Mellon Faculty Workshops

The Mellon Faculty Workshop provides strategies for faculty members to assist students in translating coursework to post-graduate pathways. Over the course of the workshop, faculty also look at ways to redevelop courses to better help students explore career pathways and other post-graduate opportunities by

• Making use of critical thinking, synthesizing diverse knowledge, and presenting concepts both in writing and speaking as learned in their humanities courses or major/minor
• Including departmental capstone courses with a focus on how to connect what they learned to a future path 
• Adding a “Career Trek” plan to visit sites in Atlanta or other U.S. cities where students can visit historic sites, places of cultural significance, and meet with successful professionals who have a background in the humanities.
• Including “Alumni Connections” designed to invite alumni with humanities training back to campus to discuss their own pathways and experience.
• In addition to the above, participants also heard presentations from  Career Services, Alumni Engagement, and Academic Technology.

The fifth and final  Syllabus Design Workshop took place during Fall 2024 in a hybrid format with in-person and Zoom sessions throughout the semester. In its final iteration, the workshop continued to provide strategies for faculty members to assist students in translating coursework to post-graduate pathways. Sarah Higginbotham, a past workshop participant and friend to the grant, spoke to the group about how the grant has inspired her to engage with both the alumni and student communities to bring them together for fruitful conversations about the myriad opportunities available to humanities graduates as they forge their unique pathways into the future. 

Dr. Donna Troka, the Director of Diversity and Inclusive Pedagogy from Emory’s Center for Faculty Development & Excellence, returned for a third time to lead the discussion surrounding Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion concerns in the classroom and beyond. She highlighted the importance of inclusive pedagogy and incorporating the habit of equity-mindedness in the classroom to promote better outcomes for students at Emory.

For our final workshop, we hosted the largest group of participants to date with 17 faculty members from both the Oxford and Atlanta campuses. We look forward to hearing about how the workshop has impacted their approaches to teaching their redesigned curriculum to better highlight the valuable skills inherent to a humanities education. 

The fourth Course Development and Syllabus Design Workshop took place during Fall 2022 in a hybrid format with in-person and Zoom sessions throughout the semester. Similar to past workshops, the sessions provide strategies for faculty members to assist students in translating coursework to post-graduate pathways. A special focus of this year’s offering was the profound social and economic challenges students will face in the aftermath of the pandemic. We also invited the Director of Diversity and Inclusive Pedagogy from Emory’s Center for Faculty Development & Excellence to lead a more in-depth discussion surrounding Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion concerns in the classroom and beyond. Dr. Donna Troka spoke to the group about the importance of inclusive pedagogy and incorporating the habit of equity-mindedness in the classroom to promote better outcomes for students at Emory.   

The third Mellon Faculty Workshop saw a return to an in-person meeting for our first session in August 2021. However, this current workshop is a hybrid offering which includes both in-person and Zoom sessions throughout the fall semester. Similar to past workshops, the nine participants from both the Atlanta and Oxford campuses will focus on strategies to augment or redevelop courses that will help students translate coursework to post-graduate pathways. In addition to the usual presentations from campus career centers and the alumni office, there was an added presentation about the value of our now virtual alumni panels.  The inspiration for virtual panels came from our quarantine experience learning how to connect virtually and our growing comfort with tools like Zoom to create a new and effective way to bring alumni and students together to share and learn about future career pathways. This third offering of the workshop also expanded our focus on issues of social justice with the addition of a presentation and group discussion on Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion by subject expert Erika V. Hall from the Goizueta Business School.