15 Fostering Communication and Interaction

Being an active member in the Gustavus community provides exciting opportunities to interact with students and colleagues across the campus. Within my department, I participate on job search committees and served as faculty advisor for the Gustavus chapter of Psi Chi, the International Honor Society in Psychology. I also represented the department at campus-wide events, such as the Majors/Minors Fair where students learn about what each department offers. However, I most enjoy department contributions that foster communication between students and faculty and those that promote ongoing research.

To encourage student-faculty interactions, I created and administer a Facebook page for our department. We use this space for sharing departmental announcements and other information relevant to our students (e.g., job announcements, relevant news articles, connections with alumni, etc.). At a smaller scale, I established and manage an online tutoring database that compiles information about majors who are willing to tutor specific courses. This database has increased the efficiency with which our faculty can connect with potential tutors for their specific courses.

To contribute to departmental research, I recently revised the procedures our students follow in order to conduct experiments with human participants, particularly those that utilize our participant pool consisting primarily of PSY-100 students. Additionally, I co-administrate the online system (i.e., SONA) that manages the human participant pool and established and maintain a database of our experiments for departmental records. Similarly, I created other databases to archive Honors theses and posters presented at our Psychological Science Research Symposium, which aids departmental assessment. Most recently, a colleague and I are leading revisions to our Honors Major in the hopes of clarifying this process and ensuring its rigor matches the standards our department expects of Honors students.

In addition to engaging with my departmental colleagues, I participate in a number of activities in service to the college, providing a chance to interact with individuals I see less often. I have served as a panelist for a number of workshops held for students or faculty (e.g., Faculty Development: Pressure Points, FTS Workshop: Words of Wisdom, Summer Institute for Academic Success: Demystifying a Liberal Arts Education). I work alongside natural science colleagues while reviewing Sigma Xi grant proposals, allowing me to learn about and contribute to research taking place across campus. I also support administrative efforts on campus by helping with events like summer registration (see Teaching: Building a Foundation for details) and Scholarship Days, where I conduct interviews with scholarship candidates.

While serving on two elected committees, I work closely with small groups of faculty, administrators, and students. First, I completed a two-year appointment to the Academic Operations Committee (AOC) and was recently elected for another three-year appointment. AOC addresses a variety of issues, including exemptions to the college’s scheduling grid, scheduling concerns, and commencement concerns. In this last regard, a colleague and I worked together to establish a policy regarding commencement attire during my previous appointment on the committee. I also served as the AOC representative to the [January] Interim Experience (IEX) committee, which primarily addressed concerns regarding the safety and engagement of students participating in January-term (J-term) courses and collected data to help answer questions about whether J-term should continue as-is, switch to a May-term, or be discontinued. Although the committee made no significant decisions during my appointment, I did provide feedback that helped strengthen the measurement used to assess the faculty and the student perspective on these issues.

Second, I am entering the second of my two-year appointment to the Faculty Development Committee (FDC) as co-chair of the committee. FDC fosters professional development among faculty by engaging in activities such as reviewing and making recommendations regarding oncampus research, scholarship, and creativity (RSC) grants and advising the Provost on issues regarding sabbaticals and RSC. As an FDC member, I am also serving on a grant review subcommittee and am the committee’s representative for the Provost’s RSC Task Force, which aims to create a multi-year plan for enhancing RSC opportunities for both students and faculty.

Although some service opportunities allow me to work with students, helping with summer registration (see Teaching section for details) and serving as a facilitator during First Year Orientation, both of which allow me to work directly with a larger number of students, are most rewarding. As an orientation facilitator, I work closely with a current student (Gustie Greeter) and meet first-year students after they move to campus, helping them acclimate to the academic climate and to other concerns commonly shared among incoming students before classes begin. Recently, I have been fortunate to have my FTS class as my orientation group, and the Gustie Greeter has followed our class throughout the semester, serving as a mentor and aiding in the advising component of the course. This has truly enhanced the orientation and first-semester experience for my students and for me.

Finally, I am serving my fifth year as the college’s representative for the Midstates Consortium for Math and Science (MCMS)[1]. This consortium of colleges and universities within the Midwest promotes collaboration and high achievement in math and science. In this position, I interact with faculty and students on campus as well as those at other institutions, which nicely combines my passion and support for academic endeavors with service to our college and to a greater academic community. Two of my primary responsibilities in this role are to recruit and coordinate groups of students and faculty from across the natural sciences, mathematics, computer science, and psychology to attend and present at symposia offered by MCMS and to attend MCMS executive committee meetings. However, this position also presented opportunities to serve on an intercollegiate panel discussing Careers at Liberal Arts Institutions and another panel hosted locally during MCMS’ Early Career Workshop. These and other experiences in this role as campus representative provide valuable knowledge that has informed other service activities locally, such as participating on FDC and the RSC Task Force and helping co-direct our campus-wide student research and creativity forum: Celebration of Creative Inquiry (CCI). I am honored to serve in these and other service positions[2].