About CFI's May Symposium. The JMU Center for Faculty Innovation offers May Symposium annually to support the ongoing development of faculty as teachers, scholars and leaders. May Symposium compiles a variety of roundtables, speakers and workshops on various topics such as course design, teaching approaches, scholarship networks, faculty peer mentoring, faculty and student well-being and belonging, and more.

This exciting collaborative effort provides full-time faculty, part-time faculty, academic unit leaders, and CFI partners of all sorts with opportunities to focus on teaching, scholarship, career planning, service and leadership.

Register for Symposium

Register by Monday, May 18, at 12:00 p.m.

• 8:10 a.m. - Doors open (Union - Warren Ballroom)
• 8:15 - 11 a.m. - Check-in (Union - Warren Ballroom)
  • Pre-registration is recommended by Monday, May 1, at 12:00 p.m. Walk-ins are welcome.
• 8:15 - 8:50 a.m. - Breakfast

The following is a selection of sessions offered during May Symposium 2026. Check back for updates about more sessions!

Building a Network of Support: A Faculty Guide to Madison Cares

Faculty at JMU care deeply for the well-being of their students and want them to be successful, but what do you do when they are experiencing a family emergency, or have missed numerous classes, or they share mental health concerns with you? Join us for this workshop to practice how to respond to students when they share their struggles with you, to learn how to connect students to the appropriate resources and get a behind the scenes look at the university care referral program, Madison Cares.

Facilitated by Dominique Rodriguez and Fiona Summers (Dean of Students Office)

Evaluating Your Teaching and Your Students’ Learning

It's annual reporting season! Considering the amply documented limitations of Student Evaluation of Teaching (SET), faculty wonder how they can still report excellent (and satisfactory) teaching and learning. This workshop takes participants through a series of questions and activities to document their successes (and — see this year's keynote — failures), based on the resource guide developed by JMU's Provost's Committee on Evaluations of Teaching.

Facilitated by Andreas Broscheid (CFI and CAL)

From Numbers to Narratives: A Data Party on Student Belonging

In this collaborative data party, participants will dig into the institution's student belonging survey results, both the numbers and the stories behind them. Building on how student belonging is defined and measured, and what the data can and cannot tell us, we'll explore quantitative belonging data alongside qualitative student responses, uncovering patterns and themes that lead to practical strategies for fostering student connection and inclusion. No statistics background is required.

Facilitated by Paul Mabrey (Student Academic Success, CAL), Sara Finney (CARS, CHBS), Sarah Blackstone (PAIR), Megan Good (CARS, CHBS), and Chris Orem (PAIR)

Cases of Evidence-based Design for Project and Problem-based Learning

This roundtable session will explore how project- and problem-based learning (PBL) can be designed to support authentic, process-oriented learning and assessment. Drawing on current teaching scholarship across different disciplines, the facilitators will highlight evidence-based design to approach PBL with key components, including alignment with learning objectives, structure, and length of PBL, individual and group activities, and process-oriented assessment. Participants will engage in examples and guided activities to translate their ideas into learning designs.

Facilitated by Abiodun Stephen Ijeluola, Zhenhuan Henry Yang, Juhong Christie Liu (JMU Libraries)

The Cost of Silence: Leadership and Workplace Bullying

This interactive workshop examines how leadership shapes the experience and meaning of workplace bullying through behaviors that function as organizational signals, either reinforcing or disrupting harmful dynamics. Participants will engage in guided reflection and small-group discussion to explore how silence, response, and accountability show up in their own contexts. The workshop invites attendees to consider practical ways to foster cultures where concerns are addressed and psychological safety is strengthened.

Facilitated by Wendy Kinyeki (Counseling Center)

Democracy, Discourse, and the Classroom: Course Development in the College of Arts and Letters

In this roundtable, faculty from History (Jones), Communication Studies (Busmek), and Political Science (Goldberg) discuss innovative approaches to teaching civic life and democratic participation. Panelists will share how new courses—on the Vietnam War, communication and civic engagement, and free speech in higher education—equip students with both historical knowledge and practical democratic skills. A recurring theme is the challenge of making civic questions feel urgent and personally relevant to students.

Facilitated by Becky Childs, Pete Bsumek, Abe Goldberg, and Jonathan Jones (CAL)

Designing with Care: Course Design Principles from Trauma Informed and Feminist Pedagogies

Students in higher education are navigating mental health and financial hardships, lack of social connectedness, and uncertainty about the future. Changing demands and finite resources make teaching and learning a challenge for both these students and their instructors. This workshop introduces and explores key tenets of trauma-informed and feminist pedagogy, ending with proactive course design principles rooted in flexibility and care. Support and care are not simply a response to an individual's need, but a prerequisite to our collective success.

Facilitated by Katherine (Katie) Walters (COE)

Snafu Edu: Normalizing Educators' Setbacks, Struggles, and Professional Faceplants

In this presentation, Jessamyn Neuhaus examines the myths and misconceptions that contribute to the popular and the scholarly discourse depicting teaching as a perfectible activity. She shows why we urgently need to normalize the ongoing challenges of effective teaching, including the ways that things can routinely go wrong in the college classroom. While evidence-based course design and teaching practices can reduce the odds of snafus, in the context of inequities, disconnection, distrust, failure, and fear in higher education, struggles and setbacks are "situation normal" for teaching and learning. Neuhaus argues that one specific, proven way we can normalize mistakes as both individuals as well as institutions is by talking more about teaching. Building and strengthening our pedagogical communities of practice, including improving and diversifying our methods for evaluating teaching efficacy, is a sure-fire way to begin normalizing educators' setbacks, struggles, and snafus.

STIR (Stop, Think, Identify, and Repair) Strategies When Things Go Wrong in Teaching and Learning

In this workshop, Jessamyn Neuhaus will give an overview of the six repair strategies for many widespread, commonly experienced missteps, mistakes, and muddles detailed in her book Snafu Edu: Teaching and Learning When Things Go Wrong in the College Classroom. Workshop participants will then engage in reflection, discussion, and individual planning to identify their own recurring teaching and learning situations in need of a STIR, brainstorm ways to implement a STIR repair strategy, and set a specific goal for classroom use.

Facilitated by Jessamyn Neuhaus (Syracuse University)

Summer! And What Has Just Happened? Reflecting on this Year’s Experience and Preparing for What’s Next

This interactive un-workshop session provides opportunity and structure for participants to reflect on the past academic year (including May Symposium) and to engage in conversations about what we have learned (or not) and what we would want to come next. Interactions will be based on Liberating Structures but are also open to where participants want to take the session.

Facilitated by Andreas Broscheid (CFI and CAL)