Educational Developers Caucus (EDC) of the

Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (STLHE)

Meeting of the EDC Executive: Retreat

Wednesday May 22, 2013

Minutes

Invited: Deb Dawson (Chair), Natasha Kenny, Tim Loblaw, Erika Kustra, Paola Borin, Nicola Simmons, Stephanie Chu, Jordanne Christie

Regrets:Marla Arbach

Preparation in Advance

  • Review and bring copies of the Living Plan (everyone)
  • Check the Annual Calendar, send updates as needed to Erika (everyone)
  • Year in review: identify top 3-5 milestones
  • Stickies and Flip Chart paper (Paola)
  1. Adoption of the agenda(Erika Kustra)

a)Seconded by Nicola, approved by all

  1. Minutes of previous meeting for approval(Erika Kustra, all)

a)Seconded by Nicola, approved by all

b)Post minutes on website (Natasha)

  1. Welcome

a)Welcome to incoming Executive, Stephanie Chu andJordanne Christie

  1. Thanks

a)Thank youto Executive who are completing terms, Nicola Simmons and Natasha Kenney

b)Will have a formal thank you at STLHE when terms are complete

  1. Larger Strategic Issues and Vision: Using the Living Plan(Deb)

a)Review Living Plan (everyone have a copy – paper or electronic)

  1. Review from Nicola as Past Chair of development
  2. Lynne Taylor during EDC meeting initiated discussion of a Professional Development Plan
  3. Alice Cassidy in EDC – revised, and became a Living Plan
  4. Nicola Simmons led a summary of the plan to help make the plan easier to use
  5. Many of the themes have been around for a while, and remain relevant
  6. We have worked on to some extent
  7. Professional Capacity: Developing Job Skills (EDC Instititute, Conference, STLHE)
  8. Sustainable Career Path (EDC Institute, Conference, STLHE, Dossier Action Groups)
  9. Engaging Community (EDC, Action Groups)
  10. Have not developed as much as we might need to given the trends in our membership
  11. Leaders as much (EDC Institute in part) but not enough to match the growth of senior leadership such as Vice-Provost Teaching and Learning
  12. Have not developed SoTL in ED as much (EDC grants to some extent, EDC conference)

b)How can we draw attention to the living plan, and use it as a basis for action?

  1. Explicitly connect actions to the Living Plan
  2. Have added this element to the EDC Institute proposal form for 2013
  3. Imbedded in the EDC Grant Proposal form for 2013
  4. Identify priorities within the Living Plan to focus on for each year
  5. Strategic Planning
  6. Strengthen vision and sure that keep door open for community to contribute
  7. Prioritization and targets (operationalize)
  8. Balance both above approaches – two goal posts to keep in sight
  9. Clarify Executive will target one area, other existing groups are working on other targets, and we welcome people to suggest additional actions
  10. Identify priorities that we would like to ensure the EDC Executive make sense
  11. Work with membership: Connects to our EDC Values of Open Community
  12. Confirm how often we would like to touch base with the membership to revise the Living Plan, to ensure that we remain in touch with the membership
  13. May be time to do another analysis of our membership to see number of people in different roles, and different years of experience
  14. Send out annual email reminding people about the action groups, and inviting people a few things that
  15. It might be nice to do a SWOT Analysis with the Living Plan during our next ED Professional Development meeting February EDC AGM (Paola and Deb for our next meeting)
  16. Continue discussion online
  17. Ask that the future Conference Program include the Values and the Living Plan in the front of the program and forward to Jeanette to include in the Conference Manual (Jordanna)
  18. Include Living Plan in the Call for Proposals for EDC Conference (Tim)
  19. Ask that future EDC Conference Proposals refer to the Living Plan – Jeanette (Jordanna)
  20. Blog post on Value and Living Plan (Deb and Natasha)
  21. Invite Action Groups to Blog
  22. Invite any member to Blog, twitter, etc.
  23. Communicate success and achievements that have supported the Living Plan (Appreciative)
  24. Include in the STLHE Newsletter– Highlights of the year within the context of the Values and Living Plan (Deb)
  25. STLHE Brochure – highlights of the year within the context of the Values of Living Plan
  26. Opening slide for the EDC Meeting
  27. Ensure as the EDC that we return to the Living Plan and Values during monthly meeting – so it is living in the Agenda, all discussions, all decisions (Chair/Secretary)
  28. Review the Living Plan intentionally during EDC Executive Retreat (Chair/Secretary)

c)Year in review: identify top 3-5 milestones - bookmark and post on the web (Natasha)

  1. Last year’s retreat identified a number of priorities – Nicola, as Past Chair, identified priorities that were identified and met (Nicola )
  2. Start an independent EDC Institute
  3. Action Groups – further expanded to include more members and more groups
  4. Conference Manual Update
  5. Web and Social Network Developed further
  6. Engage with Living Plan more
  7. Highlight important events in EDC – bookmark and web milestones
  8. Shared ideas of EDC Highlights (using Post-it notes)
  9. Conference Handbook Updated (Laurier)
  10. Action Groups – Expanded to include more members, new action groups (Sustainability) that reflect themes at institutions, recognized on the website and proposal process developed
  11. Social Media – increased engagement and variety
  12. EDC Institute – Call, structure, contingency fund and process for a separate longer Institute
  13. Building on EDC Values
  14. Simplified Budget process
  15. Expansion of grants and bursaries to help more people participate

d)What are two or three actions to move the plan forward?

  1. Peer Mentorship – send a new invitation to lead and participate in an Action Group on Mentorship (Deb)
  2. Success is strongly impacted by network
  3. It is based in reciprocity
  4. Model tried at ISSOTL – invitation prior to attending to be a mentor/mentee breakfast
  5. Consider group mentoring with one mentor 2-3 mentees
  6. Meet for breakfast and/or lunch
  7. Could create skype groups following the event – encourage to meet once/month
  8. Consider section of the EDC website that has some resources on how mentorship works
  9. Place on EDC website that people could connect
  10. Include this idea of mentoring breakfast in EDC 2013 (include option as registration breakfast) (Tim)
  11. Send a synopsis to describe (Nicola)
  12. Evidence of ED Impact – how to build on this?
  13. Assessment and quality assurance, quality enhancement of educational development itself
  14. Should this become a point of the Living Plan?
  15. Add one point to the Living Plan
  16. Role of ED in Quality Assurance and Enhancement of post-secondary teaching and learning - add to the Living Plan since the role of Educational Development is changing and expanding in this area – add as an item 9 to the Living Plan (Natasha)
  17. How does Educational Development make a difference at the institutional level?
  18. Identifying useful indicators from work
  19. Work with Nicola and Lynn, Gary Poole (Nicola)
  20. ISSoTL conference – Quality Assurance and SoTL should reinforce each other (Paola)
  21. Work with Indicators for Teaching and Learning Culture
  22. Advocate for enhancement of teaching and learning quality
  23. Facilitating enhancement of teaching and learning
  24. Environmental scan of variety – where does ED currently intersect with quality assurance and quality enhancement (different provincial interpretations, differences between college and university)
  25. Develop guiding principles
  26. Ethical practice
  27. How to best support valid, meaningful, appropriate assessment of teaching and learning
  28. Facilitating effective, evidence-based and complex discussions
  29. Complexity, Context and Evidence-based Collaboration
  30. Centres are one of the few places on campus that are trans-diciplinary space where threads come together.Providing a place where different players can come together and ability to translate between different domains. Meet the margins at the centre. Honest brokers.
  31. Build on synergies, synthesize different ideas.
  32. Change management skills – change makers, not just change brokers.
  33. Close the loop – moving data and conversation forward to effect change.
  34. Examine policies, identify gaps and inform institutions on policy and processes that would improve teaching and learning at an institutions. (including hiring and tenure and reward)
  35. Spear-head institutional level initiatives around teaching and learning.
  36. What evidence would you have that teaching and learning matter at an institution.
  37. Create networks.
  38. Provide expertise on post-secondary education teaching and learning policy and processes (Current literature – able to get current evidence, current trends, informed expertise – to use for evidence-based discussion, practice, sharing of expertise in post-secondary education)
  39. Meeting across institutions to broker change – work together to improve quality in our institution and across Canada
  40. Circulate - review wording by email – then circulate to membership for feedback, then added to Living Plan online for posterity
  1. Support Leadership Development – consider National Leadership Symposium (similar to SoTL)
  2. Opportunity for support and bridging with new VP Teaching and Learning
  3. Consider an EDC grant project on qualitative interviewing of upper administrators
  4. Move that at all future EDC Conferences, include an invitation to all senior administrators to attend for a meeting, and invite them to share their experience in some way (Nicola moved, Jordanna seconded)
  5. EDC Conference Stream that is relevant to ED Leaders ex. Teaching and Learning Quality, and having meeting associated with the conference (Tim)
  6. Chair will send an invitation to senior administrators that they are preparing the conference and would like to know what they would find useful in addition to X (Deb contact Lynne Taylor)
  7. Communicate to Jeanette to include in conference manual the stakeholders we should have offerings for as part of the conference: new Educational Developers, experienced Educational Developers, Academic leaders or streams based on the Living Plan) Ask Proposers to indicate which part of the Living Plan their proposal connects with (Erika/Jordanna)
  8. Remind STLHE that 50% of the paid STLHE memberships are EDC members – it would be helpful for STLHE conference organizers to keep membership in mind

e)Projects: are there other projects we should pursue, and how?

  1. Updates from Action groups (Erika)
  2. EDC Social Media/Blogging Committee (Natasha Kenney)
  3. 133 LinkedIn members of group (Often for job postings)
  4. 89 Followers
  5. See EDC Action Group Update May 22, 2013
  1. Conference Manual Questions:

Overview: Revise and update the EDC Conference Manual.

Members: Jeannette MacDonald, invited to update the manual

  • A student was hired, and is helping to update the EDC Conference Manual
  • Questions raised:
  1. Design options - which version does the Executive like best.
  2. Majority preferred option 4
  1. Conference Bags - as the bags are tied to membership and not to the conference itself, should we still be charging back the conference host $15 per bag? We did it this year, but it was hard to keep track of who should receive one when membership could be completed online and by paper (only a handful did a paper membership at the conference). There was also confusion by some with COED and STLHE membership. Recommendation would be to do away with charging the conference since the expense is already paid and we don't yet have a process to make things easy for tracking.
  2. Executive agreed to do away with this charge.

3. Policy on requests for letters of invitation to participate or present from international delegates (legitimate and non-legitimate). Who authors the letter (EDC Chair, VC: Conferences, and/or the conference host)? Laurier for example has a policy whereby letters of invitation are sent to invited presenters, not potential participants. The concern here is fraudulent requests from potential international participants.

  • Agreed that it would be good to have a policy. Recommended Conference hosts.

4. The EDC might also want to set a policy on credit card payments, in that it is the host's responsibility, for example, to ensure that due diligence is followed for checking date/signature of card holders (or whatever is standard practice by Moneris) such that any fraudulent payments are still covered by the credit card company, otherwise, losses are incurred by host and/or with EDC.

5. Registration - Laurier started collecting data from participants to guide future registration fees, processes etc. Would you like future hosts to collect this same data? I have listed the questions below. We also talked about a discounted fee for EDC members (but we need a sure fire way to know who are members), possibly students, etc. With a few years of data and some membership processes in place, this may be feasible, but for now I would recommend keeping it simple with one fee structure. Also helps for budget building. Let me know.

  1. There should be a discounted fee for EDC members equal to (or $10 greater than) the annual EDC membership.
  2. Bursaries will provide the support for student members, so there will not be student discounts.
  3. We would like to gather information, but the questions were cut off. Could you resend?

6. Pre-conference workshops. The 2010 handbook mentions that there are two pre-conference sessions only, one being set by the EDC exec and one by the host in consultation with the EDC. Over the last couple of years we have moved away from this model and included a general call for pre-conference workshops. I think this is a good way to go but I would like input from the Executive on this matter. With the EDC institute being separated from the conference starting with 2014 (right?) does the EDC still want to reserve a pre-conference slot or should we go with an open call?

  1. Open call – in line with Value 3.

7. EDC Pro-D session at EDC conference. Are we going to have one going forward as it has scheduling implications. Likewise, do we keep the EDC AGM in the same place (end of day one before banquet) or move to another slot.

  1. Yes, keep the Pro-D session, the value to be in touch with our membership. Would like a minimum of 45 minutes to 1 hour.
  2. Consider changing the name from Professional Development to something like Engaging our Community; EDC Input; EDC Futures; Engaging our Community: Building Resources
  3. EDC Executive meeting to hold a working meeting the night prior to Workshop (6:00-9:00pm)
  4. EDC AGM – prefer it not to be just prior to the banquet. Hold prior to lunch on the second day, so that it is central for the conference. Saying it is valuable opportunity to engage our community.

9. Budget: In item two of the MOU signed between the host and the EDC, it states the host will....."Provide planning and organization at no charge to the Conference budget." It might be helpful to clarify exactly what is meant by this line. I interpret it that the host is not going to charge a fee back to the conference for hosting the conference, but that all costs directly associated with hosting the conference, that might otherwise might be out-of-pocket expenses for the host institution (e.g., overtime for unionized staff or extra help costs of students for example), are fair game when building one's budget.

  1. Yes, this is the interpretation we have as well.

Defer:

3M Collaboration – (Deb Dawson)

Professional Identity Action Group (Nicola Simmons)

  1. Budget and Surplus(Tim)

a)Now in third quarter of the budget – still delayed in receiving information in a timely fashion, but STLHE is looking for solutions

  1. $4000 approximately that we need to reallocate as a one-time expense
  2. Concern raised by membership because we show a deficit in the proposed budget, even though we do not have a deficit in the actual budget at the end of the year, in part because of

b)Identify a short list to bring to membership for June meeting – Tim asked for recommendations to be sent to him from members at EDC 2013, and recommendations from members in 2010

  1. EDC Institute – seed funding, but make sure that it is not ongoing
  2. Bursaries – ways to encourage participation in all EDC events
  3. List of suggestions from membership poll (2 years ago)
  4. Reduce membership fees for students (issue that this is not a one-time spending)
  5. French translation
  6. Pilot
  7. Support EDC Executive travel
  8. Virtual platform
  9. EDC exchange and repository
  10. Funding to allow different kind of EDC conference experience
  11. Conference travel for graduate students
  12. Registration conference fee subsidy
  13. Extra EDC grants
  14. Funding to support Action Groups

c)Ways to prioritize list

  1. Practical and feasible
  2. Connected to Living Plan
  3. Support EDC Values – open, support all community

d)Priorities chosen to decrease a onetime surplus

  1. EDC grants – size of grant up to $3000/or number given starting in 2014 if surplus available next year
  2. Funding for Action Groups in 2013 – priority for this year funds up to $750
  3. (Note Bursaries already funded, and not fully allocated each year so not adding)

e)Next steps