This will be our 21st annual conference that is specially designed for full-time lecturers and adjunct faculty members. Our theme this year is Visualizing Your Next Steps: Developing as a Teaching Professional.
Our conference will be held on November 11-13, 2016 at the Sheraton City Center Hotel in Indianapolis. We hope that you will join us – and encourage your colleagues to come as well!
Kent Kauffman, J.D., Associate Professor of Business Law in the Doermer School of Business at Indiana University-Purdue University, Fort Wayne (IPFW) will lead a pre-conference workshop addressing legal issues related to syllabi and grading, intellectual property, and FERPA and student responsibilities.
Professor Kauffman is a 2014 inductee in FACET and has been a presenter at various national teaching conferences, including the SoTL Commons Conference and the 2015 FALCON. In addition to legal and SoTL journal articles, he is the author of three books, including a book for legal instructors on how to incorporate film scenes from legal movies into the teaching or assignments. Kauffman served a three-year term as an advisory board member of IPFW's Center for Enhancement of Learning and Teaching (CELT), during which he offered CELT workshops for faculty on legal issues related to teaching and wrote regular columns on the subject for the CELT newsletter. He has spoken at IPFW's new faculty orientation, on teaching topics and legal issues related to teaching. He is the recipient of various teaching awards, including the IPFW Award for Innovative Online Teaching, and is a four-time recipient of IPFW's business school co-educational fraternity, Delta Sigma Pi, Teacher of the Year.
In Higher Education--where faculty ranks are shrinking and non-tenured ranks are swelling--the pressure on adjunct faculty and lecturers to be excellent teachers has never been greater. A recent article by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) reports that more than 75% of U.S. faculty across all institutional types, from liberal-arts colleges to research universities to community colleges, are adjunct faculty--and many of them live below the poverty line. So, why do adjunct faculty continue to teach?
In a compelling, humorous, and sometimes emotional presentation, Jon Becker, Senior Lecturer, Department of Mathematics and Actuarial Sciences, IU Northwest, will share his own experience as he transitioned from a college flunk out with a 1.4 GPA to a high school teacher, an adjunct faculty member, and eventually, a Permanent Lecturer. Jon will share the highlights (and lowlights) of his wide range of educational experiences, he'll take a deep look into why we teach and how we teach, and most importantly, he'll share stories of students whose lives have been transformed by the gift we have been given--the gift of being exceptional teachers.
