New Faculty Program

For many faculty members, developing and enhancing teaching skills involves a long and unnecessarily arduous process of trial and error. With this in mind, the Centre for Leadership in Learning offers a new faculty program that goes well beyond a simple orientation. Whether you’re new to postsecondary teaching or a seasoned instructor taking up a recent faculty appointment, this flexible program can help you meet your teaching goals efficiently and successfully.

While the program includes a wide variety of services and events in the hopes of providing useful support to a range of faculty members, you should feel free to select and to participate in only those elements that will be of most interest and value to you.

The program includes:

Initial Orientation: The events and services in this section are designed to support you over the first year of your appointment at McMaster.

  • Meet and Greet Event.  This event, to which you will be invited in the summer nearest to the beginning of your appointment, constitutes your first opportunity to meet with new faculty from across campus. The day includes an introduction to essential services for you and for your students, information about important teaching support facilities, and a networking lunch at which new faculty have a chance to meet award-winning teachers from McMaster and some of the previous year’s new faculty.
  • Provision of a Teaching & Learning Handbook.  This guide provides information about key campus services related to teaching and also contains reference materials on a variety of teaching and learning topics.
  • Personal Meeting.  A member of the Centre for Leadership in Learning will be pleased to meet with you to discuss teaching and learning and how we might best support you. We’ll be in touch early in the year, but you should also feel free to drop by or to call with inquiries (X24540).
  • Year 1 Celebration & Reflection Event. In the spring following the first full year of your appointment, join other new faculty members for a chance to reflect on your teaching experiences and to learn about new approaches and issues you might consider for future courses. This event will include workshops and/or panel discussions on topics chosen by new faculty members,

Additional Services & Support: These program components can be completed at any time over the first five years of your appointment, as fits your schedule.

  • Early-Career Faculty Networking Events.  These events are an opportunity to meet with newer faculty members as a group on topics of common interest. Resources are provided and guest speakers are invited based on topics you identify. Past session topics have included: Teaching Large Classes, Course Design, Assessment, Dealing with Classroom Incivilities, Balancing Research, Teaching & Service, and Supervising Graduate Students.
  • Teaching Dossier Consultation & Dossier Working Group. Development of a Teaching Dossier is part of the Tenure/Permanence and Promotion process and should be completed by the end of your third year. We can offer assistance in drafting your Teaching Dossier and provide samples from various disciplines to examine. We also facilitate a yearly Dossier Working Group, wherein a small group of individuals meet over time to develop, critique, and refine their dossiers.
  • Early-Career Faculty Instructional Skills Workshops.  The Instructional Skills Workshop (ISW) is an intensive, internationally recognized mini-course designed to enhance instructors’ teaching effectiveness. Participants work with peers and with trained facilitators to practice a range of pedagogical strategies, to enhance their lesson-planning skills, and to develop their abilities to give and receive constructive feedback. A certificate is awarded upon successful completion of the workshop.

Ongoing Services: The services in this section are available to you throughout the your career at McMaster. Many might be worth considering within your first five years.

We’re also more than happy to supplement this program according to your needs and interests.
If you have suggestions for additional program components,
please contact Lori Goff (lgoff@mcmaster.ca, x24368).