SERVICE

Committee Work

Many people rather dislike going to meetings; however, I really enjoy it.  Being able to be part of the development and decision making process for the different aspects of the college is educational, inspiring, and exciting.  When I attend committee meetings, I do not simply show up and leave; I am very active in all of the committees.  Not only do I discuss the items brought to the committee, I get directly involved in the development, assessment, and implementation of the items and proposals.  Additionally, I often am the member who brings items and proposals to the committees for discussion, development, assessment, and implementation. Below are some highlights of my committee work. Here is a link to a list of all of my committee work.

In the Fall 2014 term, I began my duties as the Chair of Academic Council.  To have an Arts & Sciences Faculty as Chair of the highest committee in Academic Affairs shows just how far the faculty had come in the process of unification.  Personally, to be Chair of Academic Council meant that I had earned the respect of my peers, which made me proud and reaffirmed my hard work.  One of my duties as Chair was to attend the Board of Directors meetings, as a representative of the Faculty, and provide a Faculty Report. By attending the Board meetings, I gained an appreciation for and greater understanding of what the Board does, which helped me better understand how all of the pieces fit together at Methodist College.  I feel this makes me a more effective advocate for both the Faculty and the students.

I was vice chair and then chair of PRA. As a member and leader of PRA, I took a lead role in developing and implementing the way in which the USLO’s were being assessed. I initiated and led the revision of methodology for our assessment of the USLOs and took the lead in the assessment process.  I reviewed and evaluated the AAC&U rubrics which were supposed to correspond to our USLOs.  Our USLOs, at times, overlapped or needed more than one rubric in order to assess them.  This helped to begin a discussion about revising the USLOs, which eventually led to the creation and adoption of more concise and precise USLOs.

I was the chair of the Bylaws committee. As such, I was then included on the STAR 2.0 committee which revised our faculty bylaws. I assisted in the restructuring of our shared governance structure. Additionally, due to my status as Bylaws chair, my leadership on the writing and revising of the previous versions of our bylaws, and my reputation as a faculty advocate, many of the faculty turn to me for information about the bylaws and tend to trust my opinion on matters pertaining to bylaws.

College Events

            I also enjoy attending college events, such as Open House, Pinning, Graduation, the President’s Breakfast, and co-curricular events.  The college is a community, and I believe in immersing myself in my community and helping it to prosper.  Additionally, the events give me an opportunity to relate to the students, staff, administration, and faculty on different levels in different settings.  For new student orientation, I participate in the faculty panel discussion, speak at the student involvement session about SGA, speak at the travel course session, and even assist the new students during their registration session.

EDGE Run

In the spring of 2013, I developed the idea for a scholarship run to benefit the students of Methodist College.  Through a great deal of hard work and with the help of a lot of the faculty, staff, administration and students the first EDGE Run was a wonderful success.  We had 330 registrants and made enough money to create an endowed scholarship.  The run also reached out to alumni, families of current students, Unity Point | Methodist employees, and the greater Peoria community.  The run, through registrants and volunteers, brought over 350 people to Methodist College on 03 November 2013.  The news media covered the event, which provided very positive publicity for the college.  The feedback received from the participants was overwhelmingly positive regarding the organization, sweatshirts, post-race food, route and overall experience. 

I have been fortunate to continue to be a supporter and leader in this event, serving as Race Director every year and serving as committee chair from 2012-2015 and again in 2017. The event, to date, has raised over $26,000 for scholarships for our students. The EDGE Run benefits the college, the community, and our students. The college gets positive publicity as the host and location of a fun and charitable community event. The community is provided with a fun and health-promoting event. Not only do the students benefit from scholarship funds raised by the event, they also benefit from participating in the event. Some students trained for the run, which promoted their health. Other students, through their class, organized and orchestrated the Kids’ Run which included a Healthy Kids sessions prior to the run. The students taught the kids about healthy eating and exercise in a fun manner with games and giveaways. The Kids’ Run benefits our students by giving them an opportunity to promote healthy habits and activities and benefits the children in our community who were learning in a fun and positive way about healthy eating and exercise.

SGA & Service Projects

            In the spring of 2013, I became the Faculty Advisor for Methodist College’s Student Government Association. I have continued in that role every since. I have been fortunate, the last few years, to have amazing faculty share the SGA Advisor role with me: Shelley Riney from fall of 2015 to spring of 2017 and Michelle Nielsen-Ott from summer of 2017 to present. It is as the SGA Faculty Advisor that I am able to connect with and mentor students on a different level than as their teacher. Through role modeling and mentoring, I try to foster leadership, responsibility, and sevice. My favorite aspect of working with the SGA is helping them organize and execute service proejcts.

The Trewyn Trolley service project collected coats, personal hygiene products, and school supplies for the students of Trewyn Middle School.  This was an SGA project, in which I took a lead role.  Some of the students at Trewyn, which is one of the poorest schools in District 150, were going to school during the winter wearing blankets because they had no coats.  When I was made aware of this and the students’ needs for hygiene products and school supplies, I brought it to the SGA, and we collected what the students needed and delivered it all to the school on Halloween, 2013.   This project touched my heart and the hearts of the SGA officers involved.  We repeated this service project in the fall of 2014 and 2105.

Warm Blankets for Warm Souls was a service project brought to me in 2013 by two students, Travis Griffin and Tony Frederes.  In conjunction with Phi Phi, SGA took on this service project which was to collect enough throw blankets to give one to each resident of Morton Terrace Nursing Home.  This nursing home was chosen due its lack of funds and the fact that the majority of the residents do not have family that visit them or bring them anything during the winter holidays.  The project was enthusiastically met by the Methodist College community, and we exceeded our goal number of blankets.  A day was chosen to bring the blankets to the nursing home.  When we went, we all dressed festively and even sang holiday carols for the residents.  This service project touched my heart as well.  Many of the residents cried when receiving the blankets, because they were grateful that someone thought of them during the holidays.  I was thanked, hugged, and even had my hand kissed that day.  After the event, when I returned to the college, I just wanted to tell everyone about it.  I wish everyone who donated a blanket could have been there to experience what I had.  If all of that was not enough, the news media even covered the event, sharing another positive image of Methodist College with the greater Peoria community. I am proud to continue to be an integral part of this service project, as it has continued every year since and has grown. Since that first year, due to the addition of a fund-raising silent auction, the project has gone from providing blankets to nursing home residents to also providing nursing homes with movies, music, dvd players, stereos, and other year-round entertainment for the residents.  Additionally, enough funds are raised each year from the silent auction to create scholarships for our students.      

Blood Drives

At least twice a year, as the Blood Drive Coordinator, I organize a Red Cross blood drive at Methodist College.  These blood drives benefit both our community, as the donated blood stays in our community, and our students. Our students are able to participate in a life-saving charity event. Many of the students who give blood at the drives are first time donors. These blood drives, if they are positive events and experiences, can help create life-long blood donors. These events also promote the college’s mission because it is both community service and helps to meet the healthcare needs of our community.

Academic Advising

Academic Advising is another area of “Service.”  I believe a student’s Academic Advisor should be the student’s go-to faculty member for any issue.  The Advisor can then guide the student as to what channels to take when facing an issue or can make phone calls and inquiries that the student could not make on her own.  I believe it is this genuine concern for my advisees that prompted students to personally request me as their Academic Advisor.

            In 2013, with only one semester of Academic Advising under my belt, as Chair of the Student Development Committee, I found myself in charge of the Academic Advising Workshops for the faculty.  I cannot claim all of the credit for the work done for those workshops.  There were many people involved:  Student Development Committee members, Dr. Stark, Dr. Pendergast, Dr. Strasma, Dr. Ferguson, Margie Getz, Brett Dooley, Ann Garey, and Hannah Schulte all contributed to the success of the workshops.  I personally created the “Goals & Responsibilities” form, the “Advisor Notes & Recommendations” form, the “Time Commitment Calculator,” and the “Weekly Class Schedule Grid.”  The Student Development Committee provided feedback on the material, and their suggestions were used to revise the material.  Additionally, Dr. Branham took the document of the “Time Commitment Calculator” and created, in Excel, an automated calculator, which I provided on the LMS to both the students, in Student Center, and the faculty, in Faculty Center.  In order for the faculty to have all of the Academic Advising materials in an organized manner, I ordered, designed, and assembled (with some help from Hannah Schulte and Kendra King) Academic Advising binders.  Gathering all of the necessary materials was not an easy feat.  Once the materials were all gathered in electronic form, they were printed, three-hole punched, and put in the binders according to a Table of Contents I created.  Any forms that may need to be copied by the advisors were placed in the pockets, so as not to have hole marks on the copies.  The binders also contained pocket dividers, one for each advisor’s advisees.  The pocket dividers allowed an advisor to keep all of her advisees’ information separated, organized, and in the same place as the advising material. In addition to the binders, I created a new “Lesson” on the Faculty Center for Academic Advising.  Using subpages, I organized and uploaded all of the advising material, so the faculty would have easy access to electronic versions of the material.

By 2014, it seemed my reputation for helping and advocating for my advisees spread through the student population, as I had at least 14 students ask for me as their advisor. Additionally, I had students who were not my advisees come to me for assistance because they were comfortable talking to me and knew that I would be an advocate for them.  In 2015, both Brett Keith and Cathleen Paxton, to name two students, have came to me for assistance in advising.  Registration can be stressful and time can be of the essence, so I do my best to promptly assist my advisees, especially during registration time.

There was one special case in the Fall 2014 term.  Theresa Schwindenhammer needed some assistance from me regarding a course a student was unsure he needed to take.  The student was not her advisee, but she was helping him because he was a family friend.  I worked with her and the student to figure out his Gen Ed requirement.  Theresa told me that he needed a lot of extra assistance, as he is a non-traditional student with homelife stressors and a weakness for organization.  She expressed her concern the for the student's need to have an advisor that he could go to on a regular basis. I then offered to be the student's advisor.  I told Theresa that I was around all the time and would be happy to give him the extra assistance and attention he needed.  Being that student's advisor, though a lot of work, gave me great satisfaction because when he left our meetings he was calmer and more focused.  I knew that I was actually making a difference.

Mentoring
          I have mentored both of our English adjunct faculty. First, I mentored Brooke Rumbold.  I made myself available to her for any advice or assistance she might need. I also worked with her on developing some of her assignments. In 2014, she needed to teach online, which was new for her.  We spent time discussing effective methods of communication for online classes.  She made videos of herself talking to her students for instructions and updates.  This was a technique I call “Breaking Instruction.”  Brooke found it worked well for her class.

I have also mentored Jennifer O’Neil.  In 2016 J. O’Neil, for the first time, taught ENG201, Disciplinary Composition, for us. I have spent a great deal of time developing and redesigning ENG201 to be as effective as possible for our students. I have worked with Nursing Faculty on the genres of writing nursing students use in the classroom and will use in their careers. I have researched those genres to create applicable and effective lessons and assignments for the course. In other words, this course has become extremely important to me because I believe it is important to the success of our students. I wanted to be sure J. O’Neil understood the objectives of the course and the needs of our students. I met with J. O’Neil before the beginning of the semester to review the course with her. I did not, however, force my version of the course upon her. I believe in academic freedom and in J. O’Neil’s abilities as an English instructor. In fact, I think that J. O’Neil brings new views and approaches to our English courses that benefit our students. My meetings with her focused on her understanding the course and how I could assist her with teaching this course for the first time. I put her in one of my previous ENG201 courses in D2L, so she could have access to all of my materials and assignments, in case she wanted to use them, modify them, or just reference them for her own understanding. I also checked in with her periodically to see how she was doing, answer any questions she might have, and assist with anything I could. Additionally, I observed her class in 2016, and there were areas in which she could improve with her teaching. One of those areas was confidence and presence in the classroom. After spending the year meeting with her, I have seen her confidence growing. I am hoping to visit her classroom in 2017, with her permission, and I predict her classroom presence will be stronger. I am trying to mentor J. O’Neil by being a guide and a support system. I want her to continue to develop her own way, her own voice, and her own style of teaching.

In addition to mentoring adjunct faculty, I have also had the privilege of mentoring students. Being the SGA Faculty Advisor, gives me the opportunity to both role model positive leadership behaviors and directly mentor some of the student leaders in our school.  I worked a great deal with Grace Watson, who was the SGA President. Grace and I have similar character traits. We are both outspoken, confident, and high-achievers. Though those traits are great attributes of an effective leader, they can also be problematic. I worked with her during her senior year to slow down, follow the chain of command, and proceed into problematic situations with poise and a plan—a lesson I had to learn myself. When I saw her in situations in which she comes off too strong or reacts instead of acting purposefully, I met with her to discuss it. We talked about the fact that she is a representative of the college and must always be mindful of that. I tried to push back some of her projects, because she was not allowing enough time for planning, collaboration, advertising, and following established processes of the college. I understood her desire to get things done and get them done right away, but, I guided her, as I had been guiding myself, to slow down and do it with the buy-in and collaboration of all the stakeholders.

Assisting Colleagues

Helping my colleagues pedagogically is something else I truly enjoy.  In 2014, I continued my efforts in creating some consistency with the understanding, application, and assessment of APA. I was also able to assist some of the Nursing Faculty in the development of writing assignments and small group projects.  I helped Sue Smith create an effective writing assignment for N370 (OB/Peds).  That assignment has been used by the Nursing Curriculum Director as an exemplar for the Nursing Faculty.  I also spent a great deal of time with June West evaluating and redesigning the assignments for N211 (Standards of Nursing Practice).  N211 had far too many writing assignments for a two hour course.  I helped June West redesign some of them into quizzes, in-class activities, and small group projects.  Then we took the writing assignments she was keeping and redesigned a couple of them to make them more effective and clearer to the students. 

As the Writing Program Coordinator, I have continued to assist faculty in the development of writing assignments. I have also helped them create comment sheets and rubrics to facilitate more effective and efficient assessment and grading.

I was an early adopter of Desire to Learn (D2L), our new learning management system (LMS). I conducted two of my Spring 2016 courses and my Summer 2016 course in D2L, in order to better understand the new LMS and practice using it before we completely switched over to it for Fall 2016. Because of my early adoption of D2L, I assisted other faculty in the adoption and use of the LMS. I quickly became known as one of our resident experts on D2L. In order to assist our faculty with D2L, I created some tutorial videos, conducted a workshop, and made myself available for assistance. The tutorial videos, which I created in response to questions and specific issues brought up by faculty, are available to the faculty on a playlist on YouTube. During our “return to work” week in August of 2016, I spent the majority of my time helping my fellow faculty with setting up their courses in D2L. Now, that may seem as if I am complaining, but I am not. I truly enjoy helping others. Teaching, whether students or peers, is extremely rewarding for me.

Service Learning

            I worked with the Service Learning committee from the fall of 2013 through the implementation of service learning as a graduation requirement in spring of 2016. I assisted the committee in benchmarking what other small colleges are doing with service learning and developing the program to meet the requirements of the Carnegie Foundation’s “Community Engagement” classification. The committee went through many incarnations and took different directions until we finally, with the leadership of Lisa Preston and Dr. Garrison, completed our task of creating a Service Learning component for our college.

Volunteer Work in the Community

In the Fall 2015 semester, I volunteered to be the assistant director for the Elmwood High School DramaClub’s theatrical production of The Night of January 16^th.  The EHS Drama Club has no funding and is assigned only one faculty member.  I greatly believe in the benefits of the fine arts to a well-rounded education, so I volunteered my time and expertise, as I have extensive experience in theatre and one of my undergraduate majors was Theatre Education.  I did vocal coaching and character development with the students.  I was also in charge of designing (and I use that term loosely) the costumes and makeup.  I was on the running crew for costumes and makeup as well.  Additionally, I took headshots of the actors for the program. I have continued to serve in a support capacity for the Drama Club and their productions.

Writing Across the Curriculum Program

I am not sure if the development of the Writing Across the Curriculum program falls under Teaching, Service or Scholarship because, to me, it belongs in all three. However, one aspect that I believe falls under service is the integration of the Writing Program and the CSS, which was not a simple situation. In Spring 2016, we had our very first writing tutor. This was a big step forward for the Writing Program. However, there was a rocky start with the CSS. The situation was understandable though because the integration happened quickly and without proper advanced planning with the CSS. In order to facilitate a successful integration, I was mindful to purport myself and present the Writing Program with dignity and integrity. I took extra effort to follow my chain of command when dealing with conflicts and decisions. When an issue arose involving the writing tutor feeling as if she was being treated poorly compared to the CSS tutors, I had to step in and advocate for my tutor. After discussing the situation with my Dean, I was instructed to directly discuss the matter with the Director of the CSS, Tricia Fox.  I was honest yet respectful of T. Fox’s position as the Director of the CSS, when discussing my tutor’s feelings and situation. T. Fox and I worked together to figure out a solution to the problem.  That was a turning point in the integration of the Writing Program and the CSS. Since our move to the new campus, my relationship with T. Fox has improved greatly, as has the acceptance of the writing tutors into the CSS. I have even been asked to cross-train the other CSS tutors in giving more substantive feedback on writing assignments. The relationships between the CSS and the Writing Program has been flourishing ever since.