Keystone Concepts in Teaching: A Higher Education Podcast from the Stearns Center for Teaching and Learning

S2 E11: Getting Started as a New Faculty Member

• Stearns Center • Season 2 • Episode 11

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Dr. Aimee Weinstein joins Keystone Concepts host, Dr. Rachel Yoho, to discuss how to get started as a new faculty member... or perhaps, how you – as an experienced faculty member – might support your new colleagues.

Resources: Stearns Center for Teaching and Learning https://stearnscenter.gmu.edu/ George Mason University motto, mission, vision, core values, and more:  https://catalog.gmu.edu/about-mason/university/ Stearns Center for Teaching and Learning First Year Five program: https://stearnscenter.gmu.edu/first-year-five-fy5/ George Mason University Library:  https://library.gmu.edu/ George Mason University Korea (Mason Korea):  https://masonkorea.gmu.edu/ 

   

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Rachel:

Hello and welcome to Keystone Concepts in Teaching, a higher education podcast from the Stearns Center for Teaching and Learning. I'm your host, Rachel Yoho. In this podcast, we work to share impactful and evidence based teaching practices to support all students and faculty. And we are joined today by our special guest, Dr. Aimee Weinstein, who's an instructional associate professor with the Honors College at George Mason University, where she teaches research writing, creative nonfiction, writing and reading, and works with the community based learning team to guide college essay mentors for the early identification program. Welcome. Dr. Weinstein is also affiliate faculty with Into Mason, where she works with international graduate students on their research writing, transition management, and other assorted aspects that characterize a move to a new culture and American university life. So thank you so much for joining us today.

Aimee:

It's great to be here.

Rachel:

So as we have this conversation, we wanted to chat about one of what I think is one of your passions is really helping new faculty. And so our conversation, our topic for today is how we get started as a new faculty member. And so, as we begin, getting started as a new faculty member can be pretty daunting. So whether that's moving roles, like graduate student or postdoc, into a faculty role, or even just changing institutions. So what are some of your recommendations for success?

Aimee:

So glad to be here to discuss this topic with you, Rachel, because it really is a passion of mine. I got very lucky when I first started in teaching. Prince George's Community College took a chance on me. I had never taught anything to anyone ever. And, uh, they really helped me get started, but you're right that it was hard to sort of break in. The best advice I have for when you're switching roles or when you're switching departments, things like that, is to keep an open mind, reach out to colleagues, and use the resources that they are giving to you. Sometimes it can be super overwhelming with all of the information coming to you all at once. But sort through it, take it slowly, and it could be a great experience.

Rachel:

Yeah, absolutely. I see where you're coming from with all of the information. I mean, each time I've moved institutions, it's like learning a whole new alphabet soup of acronyms and terms. And well, this building, it's actually called this, but we'll refer to it as this or any of those things as well. So I definitely see that. And so when we're talking about getting started, how might you approach or recommend finding resources or connecting with different types of resources?

Aimee:

A great place to start, as you well know, is the Teaching and Learning Center, if the university has one. It's invaluable. The Stearns Center at George Mason has great resources for faculty, including the First Year Five program that we started together a few years ago, where George Mason has a value of inclusive excellence, and it's the best way to help professors get involved in that value system. And to meet each other. And it's a program that's run through our teaching and learning center. That's for faculty and many universities have these wonderful places that are sometimes even a refuge for help and assistance. I just, you'll find so many people there who are welcoming and interested in teaching and helpful with resources that are around there.

Rachel:

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for the shout out. And absolutely, it's been great to work with you, Aimee, on the First Year Five program and even see that continue now that we're hosting the program in Canvas and the new ways we're helping faculty to engage with each other. It's been very exciting to see that develop from the work that you started. But I also agree with you. I think here and connecting with others from the Teaching and Learning Center or through the Teaching and Learning Center can be great ways to connect with faculty across disciplines. I know for me, when I was at my second institution as a faculty member, I did the new faculty program, not for the teaching stuff, but just to meet people. Just to meet people who are interested in teaching from other areas. Like, I had already done all the new faculty types of programs at my first institution, but I was just like, you know, hey, this is worth my time. I want to connect with these people. And I think that's a great way to look at this. And so making some of these connections outside of our departments can be really important, but also within our department. So how, Aimee, might you recommend trying to increase your visibility or foster a sense of belonging within the department?

Aimee:

So glad you asked that because I think that's the number one predictor of success for faculty is a sense of belonging in the department.

Rachel:

Yeah.

Aimee:

It's definitely belonging is everything in these times. Whether you want to or not, you're going to that faculty meeting. It's the best way to connect with people. There are usually meetings before semesters begin, meetings when semesters end, but it's about more than the meetings. When I was at Prince George's Community College, I actually asked for a desk to hold my office hours, I was only teaching one course that semester, just to put myself in an area where I could be seen or see what was happening, just to learn the comings and goings. It was just great. I also had a really wacky experience. I was On the faculty at the Japan campus of Temple University for a number of years when I lived there, and they have a big, huge bullpen style of offices for professors, just one big bullpen.

Rachel:

Ooh, that sounds... mmm.

Aimee:

Something, yeah, it was just crazy, but fun too, because I could hear the math professor talking with the Asian studies professor and things like that. And it's okay to put yourself and good to put yourself into places where professors meet. There are areas in the library, use the library for finding other faculty. There are just so many ways that people can connect. In the department though, most people will not say no if you say, Hey, I'm new, care to get a cup of coffee? It's really about putting yourself out there and jumping in with both feet.

Rachel:

Yeah, absolutely. So do you have any thoughts on people who might not be physically present on campus? Like if we have adjuncts who might be working at a distance or even the fact that we have multiple campuses for George Mason University, including our Korea campus, which has the added layer of, you know, a very significant time difference. So how might we have presence or do you have thoughts on how we might have presence in different ways when we're not all physically in the same location?

Aimee:

Really interesting question and important for us today, I think, to think about. I know through the Stearns Center with the grant programming that you all do, you have meetings to connect the grant teams, which is very thoughtful. So I think that things like grants or other type of programming that happens at the university, that is between campuses is so interesting, but not just for the work that you're doing. It's also connecting you to colleagues. I know the Stearns Center does their Course Redesign Academy. I did the Redesign Academy probably my third or fourth semester that I was here at Mason and I've been here, this is year number nine. Um, and it just was so helpful to meet the other people, not just the person I was designing with because we were co designing a course at the time. So, I know that George Mason is very thoughtful about how to work across campuses and time zones and things like that. I'm sure many universities have similar programs.

Rachel:

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think there's a lot of programming that can still be very present even if it's not physically present. Some of our things are also asynchronous, so it might be opportunities to have, you know, conversations on discussion boards or whatnot, but even like you were mentioning, Aimee, having that cup of coffee might not have to be we walk to the coffee shop together.

Aimee:

Sure.

Rachel:

Maybe we're having a cup of coffee in our own locations, but connecting at a time that works for us or works across our time differences, you know, any of those things. So I think that's really great.

Aimee:

You know, Rachel, I think teaching, it's just not a nine to five job. It isn't a job where you even just go to your classroom either. There's so many things that you can do that you should do, and it's good for you, for your mental health and all kinds of other things to be with other people and belong in a program so taking advantage of all the things that are happening around is good for you.

Rachel:

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think here, you know, when we talk about teaching, teaching can feel very isolating. You know, if you're the only one in the room and you are always responsible for how things are playing out and all of the dynamics and the discussions and the learning outcomes, all of that, and maybe you're lucky enough to have a teaching assistant or someone else in there with you, but most likely not. And so having that, that feel that you're the, the one, the only, can carry over into the other aspects of our work as well. I mean, our own research program, our own scholarship, or creative projects, or whatever those might be, but making those connections outside of that can be so useful, like you mentioned, Aimee. I think that's such a great point.

Aimee:

Here in the Honors College, we have several people that teach the same course. And we do have get togethers via zoom actually to be convenient for everybody, in course teams. And I think it's crucial to take advantage of those kinds of opportunities to talk to other people who are teaching the same course.

Rachel:

Yeah, absolutely. There are a lot of great idea exchanges and, and lots of great things that I've seen in the Honors College as well. But do you have any other recommendations on ways or connecting with colleagues? You know, what, how might you approach someone for those connections or collaborations or any other thoughts in that space?

Aimee:

It takes a little bit of effort and confidence which is hard to build when you're first starting in a new position, but just reaching out to one or two people. Professors are normally nice, they're welcoming. They have to be with students. And it could be a very fun thing. Building relationships is my best piece of advice.

Rachel:

Yeah, absolutely. I agree. And especially for our colleagues who are in adjunct types of roles, who maybe don't have the ability to join us at, you know, the Wednesday 9:30 AM department meeting or something like that, even reaching out and saying, Hey, I'd like to connect with you. Or once you have that conversation, maybe even saying, Hey, is there one other person you could connect me with? Any of those things or asking, you know, I personally really enjoy connecting people like, hey, I know so and so, have you met them? And I think other people do as well, so I think that's such a great point. You know, Aimee, I think a lot of your interests, your strengths, and a lot of the work you've done advocating for new faculty and their programming has really been around not only that belonging, but also how we engage and how we teach. So I'm wondering how, or do you have recommendations on how to be engaging and innovative as a faculty member, rather than just perhaps replicating what many of us saw in the courses that we took, however many years ago, that might be?

Aimee:

That's a really excellent question. And I feel like that's sort of like the special sauce of teaching these days.

Rachel:

There we go, we've branded it now.

Aimee:

Students today are different than we were when we were taking classes. They have different needs. They're not going to respond to the same teaching methods is the way we were taught. I know I keep going over it, but another plug for the Stearns Center here, because the ways of teaching are so important, and learning new ways of engaging and teaching so important, but we have to really focus in my opinion on transparency with students today. They want to know, why do I have to do this assignment? Where will I use this again? The Honors College has a base research class that every single student takes, some of them get a little bit annoyed that they can't AP out of it. They can't test out of it, but we know that the skills that they'll use in a proposal writing class will be for the rest of their academic career. And it behooves the professors who are teaching that class to say, listen, this is not for now. This is also for later. I'm going to take you through this process and if it goes well for you, or even if it doesn't go well for you, you're going to use this information in your psychology class, in your biology class. And even in your computer science research class, and that type of transparency is just crucial to students today. And they'll respond better, truly respond better if a professor can tell them where they're going. With the information, what they're going to do with it, how it's going to be useful. Students today are nervous and they want to know what's happening. Surprises are not a good thing.

Rachel:

I mean, surprises aren't a great thing for any of us when we're talking about stuff that matters. It's not one of those surprises like, ah, look, flowers, something like that, or a nice little gift. But yeah, I think that's such a great point because it's not just about showing that it's relevant, but it's demonstrating the relevance. It's not just convincing people, yes, this is actually worth your time to do. We're not begging someone to do our homework assignments or something like that, but we are showing why this is an important skill, how we're connecting this with the broader learning goals, or even skills like you were mentioning, Aimee, that the students will take into other courses or other things in their professions. So I think that's such a great point. And thank you again so much for the shout outs for the Stearns Center. We might need a conflict of interest statement here with Dr. Aimee Weinstein, who was a fabulous faculty fellow with the Stearns Center for Teaching and Learning. But I think this is such a great point. You know, we're not just looking at what we're teaching, but we're also looking at how we teach, how we demonstrate relevance and how we build our own community. Because community is so important when we get into those perhaps undesirable situations or the stressful times as well. So I really appreciate that. So as we finish up, personally, I think we're really looking here at our main keystone concept being community, how we connect with others, whether that's our students or with our colleagues. But I'm wondering if you have any final thoughts, Aimee, as we're wrapping up any final words of wisdom or other things that you'd like to share with new faculty.

Aimee:

Keep reaching out. Really! It's hard to be just starting. Reach out to the faculty members who are in your department, your deans hired you for a reason, but also it's okay to reach out to students and ask them how they're feeling and what they're doing and about their experiences in the department and, in a casual way, in a positive way. But that's how we all build community together is really reaching out for each other. And it's just crucial in these times. I really feel to be connected with other people.

Rachel:

Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much for all of the work that you've done, not only with the Stearns Center, but building programs and building things for new faculty and all of that advocacy as well. But I really enjoyed our conversation. I look forward to connecting with you again soon.

Aimee:

Rachel, thank you.

Rachel:

Alright, well thank you so much for joining us for this episode as we talked about how we get started as new faculty members or maybe we got some ideas on how to support the new faculty members in our lives. And so we can't wait to share our next episode with you on Keystone Concepts in Teaching. And in that episode we're going to be talking about libraries and librarians as resources. So come back and join us and we look forward to sharing that episode with you.