The first year as a member of the Furman community is filled with major milestones and moments. Settling into Greenville, developing a slew of new courses, making connections with students and colleagues, and completing that first daunting annual review. Despite many successes in that first year, the second year can bring it’s own challenges – establishing a scholarly agenda while launching research and creative projects, beginning to advise students and serve on committees, and further refining teaching or redesigning courses.
The Second Year @ Furman (SY@F) initiative has two primary goals:
- to deepen connection and relationships in and beyond the campus community and
- to facilitate ongoing professional development that addresses common challenges in the second year.
The program involves a welcome lunch in the early fall semester, two suggested peer teaching evaluations, four focused reflection conversations (two per semester) aligned with the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity (NCFDD) core curriculum, and a year-end happy hour. The NCFDD is an independent professional development, training, and mentoring community of faculty, postdocs, and graduate students from over 450 colleges and universities.
2023-24 Peer Teaching Observations
Once per semester, we encourage each SY@F member to partner with a group colleague to engage in a teaching observation process that involves a classroom observation and pre- and post-observation chat. A set of prompts to support this process is available here. You may also be interested in working with one of the FDC’s trained peer observation coaches. Contact the FDC (fdc@furman.edu) or complete this online form if you would like us to help facilitate this process.
NCFDD Webinar Access
Furman provides a free membership to all faculty and staff to the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity (NCFDD). Details about how to claim your membership are available here. You can access all NCFDD Core Curriculum webinars here.
