Reflections and Resources

Academic book publishing: What happens during developmental editing?

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My latest post on the Center for Engaged Learning blog:

Academic book publishing: What happens during developmental editing?

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New Books on Global Learning and Partnership

Book Series, Engaged Learning, Open Access

If you’re looking for something to read while we practice social distancing, here are three recent books in the series I edit with Peter Felten.

Global Learning

In the Stylus Publishing/Center for Engaged Learning series on Engaged Learning and Teaching, Mind the Gap: Global Learning at Home and Abroad now is available.

Access the book website here and order directly from Stylus.

Partnership

In the Center for Engaged Learning Open Access Book Series, we recently published two new books, available to download by the chapter or in their entirety for free.

Open access PDF: https://doi.org/10.36284/celelon.oa1
ISBN: 978-1-951414-00-9
December 2019
2.2 MB

Mercer-Mapstone, Lucy, and Sophia Abbot. Eds. *The Power of Partnership: Students, Staff, and Faculty Revolutionizing Higher Education*. Elon, NC: Center for Engaged Learning Open Access Books, 2020.

Open access PDF: https://doi.org/10.36284/celelon.oa2
ISBN: 978-1-951414-02-3
January 2020
11 MB

It’s been a joy working with these authors, editors, and their contributors, and I’m thrilled we were able to support them in going public with their scholarship. If you have an idea for a book for either series, please be in touch.

What’s the process for publishing a (SoTL) book?

On the CEL Blog, Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL), Writing for Publication

My latest post on the Center for Engaged Learning blog:

What’s the process for publishing a (SoTL) book?

ePortfolio Musings and Strategies

Engaged Learning, ePortfolio, Teaching

I initially developed the following material for a guest visit to an undergraduate Honors course at Elon University.

As George Kuh writes in the foreword to High-Impact ePortfolio Practice: A Catalyst for Student, Faculty, and Institutional Learning by Bret Eynon and Laura M. Gambino, the ePortfolio:

serves as a portable, expandable, and updatable vehicle for accumulating and presenting evidence of authentic student accomplishment including the curation of specific proficiencies and dispositions at given points in time… The ePortfolio is much more than a just-in-time twenty-first-century electronic record keeping system. It is an intentionally designed instructional approach that, among other advantages, prompts students to periodically reflect on and deepen what they are learning and helps them connect and make sense of their various experiences inside and outside the classroom that – taken together – add up to more than the sum of their parts. (2017, p. ix)

Beyond the pedagogical value of ePortfolios, they also offer a venue for professionals to develop an online identity, showcasing their expertise with concrete examples.

An ePortfolio is more than a website… As Eynon and Gambino write, “ePortfolio practice done well supports reflection, integration, and deep learning” (2017, p. 9). ePortfolios also prompt inquiry about our current identities – “Who am I? Who am I becoming?” – and our future dreams – “Who do I dare to be?” (Eynon & Gambino, 2017, p. 11).

Room for Play in ePortfolios?

While their print ancestors can accommodate some multimedia (e.g., photos, drawings, etc.), ePortfolios can showcase a broader array of media (e.g., audio, video, hypertext, etc.). How might you use multimedia components in your portfolio? Here are a few questions to spark your brainstorming:

What do key aspects of my identity look like? Sound like?
What might my future look like? How would I visualize it?
What curricular, co-curricular, or extra-curricular projects have I composed or contributed to that I could showcase in a portfolio as examples of my developing identity?
How might an audio clip enable me to talk through my reflection on a project or my integration of lessons learned from multiple projects?
What could a video clip show readers/viewers that they might miss in a text-based version of the same project or idea?
How might I play with organization/arrangement to either guide readers/viewers through my story or offer them a choose-your-own-adventure representation of me?

Web Platforms

My students routinely use WordPress, Wix, or Weebly; Google Sites and Digication are additional options. I encourage you to select a web platform that you already are comfortable composing within or that you wish to learn for other professional development goals.

Many professionals maintain both private working portfolios and public portfolios. Working portfolios are collections of documents/projects that might be included in the public portfolio in the future (or have been in the past). If you anticipate expanding and maintaining your public ePortfolio, establish an organizational strategy for also maintaining a private working portfolio; Google Drive, Dropbox, or an external USB drive are helpful tools for organizing and archiving materials that – at some point – might be included in your public portfolio.

Digication examples:

Maggie Achey (Professional Writing & Rhetoric ’14): https://elon.digication.com/maggie_acheys_professional_writing_portfolio/Welcome/published
Victoria Doose (Professional Writing & Rhetoric & Art History ’12): https://elon.digication.com/vdoose_pwr_portfolio/Home

WordPress examples:

Kate Sieber (Professional Writing & Rhetoric ’18): https://katesieberblog.wordpress.com/
Sophia Abbot (MHE ’20): https://sophiaabbot.com/

WIX example:

Micaela Soucy (Professional Writing & Rhetoric ’18): https://soucymicaela.wixsite.com/portfolio/tedxelonuniversity
Kiara Hines (MHE ’20): https://kiara5868.wixsite.com/kiarahines

Questions about ePortfolios? Have strategies for ePortfolio development? Please share them in the comments. Thank you!

Supporting colleagues after P&T decisions

Promotion and Tenure

On my campus, we’re nearing when promotion and tenure (P&T) candidates will learn the outcomes of their applications. I look forward to celebrating positive outcomes with colleagues.

On my Facebook feed, yesterday, I posted what’s become an annual note:

If anyone in my feed is processing alternate outcomes, I’m here for you, happy to treat you to coffee (or something stronger), and available to listen.

This year, I extended my note, and friends asked me to make the extension sharable in some way, so I’m posting it here.

If you know someone processing negative news about P&T, please keep the following in mind.

Please avoid saying:

“You’ll be successful next time” (how do you know?),
“Some people decide they don’t need to pursue promotion” (that’s fine for “some people”…),
“Help me understand why you weren’t successful so I can help other people be successful” (what the #%^*?), or
“It must be because you’re [insert identity characteristic]” or “because you did [X university service]” (how do you know/prove that?).

Also, please don’t speculate about why. Likely, candidates have received very brief feedback (sometimes only a few words). That feedback doesn’t always offer clarity. And it might not have anything to do with the guesses you’re making.

You mean well, so try these statements instead:

Want to go for a walk?
Can I take you to lunch/treat you to coffee?
I’m here for you.
I value your work.
I’m sorry. (Recognizing that administrators and P&T committee members simply can’t say this.)

I’ve been a P&T committee member, a P&T committee chair, an unsuccessful candidate for promotion, and a successful candidate for promotion to Full [old news]. I still carry the weight of those first three, even as I embody the positionality afforded by the fourth.

Thanks for thinking critically about how you offer support to your colleagues.

What is sabbatical mode?

Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL), Writing for Publication

Since sharing a few “sabbatical days” posts on social media, several people have asked me if I’m “in sabbatical mode” or if I feel like I’m “on sabbatical.” I haven’t known how to answer, typically defaulting to say, “Well, I still have Center for Engaged Learning responsibilities, so I’m working on finding a balance.” Yet that response bothered me because 1) I opted to retain my Center responsibilities, and 2) I recognize that I am privileged to have a sabbatical. As a result, I’ve been reflecting on what “sabbatical mode” is and what I’m doing to make the most of my sabbatical semester.

First, a disclaimer/reminder: Sabbaticals still carry responsibilities. Not everyone opts to continue program administration responsibilities while on sabbatical (though I’ve interacted with many people who do), but even if I were to set aside my Center for Engaged Learning work, when I applied for my sabbatical, I made a commitment to complete a significant project. At Elon, the application process even asks faculty to outline a timeline and outcomes, as well as an indication of how we will assess the success of our projects if we are awarded a sabbatical.

My outcome:

“The planned outcome of this project is a single-author book, published by a press that focuses on higher education.”

My timeline:

August – December for a meta-analysis, writing, and revision.

Every now and then, I feel a bit stressed by that self-imposed and institutionally-endorsed expectation… I have 5 months to write a book. Gulp.

The first two weeks of “sabbatical days” have included substantial reflection on the processes, structures, and resources that will help me meet my sabbatical outcome. Much of that reflection actually has focused on my other continuing career responsibilities. I’ve confirmed, for instance, that my Center responsibilities do not fit neatly within two days (or 16 hours) a week, even though they represent only a fraction of my total job responsibilities during a regular semester. Recurring and one-time meetings easily fill 8+ hours before I turn my attention to managing our research seminars (with a call for proposals for a conference already open and a call for applications for the 2019-2021 research seminar launching soon); creating, curating, and editing web content; (co-)writing and/or editing scholarly publications related to the Center’s work; and researching and assessing our initiatives. As a result, my “CEL days” are an exercise in efficiency; yesterday I worked 9 hours on campus, focused on the Center, and they were extremely productive hours. I hope to carry lessons learned from that efficiency forward into future semesters when I layer teaching and other service commitments (e.g., committee work not directly related to my work with the Center) back into my weekly schedule.

To that end, I’m using my sabbatical as an opportunity to experiment with new email management strategies and to try out software that might help me track projects – to “download” more of my project management out of my head and out of my email system.

I also am challenging myself to…

Read more, broadly.
I am a slow academic reader, so staying current with the scholarship directly related to my current projects is difficult enough. My sabbatical affords time to read carefully within my routine scholarship categories and to take time to read texts that might not even be tangential to my work. (Admittedly, though, most of what I’m reading still could be connected at least by a dotted line… For instance, I’m reading the texts assigned to Elon’s Masters of Higher Education students in their fall courses; I’ll be teaching in the program in January and would like to be more familiar with the other courses in the program.)
Reestablish exercise routines that I let slide during the Center’s busy* summer.
*I use this term unapologetically. In June and July, we hosted 3 research seminar meetings, plus a planning forum for our next research seminar. We also represented the Center and presented at multiple conferences. I’m grateful for everyone who contributes to the Center’s summer work – research seminar leaders, the Center’s program coordinator, our student workers, and friends and allies of the Center – for making our intensive summer programming not only possible, but also successful.
Reengage my culinary creativity. I enjoy cooking, and it often provides time/space to process my day. For the last year, though, I have found myself defaulting to standby recipes or relying predominantly on meal kits like Home Chef. This fall, I’m returning to meal planning and to prioritizing visits to farmers markets so that I can find inspiration in seasonal produce.

So am I in “sabbatical mode”? Yes, I probably am. After all, I’m focusing on a substantial project while re-evaluating work practices that I can carry forward beyond the sabbatical for continued productivity and reprioritizing daily activities that contribute to my well-being.