AI Teaching Excellence Program
Applications open Jan. 12, 2026!
A limited spring–summer initiative will support up to 20 faculty in earning external AI teaching credentials from nationally recognized programs including EDUCAUSE, ISTE, Google, and Microsoft. Participants will develop practical skills for integrating AI into their courses ethically and effectively, build portfolios for professional advancement, and apply what they learn immediately in the classroom.
From this cohort, 10 faculty will be selected as AI Tigers—peer mentors who will lead a Summer Coaching Institute and support colleagues across JSU’s five colleges in transforming their own courses.
Interested? Complete the interest form to receive application details when they’re available.
Teaching & Learning Workshops
Teaching is an evolving practice. Each semester brings new questions, new students, and new opportunities to refine how we design courses and support learning.
This spring’s Teaching & Learning Workshops, led by Faculty Fellows, invite faculty to explore practical strategies for engagement, communication, assessment, and course design—alongside peers who are experimenting, reflecting, and sharing what works. Faculty can also join small peer learning communities that support collaboration, feedback, and sustained teaching innovation.
Looking for materials from earlier workshops?
Explore the Teaching & Learning Workshop Archive
ng Fellows and invited experts.
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Fri, Jan 23
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12:00 p.m.
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Presenting on Presenting: Communicating Clearly and Confidently In Person
Dr. Craig A. Meyer, Department of English and Modern Languages
Join colleagues in strengthening presentation as a core teaching and professional skill. Explore strategies for designing and delivering clear, engaging presentations and for helping students build confidence and presence. Open to faculty and graduate students.
Strengthen in-person presentation skills for teaching, learning, and professional settings.
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Fri, Feb 6
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11:00 a.m.
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Thinking Otherwise: Digital Humanities and Speculative Methods for Teaching and Research
Dr. Brittany Myburgh, Department of Art
Join colleagues in designing speculative digital humanities projects for teaching and research. Develop a digital humanities prototype—a classroom activity, research question, or digital artifact—using design thinking to reimagine learning or scholarship.
Reimagine teaching and research through digital tools, design thinking, and futures-based inquiry.
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Fri, Feb 13
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11:00 a.m.
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Persistence and Quality Control in the Publication Process: Converting Research into a Grant Proposal
Dr. Anwar Ahmad, Department of Biology
Join colleagues in taking the next step after the fall workshop Building Articles from Classwork by focusing on how publishable research becomes competitive grant proposals. Develop strategies around persistence, quality control, and clear milestones to refine research questions, align methods and outcomes, and strengthen proposals for submission.
Develop strategies for turning research into fundable grant proposals.
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Fri, Feb 20
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12:00 p.m.
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Becoming Skeptical: Working Through a Cynical Mindset
Dr. Craig Meyer, Department of English and Modern Languages
Join colleagues in examining how cynicism, skepticism, and inquiry shape academic conversations. Explore strategies to ask better questions, engage thoughtfully with complex ideas, and move toward evidence-based, solution-oriented thinking. Reflect on practical approaches that support productive dialogue in teaching and in professional contexts.
Build skills for asking better questions, engaging thoughtfully, and supporting productive dialogue.
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Fri, Mar 20
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12:00 p.m.
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Open Spaces in Practice: Faculty Reflections on Student Co-Creation
Dr. Sharon Simmons, Department of Accounting, Finance, and Entrepreneurship
Join colleagues to revisit syllabus spaces through faculty experience and reflection. Hear how instructors implemented open spaces in their courses, what students created, and how these practices shaped engagement and learning. Consider practical takeaways you can adapt to your own teaching context.
See how open syllabus spaces worked in practice across different courses and contexts.
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Thurs, Mar 26
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11:00 a.m.
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What We Learned: Faculty Voices on Trauma-Informed Teaching and Student Engagement
Dr. Amirah Nelson, Department of Counseling, Rehabilitation, and Psychometric Services
Join colleagues in reflecting on what faculty learned after a semester of applying trauma-informed teaching practices. Building on the Teaching with Care workshop, consider what worked, what surprised instructors, and how small, intentional shifts influenced student engagement and classroom practice.
Apply faculty-tested, trauma-informed strategies to support engagement and learning.
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Fri, Mar 27
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11:00 a.m.
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Integrating AI Into Faculty Instruction: Teaching Smarter, Not Harder
Dr. La’Keshia Opara-Nadi, Department of Elementary and Early Childhood Education
Join colleagues in exploring practical ways to integrate AI into everyday teaching workflows. Consider how AI can support lesson planning, assignment design, feedback, and instructional decision-making to streamline preparation and support student learning.
Integrate AI into instructional workflows to teach more efficiently and intentionally.
AI in Teaching & Learning
Faculty are engaging with generative AI at many different stages—from early exploration to applied classroom use. The AI in Teaching & Learning series is designed to support this range by meeting faculty where they are and moving forward together. Through hands-on sessions, shared experimentation, case studies, and open discussion, participants explore how generative AI can support teaching, learning, and professional practice.
Across foundational and applied sessions, faculty build confidence with AI tools, examine ethical considerations, and test practical classroom strategies. This collaborative approach emphasizes learning alongside peers, sharing what works (and what doesn’t), and ensuring that no one is left behind as we adapt to a rapidly changing landscape. Together, we strengthen our collective capacity to engage thoughtfully and responsibly with AI in higher education.
Building confidence with AI through shared learning, practical experimentation, and open dialogue.
New Faculty Mentoring Program
Our mentoring program is a cornerstone of faculty support at JSU. We connect new tenure-track faculty with experienced mentors who provide guidance on teaching, research, and professional growth. This fall, structured mentoring sessions will bring new faculty together for shared learning and community building, while one-on-one meetings with mentors help each faculty member design a comprehensive career plan. Together, these efforts provide the support needed to navigate the tenure process with confidence and to thrive in long-term academic careers.
Career-Building Workshops
The Mentoring Program supports first- and second-year tenure-track faculty, while also welcoming all faculty interested in strengthening their career trajectory. These sessions provide guidance, tools, and a supportive community to help you succeed at JSU and beyond.
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Wed, Sept 17
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3:00 p.m.
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Creating Your Tenure Roadmap
This session helps you translate broad goals into a concrete plan for the next three to five years. You will learn how to set milestones for teaching, research, and service that align with JSU’s tenure expectations, identify resources to support your progress, and anticipate potential challenges. Participants will leave with a personalized draft roadmap and strategies for revisiting and adjusting it as their career evolves.
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Wed, Oct 15
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3:00 p.m.
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Building a Research Pipeline and Protecting Time for It
A strong research portfolio depends on managing multiple projects in different stages. In this workshop, you will learn how to move from single papers to a long-term pipeline that supports publication, funding, and impact. We will cover practical strategies for blocking time, setting writing routines, and saying “no” strategically so that your scholarship continues to grow even during busy teaching semesters.
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Wed, Nov 12
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3:00 p.m.
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Collaborative Research at JSU: Finding Partners and Projects
Collaboration leads to more sustainable scholarship. This session introduces low-pressure, high-impact ways to connect with potential research partners across JSU. Participants will explore how to talk about their work in ways that invite collaboration, learn from real examples of successful partnerships, and receive practical tools to map their networks and reach out with confidence. Whether you’re seeking co-authors, project allies, or simply fresh ideas, this session will help you take the next step.
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Wed, Dec 10
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3:00 p.m.
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Balancing Service, Teaching, and Research Without Losing Focus
Service is essential but can easily take over your calendar. This workshop explores strategies for setting boundaries, aligning service commitments with your career plan, and keeping your research and teaching on track. Participants will learn how to evaluate requests, make intentional choices, and maintain balance among the three core areas of faculty work without burning out.
How to Participate
- Attend individual AI sessions (open to all faculty).
- Join cohort-based opportunities as available (Spring–Summer program participants).
- Use shared AI teaching resources and examples to support course design and instruction.
Foundational Gen AI in Teaching & Learning
Introductory sessions focused on core concepts, ethical use, and early classroom applications of generative AI.
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Fri, Jan 30
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11:00 a.m.
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Beyond “Don’t Cheat”: Building AI Policies That Actually Work
You know you need a syllabus statement about AI. But what should it actually say—and why? This session moves beyond boilerplate to help you think through the ethical stakes of generative AI, craft policies that reflect your values, and prepare for the conversations you’ll need to have with students. We’ll use practical frameworks to help you decide where AI fits (or doesn’t) in your course, and you’ll leave with draft language you can actually use.
Don’t start with what’s allowed. Start with what matters.
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Wed, Feb 11
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3:00 p.m.
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When AI Can Do the Assignment: Designing for Learning That Still Matters
If your first thought about generative AI is “how do I stop students from cheating,” you’re not alone—and you’re not wrong to worry. But detection is a losing game, and it keeps us focused on policing instead of teaching. This session offers a different path: assignment designs that make AI a starting point for critical thinking rather than a shortcut around it. Designed for faculty in fields where students produce written or coded work, with hands-on examples you can adapt.
You can’t out-detect AI. You can out-design it.
Applied & Discipline-Specific AI
Hands-on sessions highlighting case studies and discipline-specific examples of AI use to support teaching and learning.
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Wed, Mar 18
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3:00 p.m.
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Beyond Productivity: AI for the Reflective Teacher-Scholar
AI can automate. But can it help you understand your teaching better? Between grading, prep, and everything else, the teaching practices that matter most—reflection, inquiry, sustainable assessment—often get squeezed out. This session explores how AI can help you reclaim that space. We’ll work on designing assessment systems that inform without exhausting you, using AI to find patterns in student learning, building reflective routines that fit your life, and making real progress on SoTL projects. This isn’t about doing more. It’s about doing what matters.
The real opportunity isn’t saving time. It’s seeing clearly.
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Fri, Apr 17
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11:00 a.m.
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AI in the Wild: How Your Discipline Is Already Changing
Before we can teach effectively about AI, we need to understand how it’s actually being used in professional practice. This hands-on session turns outward, examining how AI is reshaping work in fields from healthcare to journalism to software development to the humanities. You’ll learn how to investigate your own discipline’s AI landscape, discuss implications with colleagues in related fields, and consider what competencies your students will need that you might not currently be teaching.
Your students will graduate into a field that’s already using AI. Do you know how?
AI Teaching Excellence Program
Applications open Jan. 12, 2026!
A limited spring–summer initiative will support up to 20 faculty in earning external AI teaching credentials from nationally recognized programs including EDUCAUSE, ISTE, Google, and Microsoft. Participants will develop practical skills for integrating AI into their courses ethically and effectively, build portfolios for professional advancement, and apply what they learn immediately in the classroom.
From this cohort, 10 faculty will be selected as AI Tigers—peer mentors who will lead a Summer Coaching Institute and support colleagues across JSU’s five colleges in transforming their own courses.
Interested? Complete the interest form to receive application details when they’re available.
AI Resources for Faculty
Selected tools, guides, and examples to support ethical and practical AI use in teaching.
Resource Categories
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- Getting Started with AI in Teaching
- AI Literacy Frameworks
- Assignment Design & Academic Integrity
- Reports & Research
- Professional Credentials & Standards
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Faculty Travel Support
Faculty travel support is now handled directly through the Title III office. For inquiries, please contact Nicole Gholar-Harris at nicole.e.gholar-harris@jsums.edu.
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Are you interested in finding a mentor? Then complete our application for the 2025-2026 New Faculty Mentoring Program.
Faculty Development for Student Success
