Book Groups

Facilitator: Alicia Fuss

Creative Acts for Curious People is a highly visual and interactive book that offers exercises designed to build curiosity, creativity, and confidence in the face of ambiguity. The book aligns with the realities of teaching in uncertain and complex environments. Exercises encourage observation, collaboration, and creative leadership, skills valuable to both educators and students.

Facilitator: Mark Abolins

Teaching with AI offers a balanced, practical approach to teaching and mentoring in the era of generative AI. The authors emphasize designing assignments that prioritize critical thinking, process, and originality, while reframing faculty roles toward coaching, feedback, metacognition, and AI literacy. Well suited to a cross-disciplinary audience, the book supports both AI-enthusiastic and AI-hesitant faculty.

Facilitator: Julie Myatt

Based on cutting-edge psychological research, 10 to 25: The Science of Motivating Young People, introduces the “mentor mindset,” a leadership approach attuned to young people’s needs for respect, status, and high expectations. The book provides concrete, research-based strategies for motivating students through validation, transparency, inquiry, and rigor. These practices have been shown to reduce stress, disengagement, and dropout.

Facilitator: Matthew Duncan

The Caring University explores how higher education institutions can intentionally foster a culture of care for students, faculty, and staff. It highlights practical strategies for building supportive relationships, promoting well-being, and creating inclusive environments where individuals feel valued and empowered to succeed.

This book group is targeted specifically to Department Chairs/School Directors.

Facilitators: Leah Tolbert Lyons and Rubie Ghazal

Cultivating Virtue in the University examines the role of colleges and universities in educating the character of students. It addresses questions such as should universities attempt to cultivate virtue, and how can they do so within a pluralistic context? It offers practical perspectives on what educating character could look like in a university, including its possibilities and limits. The book draws on insights from education, history, literature, philosophy, psychology, sociology, and theology.

This book group is open to all faculty/staff.