FAIRFIELD, Conn.— Sacred Heart University has been selected as one of more than 20 institutions around the country to participate in the Consortium for Instructional Excellence and Career Guidance, organized by the Council of Independent Colleges and supported by the Strada Education Network.
For its part, the University will select 30 faculty members to enroll in Effective Teaching Practices, a course designed by the Association of College and University Educators (ACUE). The online course will begin in fall 2018 and run throughout the academic year. It will be supported by a series of face-to-face meetings that will focus on students’ professional readiness and guidance—a major goal of the initiative.
Faculty who complete the course will receive a $1000 stipend and an ACUE certificate, which is endorsed by the American Council on Education.
The course will be co-facilitated by Steven Michels, assistant provost for teaching and learning, and Jaya Kannan, director of the Center for Excellence and Innovation in Teaching (CEIT), which is launching this fall.
“The ACUE course is impressive for its comprehensiveness, but also for how much of it is based on research of how students learn,” said Michels. “Each of the course’s 25 modules include many simple but impactful strategies for how to make students more successful in their studies.”
Sacred Heart currently has a cohort of 30 faculty enrolled in the ACUE course, which will conclude in June. ACUE is adding two additional modules for the Consortium to focus on career development and mentoring.
“Preparing our students for the working world is of utmost importance to us,” noted Rupendra Paliwal, provost and vice president for academic affairs. “Participating in this Consortium demonstrates how seriously we take that responsibility as well as our commitment to support excellence in teaching.”
In the fall of 2018, the University will establish a Center for Excellence and Innovation in Teaching.
PHOTO CAPTION: At Sacred Heart University’s Faculty Institute in April, Professors Wendy Bjerke (exercise science), Susan Goncalves (nursing), Daniel Rober (Catholic studies), Jennifer Trudeau (economics) and Christopher Paone (philosophy) discussed SHU’s first ACUE cohort in the teaching effectiveness course. Photo by Mark F. Conrad
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Sacred Heart University, the second-largest independent Catholic university in New England, offers more than 70 undergraduate, graduate, doctoral and certificate programs on its main campus in Fairfield, Conn., and satellites in Connecticut, Luxembourg and Ireland. More than 8,500 students attend the University’s five colleges: Arts & Sciences; Health Professions; Nursing; the Jack Welch College of Business; and the Isabelle Farrington College of Education. The Princeton Review includes SHU in its guides, Best 382 Colleges–2018 Edition, “Best in the Northeast” and Best 267 Business Schools–2018 Edition. It also placed SHU on its lists for “Best College Theater” and “Most Engaged in Community Service,” each of which comprises only 20 U.S. schools. U.S.News & World Report ranks SHU in its Best Colleges 2018 guidebook and calls SHU the fourth “Most Innovative School” in the North. The Chronicle of Higher Education also names SHU one of the fastest-growing Roman Catholic universities in its 2016 almanac. Sacred Heart fields 32 Division I athletic teams and has an award-winning program of community service. www.sacredheart.edu
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