azurewebsites.net\/?p=34378"},"modified":"2015-02-27T16:28:55","modified_gmt":"2015-02-27T23:28:55","slug":"program-prepares-new-faculty-nau","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/program-prepares-new-faculty-nau\/","title":{"rendered":"Program prepares new faculty for NAU"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Productive<\/a>
Productive Beginnings organizers Alex Alvarez, Astrid Klocke and Larry Gallagher<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

New NAU faculty members are benefiting from a program called Productive Beginnings, expanded this past fall. In addition to attending a one-day orientation, new faculty also can sign up for more in-depth trainings and workshops throughout the school year.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany people come right out of graduate school and have never had any training in their disciplines in teaching methodology,\u201d said Astrid Klocke<\/strong>, a humanities professor and president of the Faculty Senate. \u201cEven for people with teaching experience, we want to instill in them the wish to learn more about what they do in the classroom, what the students need and what works best,\u201d added Klocke, who is a Productive Beginnings organizer, along with professor Alexander Alvarez<\/strong> and faculty development director Larry Gallagher<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want people to feel like they are part of NAU, that they understand the university, and that they are supported during that first year,\u201d Gallagher said. In addition to being better prepared to teach students, participants also make connections and share ideas with a new faculty cohort.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaking the switch from a network television producer to an assistant professor was overwhelming, said Toni DeAztlan-Smith, <\/strong>who joined the School of Communication this past year. \u201cThe faculty and staff of Productive Beginnings were always willing to provide guidance and that contributed to a successful first semester for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Jennifer<\/a>
Jennifer Spensieri, new faculty member in the Academic Transition Programs<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Jennifer Spensieri<\/strong> has a teaching background but discovered she had a lot to learn after moving to the university. \u201cNAU is a large institution, and this program helped me have a better understanding when directing students to services and I had people I could contact directly for support.\u201d Spensieri said she appreciated Productive Beginnings presenters, who instead of teaching with PowerPoint presentations, modeled practices they espouse for student engagement, including small group breakout sessions.<\/p>\n

At the start of the current school year, about 155 people attended the single day Productive Beginnings faculty orientation. Approximately 35 of those attendees joined the ongoing Productive Beginnings program, a number expected to grow for the 2015-2016 academic year.<\/p>\n

\u201cFaculty in this day and age have a lot of different expectations and we want them to be doing things that reflect NAU\u2019s culture of best practices and that meet the needs of our students,\u201d said Alvarez, a longtime professor of criminology and criminal justice. \u201cBy the end of their first year, they would have all the knowledge, skills and resources, and they would feel they are part of the NAU community,\u201d Alvarez said.<\/p>\n

Facilitators for the program are provided by University College, a relatively new department\u00a0on campus, which supports high levels of faculty and student engagement. \u201cProductive Beginnings has been positive for the entire campus,\u201d said University College Dean Cyndi Banks<\/strong>, whose college oversees numerous programs and resources for faculty.<\/p>\n

Other members of the Productive Beginnings team include: <\/span>John Doherty, Rosalinda Haddon, Rosemary Logan, Chris Lanterman\u00a0<\/strong>and <\/span>John Tingerthal.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Topics for the spring meetings include working with diverse students, universal design, scholarly planning and participating in service on campus.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New NAU faculty members are benefiting from a program called Productive Beginnings, expanded this past fall. In addition to attending a one-day orientation, new faculty also can sign up for more in-depth trainings and workshops throughout the school year. \u201cMany people come right out of graduate school and have never had any training in their…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":34361,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faculty-staff"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34378\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}