Faculty Development

Social Justice Workshops

“Building an Intentional Culture of Social Justice: Increasing Understanding and Competence in the Curriculum” is a three-year faculty development project to assist full-time faculty to reinforce the concept and reality of social justice in classroom instruction. The project is based on the belief that UIW best fulfills its education ministry of the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word by providing a next generation of dedicated UIW students with ideas and skills necessary for transforming the world. Catholic Social Teaching is understood to be foundational to the goal of educating concerned and enlightened citizens who will address the needs of the modern world and the empowerment of all peoples. Further, as educators, we believe that energizing students to engage in social and political action addressing poverty, violence, and ecological degradation, requires an intellectual understanding of social justice built on human dignity, solidarity with the poor, and respect for all of creation.

Ethics Across the Curriculum

“Ethics Across the Curriculum: Focus on Ethical Decision-Making” is a three-year faculty development project to assist full-time faculty to develop their skills in presenting strategies and techniques for helping students to become better decision-makers in ethical matters. Our project is based on the belief that UIW will best fulfill its education ministry by providing students with ethical awareness and skills necessary for serving society as concerned and enlightened citizens. The Strategic Planning Goals for the undergraduate educational experience includes an objective to increase the ethical decision-making skills of undergraduate students. The need for faculty development in this area was reinforced by a review of course descriptions which were found to lack references to “ethical decision-making.”

This faculty development project aims to equip full-time faculty with the resources and teaching techniques that will enable them to develop and implement an ethical decision-making component in appropriate courses. The intent is to use Christian ethics as the basic theoretical framework while acknowledging parallels in other faith traditions. Faculty will use this framework and a common ethical decision-making model to explore how to respond to the challenges facing professionals in such areas as business, education, and health care. This approach will enable students to be as self-conscious about ethical decision-making as they are about the need to develop in other professional skills areas.