Bellamy, Vice Canine for Faculty Success, refuses to accept that we are halfway through July.
The Dog Days of Summer
The Faculty Success team is keeping this July edition of Faculty Friday short and sweet. Consider it a midsummer check in to keep you in the loop if you want to be in the loop…and if you’d rather hit snooze, by all means go ahead!
The dog days of summer are busy around here, as the Faculty Success team is working to update RTP support for candidates (with new materials available August 1), the RTP evaluator training, and faculty search committee training. We’ve also got some exciting projects in the works and updates for accessibility and the Accessible Technology Initiative, as well as support for professional development and grant proposals related to SJSU’s Hispanic Serving Institution status.
We’ll save all that news for when things really kick into high gear in August. In the meantime, we hope you are enjoying all the fun things that summer brings!
Center for Faculty Development News and Updates
We hope you’re having a relaxing (or adventuresome--to each their own) summer. And we’re ready to support you, whether you’re someone who likes to work on your Fall courses here and there during the break, or if you prefer to keep that work to instructional activity days. We’d love to see you at our upcoming Course Prep Marathon,but we also wanted to share a few on demand resources you may find helpful, and also provide updates on resources that will soon be available to you (spoiler alert!).
Equitable and inclusive pedagogy is also fundamentally accessible.This academic year our university will be improving our legacy accessible syllabus template with a new online version. Instead of an individual document download, this new accessible syllabus tool is an integration with Canvas, allowing departments to leverage layered templates to preserve both accuracy and academic freedom for individual faculty. Some departments will be adopting the new template for Fall 2022, while others will adopt the new template for Spring 2023. Your chair or director will let you know when it’s your turn; until then, we encourage you to continue using the Microsoft Word version of the syllabus template. You canlearn more about the new online accessible syllabus template on our eCampus website.
We are also excited to announce thatAllywill be available for all SJSU Canvas courses, Fall 2022 and beyond. Ally is a tool within Canvas that will provide you with feedback to help you enhance the usability and accessibility of your course materials.
Below is an example of an Ally Course Accessibility Report:
It also generates alternative formats of course content, providing your students access to a greater and more effective variety of resources for learning. You can learn more about Ally in our Refining Course Materials: A UDL Experience course. Until we call for applications, we invite you to explore the shared, “open access” version of the course. Contact <cfd@sjsu.edu> for more information or with any questions.
Recommended resources for creating inclusive syllabi:
You may find it helpful to review principles and best practices associated with Accessibility and Universal Design for Learning from SJSU's Center for Faculty Development website.
eCampus News and Updates
Beginning Fall 2022, Ally will be integrated in all Canvas courses! Ally assists faculty in creating fully accessible Canvas courses and automatically provides alternative formats of course content for students.
The SJSU 2-Hour Course Accessibility Challenge starts on August 1st! Complete the challenge to earn an Ally Course Accessibility Groundbreaker Certificate and Badge! All participants will get entered into a Gold Point Card drawing ranging from $25 to $100.
Got five minutes before your next meeting, while waiting in line, or taking a break from work? Check out these short pieces related to different aspects of faculty life.
“Raising children is not an individual responsibility. It is a social one”: Conversation with Angela Garbes, author of Essential Labor: Mothering as Social Change. “When you see a book with a subtitle like ‘mothering as social change’ — and you’re not a mother — you might think that this is not a book for you. You are wrong.”
Do you have a story, highlight, reading, or tip that you would like to share in this newsletter?Please reach out anytime to faculty-success@sjsu.edu.
