Academic Learning Communities

The Center for Faculty Development and Excellence (CFDE) is calling for proposals for Academic Learning Communities for 2024-2025.  

Call for Participants

Reading Israel/Palestine and Academic Freedom in the Classroom

Academic Learning Community - Fall 2024

Conveners: Pamela Scully and Rick Doner

In Spring 2024, we, Professors Doner and Scully, facilitated a one-credit reading course on the history of Palestine and Israel for some twenty students. It was a very successful model and students seem to have found it useful. We also learned a lot, both about the substance of the conflict and pedagogical approaches to it. Faculty asked if we would do something similar. We have also had discussions with various faculty about pedagogy and politics in the classroom. Thus, this ALC. The ALC is open to all faculty as well as any staff who are teaching.
The goals for the ALC 
  • To provide a learning space for faculty who would like to learn about Israel/Palestine from an historical and empirical standpoint. 
  • To provide a space to discuss issues of academic freedom and politics in the classroom. We come at this from different disciplinary and political perspectives, but in the context of learning about Palestine and Israel, we think this offers an opportunity to learn about key themes in the conflict and to grapple with the opportunities and limits of politics in the classroom. 
Readings
  1. Ian Black, Enemies and Neighbors: Arabs and Jews in Palestine and Israel, 1917-2017
  2. Paolo Freire, The Pedagogy of the Oppressed, selections; 
  3. Teresa Piacentini, “An uncomfortable classroom: The power of politics in pedagogy,” Jan 31, 2023, LSE Blog
  4. Other pedagogical readings as emerge
 
We will read chapters of the assigned book for the first three meetings. We will then devote a meeting to supplemental readings about politics and pedagogy in the classroom. We will reassess then what the final two meetings should concentrate on. We hope to organize a dinner for participants at the end of the ALC.
Academic Learning Communities are informal seminars that are intended to
  • engage faculty, graduate students, post docs, and staff in collaborative explorations of innovative research and teaching topics;
  • bring guest speakers to campus to enhance the curriculum and learning; and/or
  • help disseminate important research discoveries and innovative learning strategies to the broader community.
Particulars
  • The Seminar will meet on six Fridays from 3:00-4:30pm; 9/6; 9/20; 10/4; 10/18; 11/1 and 11/15.
  • Each meeting will balance presentations by the facilitator or invited speakers with group discussions of relevant readings and presentations by seminar participants.
  • Up to 15 participants will be accommodated and will include faculty and any staff who are teaching, from across the university. 
 
Apply here
 
The deadline for application is Friday, August 30.
  
Selections will be announced in early September. 

Academic Learning Communities (ALCs) are seminars that provide opportunities for faculty to discuss topics related to their research, teaching, and intellectual lives. These seminars meet 4 to 6 times a semester for 1.5 hours and include common readings that are posted on Canvas. Each ALC comes with a $2000 stipend.

  • Conveners are responsible for identifying topics and readings, uploading readings to Canvas, and communicating any specifics about the ALC to participants. 
  • CFDE staff are in charge of recruiting/organizing participants, reserving rooms, and providing snacks.   

ALCs can focus on research, teaching, or areas of more general interest in higher education. Past ALC topics include: “Academic Integrity and the Changing Landscape of Higher Education,” “Building a Community of Healthcare Simultation Educators,” and “Creating Relational Accountability Through Indigenous Studies.” The goal of an ALC is not only to develop a more robust intellectual community at Emory around a topic but also to develop some “output.” For example, as a result of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning ALC, we built a better relationship with IRB on SoTL projects, and as a result of the Mass Incarceration ALC, we pulled together resources on faculty and graduate students who research and teach about incarceration in the south onto one webpage. 

Proposals include: 

  • Your topic 
  • A preliminary list of faculty members you would like to invite 
  • Whether you would like to lead your ALC in Fall 2024 or Spring 2025 
  • How many sessions you would like (from 4 to 6 in a semester) 
  • What format your ALC will be in: in person, Zoom, or hybrid
  • What each session would focus on 
  • Ideas for readings 
  • “Goal” or “output” for the ALC  

Previous Academic Learning Communities

Archived descriptions of Previous Academic Learning Communities between 2012 and 2023 are available for review.