CAST election- vote by 11-27, 1 PM

Vote for two CAST co-coordinators by Tuesday 11-27, 1 PM

Here are brief introductions by the three candidates.

John Hader

I have been interested in faculty development since I was in the first Community College Teaching and Learning (CCLT) cohort at Loyola University. I taught in the CCLT program too. Later, I helped John M. with launching FLINT, a faculty development program based at Roosevelt University, and I taught the inaugural FLINT course along with other courses in curriculum and design. Additionally, I created Step One: Community College Teaching and Learning for folks over fifty who wanted to learn to teach in a community college. I have a Ph.D. in Higher Education, and I like this stuff to be fun.

Gitte Maronde

Hello, I am Gitte Maronde  from the ELL/WL department.  After attending CAST meetings for years, I was elected last year to be CAST coordinator together with Chris Sabino.  We had a great year working together. We continuously tried to find ways to inspire our faculty to engage in dialogue, skill building and professional development.  We changed meetings to structured and themed “sessions” ;  we organized  PD events such as the Research Symposium and Tech Day,  Faculty Development Week, Innovative Teaching Week,  or the Blackboard Conference.  In addition, we held numerous workshops and discussion sessions, and I created a simple CAST website that allows faculty to share resources and teaching tips.  I believe we provided quality programming, yet participation was rather low.  Now, Chris is retiring, but my to-do list is still long as I have many more ideas for CAST.  I dream to burst the cast of faculty isolation and build a culture of faculty idea exchange and active engagement.  I hope to encourage more faculty development at the departmental   level , and I hope  to lead a CAST that delivers innovative programming for  faculty in various career stages.  In addition to addressing a wide range of faculty needs, I hope to improve professional development opportunities  for adjuncts.  I have always known that good teaching involves constant learning and change, so if elected, I will work hard to inspire some of you, my colleagues, to tackle the big questions of how to best reach and teach our students.  Any questions, Realist?

Megan Ritt

Hi! I’m Megan, and I’ve been teaching in the English department for 3.5 years now. I want to be CAST Coordinator because CAST was my very first committee at HWC. From the beginning, I have been fascinated by all the different opportunities we have for faculty development and interaction at our college, and I was (and still am!) impressed by the variety of activities and topics explored by CAST. When I was a new full-time faculty member, I found CAST’s resources and events incredibly helpful. I have enjoyed getting more involved over the past year and helping with CAST events. Now I would like to contribute back to this committee which has so informed my pedagogy as well as my interactions with colleagues. (I also really, genuinely like organizing things—  events, discussions, even just my desk. It’s kind of sick, I realize, but I would enjoy that part of the position quite a bit). Thanks for your time!