MCC Daily Tribune

Faculty Senate Professional Development Week - 2026

The Faculty Senate’s Professional Development Committee warmly invites you to join us for our annual Professional Development Days, happening Monday, June 1, through Thursday, June 4.

This is your opportunity to recharge, reconnect, and grow alongside your colleagues in four days filled with inspiration, learning, and community. Please see the attached schedule of activities.

Come to one, a few, or all twenty-two sessions! In addition, enjoy a Mindful Tools for Modern Life Poster Gallery throughout all four days. Attend as your schedule allows and make the most of this enriching week.

We can’t wait to see you there!

Dates: Monday, June 1st through Thursday, June 4th
Location: Forum, building 3, Room 3-130, and other locations as noted

Monday, June 1, 2026

9 AM: Faculty Senate in Action: How It Works and Why Your Voice Matters (Julie Babulski and members of the Executive Committee) – Join the Faculty Senate Executive Committee for an engaging session that explores how Senate functions within shared governance and why your voice matters in that process. We’ll walk through key roles, protocols, and committee structures, while also highlighting opportunities to get involved. Whether you're looking to better understand Senate or take a more active role, this session will help you see where your voice can make an impact.
10 AM: HIPs Recognition Ceremony (Christina Lee, Meghan Glaser, Kathleen Borbee, Lydia Tien, Amy Burtner, and Kelsey Bright) – MCC's High-Impact Practices (HIPs) Committee and Department of Academic and Student Affairs will discuss the role and value of HIPs at MCC and honor all MCC faculty who teach any CL, GL, LC, SV, UR, or WR course. Please join us to learn more about High-Impact Practices and to celebrate the important work our colleagues are doing to heighten student engagement through their pedagogies. Refreshments will be served.
11 AM: What’s the Dealio with Helio? (Marybeth Donnelly) – MCC is implementing a new software system for academic assessment called HelioCampus. Please come to this session for an overview of what HelioCampus is and how it will support assessment, as well as a show-and-tell demonstration of the progress of the implementation. We will also discuss plans for onboarding faculty and programs to the platform. This session is for anyone at the College interested in academic assessment or new technology platforms. Bring your questions, as there will be plenty of time for Q&A!
1 PM: Our Global Campus: Recognizing and Supporting “International” Students at MCC (Carly O’Keefe) – Global Education & International Services (GEIS) office staff will offer information and invite discussion surrounding:
- The different student populations we serve – who are our “international” students at MCC? Visa students, immigrant/refugee students, and more.
- Understanding English language proficiency
- Cultural considerations for better communication
- Student support opportunities for faculty/staff
2 PM: What Can the Honors Institute Do for You? (Joe Scanlon) – The Honors Institute is a vital component of MCC’s commitment to student success. While participation in Honors begins with academic eligibility, the Institute’s mission is to be inclusive of all MCC students. If a student does not meet the GPA requirements for Honors, it does not mean they cannot explore Honors Institute opportunities at MCC. This session introduces the Honors Institute, its programs, and the enrollment processes before turning to how Honors can enhance your classes, departments, or areas, such as adding an Honors option to existing classes or creating a pathway to an Honors Advanced Studies Certificate within a specific degree program. By the end, attendees will be familiar with the Honors Institute and its benefits for teaching and learning at MCC.
3 PM: What did I do differently? An exploration of increased student engagement and retention in an online late start class (Rebecca Horwitz) – Same textbook. Same resources. Same course structure and same high expectations of students. How come the student success rate more than doubled this year? This session explores how adding targeted Brightspace reminders may have positively impacted student experience and outcomes. Attendees are asked to bring their laptops; we have additional laptops from the Library that will be available for use for those who request them.

Tuesday, June 2, 2026

9 AM: Navigating the Hidden Curriculum: Strategies for First-Gen Student Success (Alex Hopkins-Ives) – First-generation students, or students whose parents/guardians did not complete a college degree, face unique hurdles in the college environment. Without the social capital and guidance of a close relation who has successfully navigated a college degree, first-gen students can often struggle to navigate the “hidden curriculum,” the unwritten, unofficial, and often unintended lessons, rules, values and expectations of the college experience. The gap can be even harder to bridge if students are challenged intersectionally, coming from diverse backgrounds, entering college as a non-traditional student, or overcoming issues of accessibility and opportunity. In this session, we will discuss: the nature and history of the hidden curriculum and how it contributes to systemic inequality; real-life strategies and tools for overcoming the hidden curriculum in the lives of first-gen students; and opportunities for structurally erasing the hidden curriculum through program and policy design.
10 AM: Leading with Care: Integrating Leadership Development and Trauma-Informed Practices in Community Colleges (Chloe Allen) – Community colleges serve diverse student populations whose academic journeys are often shaped by complex life experiences. This session explores how leadership development and trauma-informed care can work hand-in-hand to create more supportive, empowering campus environments. Attendees will gain insights into how to cultivate environments where students feel empowered, supported, and capable of emerging as leaders. This session explores how leadership development programming and trauma-informed care can be intentionally woven together to strengthen student engagement, belonging, and long-term success. This presentation highlights how intentional leadership training and trauma-informed approaches can strengthen student success and enhance staff-student relationships. Participants will leave with adaptable tools and frameworks to implement within their own institutions.
11 AM: Admissions 101 at MCC: Campus Collaboration for Enrollment Success (Thomas Iwankow) – Admissions 101 at MCC is an interactive session designed to strengthen campus‑wide understanding of student recruitment and enrollment practices. This presentation highlights the critical role of campus collaboration in attracting, engaging, and enrolling new students while emphasizing how faculty and staff interactions directly influence enrollment decisions. Participants will explore current trends shaping student recruitment, including changing student expectations, enrollment behaviors, and communication preferences. The session will also provide an overview of MCC’s 2026–2027 New Student Recruitment Plan, outlining key goals, strategies, and opportunities for cross‑departmental involvement. Attendees will leave with practical strategies to support recruitment efforts, reinforce consistent messaging, and contribute to MCC’s shared responsibility for enrollment growth and student success.
1 PM: Developing Students’ Literacies: Evidence into Action (Carlo Atene & Meghan Glaser) – As an open-access institution, MCC serves students with a wide range of academic preparation, particularly in STEM, the humanities, and the social sciences. Post‑COVID data show that many students are struggling to meet the increasing literacy demands of college-level coursework. This presentation highlights some of the literacy pathways students have traveled prior to their first day in a college classroom and considers how these pathways influence their ability to read, write, think critically, communicate, and solve problems within disciplinary contexts. Drawing from research, we explore the implications of these challenges for teaching and learning. Participants will be introduced to evidence-based strategies designed to help faculty intentionally “apprentice” students into the disciplinary ways of thinking, reading, writing, and communicating effectively within their specific fields.
2 PM: Curriculum Proposals 101 (Jen Kinslow and Mike Wagner) – MCC’s Curriculum Proposal database is an electronic system for the development, submission, review, and approval of curriculum proposals. This workshop introduces the curriculum database to faculty who need a review or anticipate submitting curriculum proposals for the first time, as well as professional staff who support academic processes. The database brings together key elements of curriculum design— program/course descriptions, program distribution requirements, prerequisite considerations, learning outcomes, supporting documentation, and SUNY General Education requirements. During the presentation, we will walk through the submission process, highlight features that promote accuracy and consistency, and demonstrate how faculty and staff can use the database to provide meaningful feedback and support high‑quality curriculum development. The workshop will also include an overview of the curriculum proposal process and timeline.
3 PM: Changes to Financial Aid over the past 3 years (Jeffrey Ferrara) – This session will inform faculty and staff on major changes that have occurred in Financial Aid over the past three years, including the FAFSA Simplification Act need based calculations changes, Expansion of Part Time TAP, SUNY ReConnect, and Loan Reduction for Part Time students due to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Session should be 60 minutes.

Wednesday, June 3, 2026

9 AM to 11 AM: Survey Results: Student Learning Needs (Eric Berg and Judi Salsburg Taylor) – The Transitional Studies Department served about a third of MCC’s students. Many changes at the college in the past several years, including the dissolution of the ESOL/Transitional Studies Department, have shifted the focus of developmental education to a cross-disciplinary approach. The Developmental Education Council, consisting of faculty across multiple fields of study, has set about trying to determine what students’ needs are and how we might, as a community, serve those in need of additional support. In Spring 2026, the Council administered a survey in pertinent first-year courses. This session will share our findings and recommendations.
11 AM: "The Opposite of Cheating" Conversation with David Rettinger (Author David Rettinger and the Virtual Campus Team) – Join David Rettinger, coauthor of The Opposite of Cheating: Teaching for Integrity in the Age of AI, for an open Zoom conversation focused on rethinking academic integrity in a rapidly evolving educational landscape. Drawing on themes from the book, this session will be driven by the text and questions the community has for David Rettinger. At its core, the book explores how integrity can be taught as a core educational value rather than enforced solely through rules and sanctions. Other topics of interest include the impact of generative AI on learning and assessment, designing assignments that promote authentic engagement, and fostering shared responsibility for ethical academic practices. Rather than a formal presentation, this event is structured as a guided conversation shaped by questions and talking points from the book that emerge from our community. Participants are invited to contribute ideas, concerns, and experiences, creating a collaborative dialogue between the author and attendees about teaching, learning, and integrity in the age of AI.
1 PM: Teach About Climate Change in Your Class with En‑ROADS (Jason Szymanski) – Want to include modern climate change in your curriculum but don’t know where to start? Climate change is happening now, and our students need to be informed decision makers. This workshop introduces En‑ROADS, a free, web-based interactive climate modeling tool. Through hands‑on exploration, participants will see how the simulator can support multidisciplinary course content, including (but not limited to) data analysis, policy debates, literature, history, ethics, economics, and systems thinking. Participants will leave with concrete ideas for integrating En-ROADS into existing courses.
2 PM: Creating Accessible PDFs Containing Math using Overleaf (LaTeX) (Paul Seeburger) -Considering the ADA compliance requirements we had for this April (and now will have by April 2027), I've experimented with a number of approaches to creating accessible documents for my online courses. Posting Word documents is one option, but when students open these in a Word viewer, there are often problems with the layout, and sometimes the mathematics is displayed on top of the other text in the paragraph. I was not satisfied with this solution, so I experimented with various ways to generate PDFs that a screen reader can successfully read, including the mathematical content.
In December, I learned about a method to use Overleaf and LaTeX to generate a PDF/UA-2 that contains MathML for the mathematical elements and can be validated as accessible with the selected profile: PDF/UA-2 and ISO 32005. In addition, this webpage offers the basic outline (although I figured out most of this first from another website and with help from AI).
I want to share the basics of how anyone can use Overleaf to generate accessible PDFs containing math using the template I have generated and following the recommendations on this webpage. I have to admit that I still often need AI to help me generate the appropriate structures for new types of things in my documents, but I keep improving the template to make it better and then re-use it as I move forward.
I also must admit that I needed to move from the free version to the paid version to be able to compile my more complex sets of guided notes that contained multiple figures, with three of them in a row.
One incredibly nice feature of this approach is that the resulting PDFs look professional and are easy to edit and recompile. This is so much better than my previous method, which involved a long post-processing step after exporting the document from Word to PDF.
3 PM in Building 11 Room 111 (New GIST Lab): Mappy Hour: Landforms as Art (Heather Pierce and Kym Ryniec) - Get a sneak-peek of the new Geospatial Information Science & Technology (GIST) lab and try your hand at digital cartography using the QGIS software. We will be exploring bare earth topography and using LiDAR-derived elevation data to create colorful displays of the Genesee River. You will have an opportunity to turn your work into custom wallpapers that can be displayed on your phone or computer desktop.

Thursday, June 4, 2026

9 AM: Centering Voices: A Structured Focus Group on Recruiting and Retaining Diverse Faculty and Staff at MCC (Kimberly DeLardge & IDEA Council Recruitment and Retention Committee) – Monroe Community College has articulated a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion—but how do those commitments translate into real experiences for faculty and staff? The Recruitment and Retention Committee of the IDEA (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accountability) Council is convening a structured focus group to gather targeted, actionable feedback on the recruitment and retention of diverse employees.
This session will be guided by a set of intentional, research-informed questions designed to explore hiring practices, workplace climate, sense of belonging, and institutional barriers. Participants will engage in a facilitated discussion to share experiences and perspectives in a focused and purposeful way.
This will not be a passive discussion. Data collected will directly inform committee recommendations and help shape strategies to strengthen MCC’s ability to attract, support, and retain a diverse workforce.
10 AM: Digital Content Accessibility and Title II Updates (Jamie Hoover) -This session will include updates on the Title II deadline, the progress of the Title II Steering Committee, an assessment of MCC’s accessibility preparedness, a new tool available to all faculty and staff to help with content assessment and remediation, and the impact of all of these developments on our daily work.
11 AM: Responding to Student Disclosures of Violence (Michelle Carroll) - During this workshop, attendees will familiarize themselves with MCC’s policies and resources related to violence, identify behavioral and academic indicators of trauma, and most importantly, outline a trauma-informed response to a student disclosing violence.
1 PM: Supporting Transitioning and Returning Service Members (STARS): Military Culture (Eric Wheeler) - It is important for people working with veteran students to understand the types of experiences military students have had. Without having served firsthand, civilians will never fully comprehend this experience, but this workshop provides an introduction to help those who work with military students begin to develop an understanding of military culture. This session focused on what happens the day someone enlists, attends boot camp and training, and receives his or her first set of orders. This session also provides information regarding military values, expectations for behavior in the military, military command, and the reasons many people join the military, among other topics.

June 1st through June 4th in the Forum: Mindful Tools for Modern Life Poster Gallery (Terry Shamblin and Renee Dimino) – As you participate in Professional Development Week with sessions in the Forum, we invite you to take a self-guided tour through the Mindful Tools for Modern Life Poster Gallery. Take a few minutes to explore strategies that may echo current practice, offer a new perspective, or resonate in meaningful ways. Journals, featuring all the posters and an annotated table of contents with discussion or writing prompts, are available while supplies last.

All Week/Dates Below: One-on-One HIPs Mentoring (Located in Building 9, Room 134) – Any faculty looking for support with any CL (Collaborative Learning), GL (Global Learning), LC (Learning Communities), SV (Service Learning), UR (Undergraduate Research), or WR (Writing Intensive) course is encouraged to sign up for a 20-minute one-on-one mentoring session (in-person or via Zoom) with dedicated colleagues in that pedagogy. Please email Maria Brandt (mbrandt@monroecc.edu) before Friday, May 29, to reserve your 20-minute session according to the following schedule:

Monday, June 1, 2026 - 11 AM to 12 PM: WR (Writing Intensive) with Amy Burtner
Tuesday, June 2, 2026 - 10 AM to 12 PM: GL (Global Learning) with Christina Lee
Tuesday, June 2, 2026 - 10 AM to 12 PM: LC (Learning Communities) with Meghan Glaser
Wednesday, June 3, 2026 - 10 AM to 12 PM: SV (Service Learning) with Kathleen Borbee
Thursday, June 4, 2026 - 10 AM to 12 PM: UR (Undergraduate Research) with Ben Schermerhorn and Alice Wilson
Thursday, June 4, 2026 - 10 AM to 12 PM: CL (Collaborative Learning) with Lydian Tien

Eric Wheeler
Faculty Senate Professional Development Committee
05/14/2026