Welcome to the Faculty Development Center (FDC)


The Faculty Development Center provides a centralized place to support the teaching of all EMU faculty, lecturers, teaching GAs, and student success staff.  The FDC promotes excellence in teaching, learning, and scholarly activities in accordance with the core values of respect, inclusiveness, care, and commitment. The Center grounds itself in awareness and support for cultural diversity and community-building.

Resources and Services

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Teaching Spotlights
Read about our newest teaching spotlight and those from this past year. If you know an EMU instructor that you'd like to be recognized, consider nominating an outstanding faculty member!
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Latest Newsletter
Take some time to read our weekly newsletter Happenings at the Faculty Development Center. Each issue features exciting FDC programming and events, blog posts, and much more.
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Teaching Blog
We are excited to host the Teaching Blog as a platform for faculty to share their opinions and outlooks on teaching. Keep an eye out for upcoming entries and check out some of our posts from last year!
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Upcoming Events
Stay up-to-date on all the upcoming programs and events that the FDC provides in support of excellence in teaching, learning, and scholarly activities here at Eastern Michigan University.

Happenings at the Faculty Development Center

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Teaching and Learning Together
The Teaching and Learning Together (TaLT) initiative aims to form strong communities of learners by engaging educators and students together to explore collaborative partnerships. We seek to facilitate efforts to shape the student-faculty collaborative culture at EMU in a way that can improve both the student experience (including in such things as retention and persistence), as well as the faculty experience.
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Research Writers' Collaborative
The Writers’ Collaborative is an annual opportunity for EMU faculty to support each other while achieving realistic writing goals (i.e. developing a conference paper, drafting an article, revising a book chapter, etc.). Giving and getting helpful feedback is also included in this program. This program will meet throughout the winter 2024 semester on Wednesdays from 1-3 PM. Sessions will take place virtually on Zoom.
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Generative AI Programming

Generative Artificial Intelligence (Gen AI) emerged in December of 2022, and since then, our faculty, staff, and lecturers have posed numerous questions and started engaging in thoughtful conversations about how to approach and use Gen AI in an academic context. The Faculty Development Center and the University Writing Center have been hosting various programs related to Gen AI. Learn more about recent sessions by clicking the link below.

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2024 Thank-An-Eagle
The Faculty Development Center hosts a university-wide event called Thank-An-Eagle, where EMU community members have a chance to thank an instructor, staff member, coach, GA, or mentor who has helped them during their time here at EMU. The 2024 Thank-An-Eagle event will be held on Thursday, April 18th, at 3:30 PM. 
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Faculty Fellow for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
The Bruce K. Nelson Faculty Development Center and the Office of the Interim Associate Provost and Associate Vice President of Academic Programs and Initiatives are seeking applications for a quarter-time release Faculty Fellow to play a leading role in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programming for the FDC during for the 2024-25 academic year.
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Careers and Cultural Diversity Fair
This event is intended to create a space for guests to interact with participants and share with them their professional background and their experiences and opportunities linked to working in a diverse workplace. The focus is to cultivate awareness of how broadening the understanding of languages and multicultural competence can help today’s professionals overcome challenges and advance in their careers.
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Faculty-Student Research Fellowships
The Bruce K. Nelson Faculty Development Center at Eastern Michigan University, with the generous support of GameAbove, is pleased to request proposals for Faculty-Student Research Fellowships, with the aim of studying how  student-faculty partnerships can effectively proliferate on campus. In essence, we are seeking partnerships to study partnerships. For more information, please click the link below.
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Achieving Your Summer Writing Goals: A How-To Workshop
The end of the semester is a hectic time for us all, and our scholarship often gets pushed to the back burner. We tell ourselves, “I’ll catch up on research over the summer.” But family obligations, travel plans and summer teaching can make those precious weeks fly by. How can you advance your scholarly agenda over the summer while still taking that much needed break? Join Sarah Walsh for an hour to plan your scholarly agenda for the summer.
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Summer Research Writing Sprint
Are you ready to kickstart your summer research agenda? Join us for a two-day writing retreat on Wednesday, May 22 and Thursday, May 23. You bring your laptop and your works in progress. We’ll bring the snacks and the supportive environment to keep you focused and productive. Take two days away from the usual distractions and demands on your time.
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Collaborative Course (Re)Design Learning Community
Applications for the fall 2024 Collaborative Course (Re)Design (CCRD) learning community are now open. CCRD is an approach to redesigning a course that you have taught previously. In CCRD, you and one of your former students work together collaboratively to redesign portions of a course that you want to update and improve. To learn more and to apply, click the link below.

Spotlighting Student-Faculty Partnerships

Dr. Christopher Robbins, Jennifer Bennett, and Hannah Bollin

In this partnership spotlight, Dr. Christopher Robbin’s (R), Jennifer Bennett (C), and Hannah Bollin (L) share with us the story of their unique partnership on a service project, “The Workshop for Community+Collaboration,” and how putting aside any pretenses help them succeed. 

Click Here to Read the Full Spotlight

Nominate a Student-Faculty Partnership

This segment of our website, "Partnership Spotlights," highlights student-faculty partnerships on campus. If you are interested in being featured in a Partnership Spotlight or know of a student-faculty pairing worth highlighting, please complete the short form below.

Nominate a Student-Faculty Partnership

In previous semesters, the Faculty Development Center has spotlighted lecturers and faculty from a variety of departments. To view these spotlights, please click the link below. 

View Our Previous Teaching Spotlights