As educators at MSU you are invited to participate and contribute to an array of opportunities. Consider the options below as ways to integrate with the university and collaborate with colleagues.
Learning Communities
Learning Communities at MSU are free to select their own topics and determine the structures that best support their inquiries. Accordingly, communities tend to vary greatly in their practices, interests, and agendas. All communities, however, share three things in common: they meet at least eight times across the academic year, explore important educational themes, and welcome all members of MSU’s instructional staff, regardless of rank or discipline.
- Information and guidelines for learning communities
- 2021-2022 Learning Communities and the contact information for facilitators
- Read the article: Learning Communities, Spaces to Explore Ideas in Education, Teaching and Learning
- Read how one Learning Community started and the work that they continue
Campus Groups and Organizations
Discover groups and organizations on campus. Michigan State University is a large campus with many different opportunities. Sometimes, connecting with colleagues who share research interests or values can help make an enormous campus feel more like a community. Below are just a few suggestions about where you might get started.
Learn more about campus groups
Diversity Research Network
The Diversity Research Network (DRN) connects faculty of color and scholars interested in diversity research, to create scholarly communities, facilitate new interdisciplinary collaborations, and to advance the growth and visibility of research by underrepresented faculty as well as research on diversity across MSU. The DRN emphasizes MSU’s value of diversity as excellence across all disciplines and promotes this value through the support and resources it offers.
The DRN is a support vehicle for enhancing research productivity, grant, research and publication output, providing meaningful collaborative research opportunities, and training that emphasizes the unique research contexts of faculty of color and diversity scholars.
- Use the searchable database to connect with other faculty and researchers
- Learn about programs, grants, events and activities
- Become a member to get regular updates and opportunities
- Donate to diversity research
Leadership Institute Sessions
Each year, the Leadership Institute series offers academic administrators the opportunity to interact with their peers around key topics relevant to their roles and responsibilities. This series of 90-minute sessions are designed to expand upon themes introduced at New Administrator Orientation. These sessions are required for department chairpersons, school directors, and associate deans of non-departmentally organized colleges within the first two years of their appointments; all other administrators are encouraged to attend sessions they would find useful.
Learn more
Resources from past series
Educator Development Opportunities
MSU has many opportunities to develop your identity and talents as an educator, all grouped under the broad label of Educator Professional Development. Many campus units contribute to this holistic approach to educator development and we invite you to engage in some of these initial offerings by AAN partners and to watch for exciting opportunities to come across the year.
Starting an Academic Career in Unusual Times
For most people, the start of the career is exciting –while also peppered with questions about getting established, understanding the organizational culture, and learning about useful resources. The unprecedented circumstances facing higher education, however, means early-career academics are grappling with more than the usual questions. AAN is offering monthly “Conversations for Early Career Colleagues,” designed to foster connections, answer “frequently asked questions,” and support those early in the career to navigate the university and the overall landscape of academic life.
Explore the series: Starting an Academic Career in Unusual Times
ASPIRE (ASynchronous Program for Instructional REadiness) Workshop:
ASPIRE is entirely self-paced and will guide you through the processes and issues you’ll need to address in order to develop an online version of your course. Since there is no one way to develop an online course or teach online, our goal for you is to help you make informed choices based on your own particular needs and contexts.
The 2021 Blended Teaching Workshop
The Blended Teaching Workshop was created to help you prepare to teach a blended or hybrid course. It is entirely asynchronous and self-paced and is focused on how you can make the most of in-person contact time and an online environment. We will help you focus your blended or hybrid course on the student experience and your learning objectives in order to best help your students reach their goals. Our goal for you is to help you make informed choices based on your context.
Self-enroll for 2021 Blended Teaching Workshop
September Online Workshops from MSU IT
Our September workshops are focused on the ongoing development of skills in D2L, Zoom, and Camtasia for accessible content, digital assessments, engaging virtual meetings, and well-edited video recordings. There are five workshops for staff and educators. The workshops will be recorded and shared by email to all registrants and also posted to the MSU Tools and Technologies D2L self-enrollment course.
Explore the September workshops from MSU IT
#iteachmsu Commons
There is a large community of educators who contribute to teaching, learning, and student success across MSU. On such a large campus, with such a large community, it can be difficult to elevate and celebrate the high-impact practices of all educators. To address this challenge, the #iteachmsu Commons provides an educator-driven space for sharing ideas and resources, connecting across disciplines and roles, and growing in practice.
Online Learning Consortium (OLC) Accelerate Conference
Free Accelerate Registration Available for Educators
OLC Accelerate is one of the country’s leading conferences for online, blended, and digital learning. This year’s conference will have multiple topics for educators to choose from, along with seminars and workshops to go along with each topic. This year’s OLC Accelerate conference will be held virtually from September 20 through September 24, 2021. Registering for the conference will also give attendees access to live broadcasts of the on-site version of the conference held October 5 through October 8, 2021.
Outreach and Engagement opportunities
The Office of University Outreach and Engagement facilitates university-wide efforts to create an ecosystem of engagement by supporting the engaged activities of faculty, staff, and students; fostering public access to university expertise and resources; and by advocating for exemplary engaged scholarship, nationally and internationally. In all of its work, UOE emphasizes university-community partnerships that are collaborative, participatory, empowering, systemic, transformative, and anchored in scholarship.
Community-Engaged Write In sessions
Is working from home making it hard to find writing time? Would scheduling regular, specific times to write about your outreach or engagement work be helpful? If so, please join us on the first Friday of each month for three hours of dedicated time to advance your scholarship. Past participants have written journal articles, grant proposals, book chapters, theses or dissertations, curricula, pieces for public audiences, and community engagement portfolios. Participants should plan to write for the full three hours. We start the write-in by sharing writing goals for the day and wrap up with accomplishments and next steps. Write-Ins are free, but registration is required.
Explore Community-Engaged Write-In Sessions
Well-being at Work Conference
October 21, 2021, 9 am – 11 am, virtual
Join us virtually for the Well-being at Work Conference on October 21, 2021. Explore the questions that have surfaced in the ranks of faculty and staff, supervisors, and leaders, focusing on how to create and maintain healthier, happier, workspaces and teams. Well-being at work is important. It honors each employee as a complete person both inside and outside of work. It provides shared knowledge about workplace culture and practices that attract people to work at MSU and keep them here.
- Learn new tools
- Hear from experts in the field
- Connect with colleagues
- Set goals to improve well-being at work for both you and the people around you
Office of Research and Innovation
The Office of Research and Innovation supports MSU’s research and creative activity by administering research funding, ensuring research integrity for both faculty and students, providing grant support services, fostering collaboration, licensing university inventions, and overseeing regulatory compliance.
Learn more
Join the email for important information and event notifications
Explore a new area, meet new people, try something unexpected. Interdisciplinary experiences can be wonderful development opportunities.