Culturally Inclusive Pedagogies: Preparing Learners to Engage Difference with Curiosity and Care

Culturally Inclusive Pedagogies: Preparing Learners to Engage Difference with Curiosity and Care

FI About

Image of the Faculty Institute Auditorium. Attendees are standing to watch keynote speaker, Lodge McCammon in 2016

 

About the Event

The Faculty Institute has been around for about 30 years. We don’t have consistent records for the event dating back that far, but we do know that it began as a University College and Education Network of Maine conference and professional development opportunity for distance educators, and was primarily coordinated by former Senior Instructional Designer, Glenn LeBlanc. In its early years, the Institute was primarily for Interactive Television and catered to participants from all over the world. It had a brief foray as a Sloan-C Regional conference in 2012 (now the Online Learning Consortium), before re-emerging as a resource explicitly for distance faculty and support staff within the University of Maine System. With a focus on technology-enhanced teaching and learning, the Institute offers a full day of in-person, instructional and technological professional development on-site at the University of Maine at Augusta. We are currently sponsored directly by the Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs, with supporting sponsorship by the University of Maine at Augusta, and University Services Information Technology.

The event has been led and coordinated by Senior Instructional Designer and Director of VAWLT, Araminta Matthews, since 2015. During this time, we added supporting coordinators to focus on various aspects of the event. These roles evolve and change as the needs of the event change, and are all facilitated by the lead coordinator. We also evolved to include a robust, system-wide planning committee which serves as the guiding influence for the event, identify a keynote speaker and theme, and judge the session proposals for consideration in day’s agenda. The committee, which meets several times a year through web-conferencing, has representation from all our campuses, and includes both faculty and staff in the decision-making process. The vision for the event itself carried out by staff at the University of Maine at Augusta, members of the planning committee, and System-wide Information Technology Support Staff.

If you ever have any questions about the event, please contact the lead coordinator, as a single point of contact, Araminta “Mina” Matthews at mina.matthews@maine.edu or 207-621-3338. She will answer your question, or direct it to the person currently serving in the supporting coordinator role that can best help you with your question.

FI Planning Committee '19

Faculty Institute Planning Committee

UMaine

Ayesha Maliwal (faculty)

Karen Pelletreau (staff)

Rachel A. Knapp (staff)

UMA

Nancy Mickles-Foster (faculty)

Anne Fensie (FDC staff)

Araminta Matthews (staff/coordinator)

UMF

Kevin Good (faculty)

Ashley Montgomery (staff)

UMFK

Paul Buck (faculty)

Loni Nadeau (staff)

UMM

Gregory Benton (faculty)

Eric Jones (faculty)

UMPI

Leigh Belair (faculty)

Alana Margeson (staff)

Heather Nunez-Olmstead (co-coordinator, working group, co-affiliated UMA)

USM

Lisa Hibl (faculty)

Michael Stevenson (faculty)

Paul Cochrane (staff)

UMS

Angela Cook (US:ITS Staff)

Michael Cyr (US:ITS Staff)

Megan Clough (UMS Academy)

IFrame

FI Accessibility Statement & Requests for Accommodation

The FI Planning Committee and support staff make every effort to make all content and experiences accessible to all from the outset. The university will also make every effort to provide reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities upon request. 

Certain accommodations may require planning and resources for us to implement, so we ask that individuals needing accommodations submit their request as soon as possible and no later than April 27th

Email the UMA FDC if you have questions at uma-fdc@maine.edu.