Fall Faculty Book Club

Since 2007, the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Faculty Development has hosted an annual Fall Faculty Book Club. This initiative brings together a small cohort of faculty to read and discuss a carefully selected book focused on teaching, learning, and higher education pedagogy. The book club meets once a month from September through November, reading part of the book before each meeting to focus the discussion.

• Format: Small group discussions (maximum 10 participants)
• Commitment: Participants must attend all scheduled meetings (typically 2-3 sessions per semester)
• Meeting times: Evening sessions, usually 5:00-6:30 pm on Monday evenings
• Resources provided: Books are delivered to participants at no cost

The book club has a strong track record of selecting timely, research-based texts that address contemporary challenges in higher education, including inclusive teaching, digital literacy, student learning strategies, and social justice in academia. Past selections show a consistent focus on evidence-based teaching practices and creating more equitable educational experiences.

2026

Distracted: Why Students Can't Focus and What You Can Do About It by James M. Lang

19th Annual. Although the book was written before the COVID-19 pandemic caused much of the world to go into lockdown, it's focus on the challenges students struggle with in the traditional classroom are more relevant than ever.

Themes: Classroom management · Student engagement · Self-regulated Learning
Sessions: 3

2025

The Opposite of Cheating: Teaching for Integrity in the Age of AI by Tricia Bertram Gallant and David A. Rettinger

18th Annual

2024

A Pedagogy of Kindness by Catherine J. Denial

17th Annual · 2 sessions

2023

Inclusive Teaching: Strategies for Promoting Equity in the College Classroom by Kelly A. Hogan & Viji Sathy

16th Annual · 3 sessions

2022

Teach Students How to Learn: Strategies You Can Incorporate Into Any Course to Improve Student Metacognition, Study Skills, and Motivation by Saundra Yancy McGuire

15th Annual · 3 sessions

2021

Skim, Dive, Surface: Teaching Digital Reading by Jenae Cohn

14th Annual · 3 sessions

2019

Lives on the Boundary: A Moving Account of the Struggles and Achievements of America's Educationally Underprepared by Mike Rose

13th Annual

2018

Backlash: What Happens When We Talk Honestly about Racism in America by George Yancy

12th Annual

2017

The Slow Professor: Challenging the Culture of Speed in the Academy by Maggie Berg and Barbara Seeber

11th Annual

2016

Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning by James M. Lang

10th Annual

2015

How Learning Works: Seven Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching by Susan A. Ambrose, Michael W. Bridges, Michele DiPietro, Marsha C. Lovett, and Marie K. Norman

9th Annual

2014

Earth in Mind: On Education, Environment, and the Human Prospect by David W. Orr

Co-sponsored with Read Today, Lead Tomorrow: Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain by Maryanne Wolf

8th Annual

2013

Sentipensante (Sensing/Thinking) Pedagogy: Educating for Wholeness, Social Justice and Liberation by Laura I. Rendón

7th Annual

2012

What the Best College Students Do by Ken Bain

6th Annual

2011

How Black Colleges Empower Black Students: Lessons for Higher Education by Frank W. Hale Jr.

5th Annual

2010

The Heart of Higher Education: A Call to Renewal by Parker J. Palmer and Arthur Zajonc

4th Annual

2009

The Skillful Teacher: On Technique, Trust, and Responsiveness in the Classroom by Stephen D. Brookfield

3rd Annual

2008

A Will to Learn: Being a Student in an Age of Uncertainty by Ronald Barnett

2nd Annual

2007

What the Best College Teachers Do by Ken Bain

1st Annual

2025

The Opposite of Cheating: Teaching for Integrity in the Age of AI by Tricia Bertram Gallant and David A. Rettinger

2024

A Pedagogy of Kindness by Catherine J. Denial

The Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Faculty Development is pleased to announce its 17th Annual Fall Faculty Book Club. This fall we will be reading A Pedagogy of Kindness by Catherin J. Denial.

Here is a description of the book from the publisher:

Academia is not, by and large, a kind place. Individualism and competition are what count. But without kindness at its core, Catherine Denial suggests, higher education fails students and instructors—and its mission—in critical ways.

Part manifesto, part teaching memoir, part how-to guide, A Pedagogy of Kindness urges higher education to get aggressive about instituting kindness, which Denial distinguishes from niceness. Having suffered beneath the weight of just “getting along,” instructors need to shift every part of what they do to prioritizing care and compassion—for students as well as for themselves.

A Pedagogy of Kindness articulates a fresh vision for teaching, one that focuses on ensuring justice, believing people, and believing in people. Offering evidence-based insights and drawing from her own rich experiences as a professor, Denial offers practical tips for reshaping syllabi, assessing student performance, and creating trust and belonging in the classroom. Her suggestions for concrete, scalable actions outline nothing less than a transformational discipline—one in which, together, we create bright new spaces, rooted in compassion, in which all engaged in teaching and learning might thrive.

The Fall Faculty Book Club will meet two times this semester, so please only request a space if you are committed to attending both of the following meetings:

1. Monday, October 14, 5:00-6:30 pm
2. Monday, November 18, 5:00-6:30 pm

If you are interested, please contact CAT+FD. We will accept the first 10 people who respond, and will deliver the books as soon as possible.

We look forward to reading with you and learning with you!

2023

The Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Faculty Development is pleased to announce its 16th Annual Fall Faculty Book Club. This fall we will be reading Teaching Strategies for Promoting Equity in the College Classroom by Kelly A. Hogan & Viji Sathy.

Here is a description of the book from the publisher:

In a book written by and for college teachers, Kelly Hogan and Viji Sathy provide tips and advice on how to make all students feel welcome and included. They begin with a framework describing why explicit attention to structure enhances inclusiveness in both course design and interactions with and between students. Inclusive Teaching then provides practical ways to include more voices in a series of contexts: when giving instructions for group work and class activities, holding office hours, communicating with students, and more. The authors finish with an opportunity for the reader to reflect on what evidence to include in a teaching dossier that demonstrates inclusive practices.

The work of two highly regarded specialists who have delivered over a hundred workshops on inclusive pedagogy and who contribute frequently to public conversations on the topic, Inclusive Teaching distills state-of-the-art guidance on addressing privilege and implicit bias in the college classroom. It seeks to provide a framework for individuals and communities to ask, Who is being left behind and what can teachers do to add more structure?

The Fall Faculty Book Club will meet three times this semester, so please only request a space if you are committed to attending all three of the following meetings:

1. Monday, September 11, 5:00-6:30 pm
2. Monday, October 2, 5:00-6:30 pm
3. Monday, November 13, 5:00-6:30 pm

If you are interested, please contact CAT+FD. We will accept the first 10 people who respond, and will deliver the books as soon as possible.

We look forward to reading with you and learning with you!

2022

The Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Faculty Development is pleased to announce its Fifteenth Annual Fall Faculty Book Club. This fall we will be reading Teach Students How to Learn: Strategies You Can Incorporate Into Any Course to Improve Student Metacognition, Study Skills, and Motivation by Saundra Yancy McGuire.

Here is a description of the book from the publisher:

What is preventing your students from performing according to expectations? Saundra McGuire offers a simple but profound answer: If you teach students how to learn and give them simple, straightforward strategies to use, they can significantly increase their learning and performance.

Dr. McGuire takes the reader sequentially through the ideas and strategies that students need to understand and implement. First, she demonstrates how introducing students to metacognition and Bloom’s Taxonomy reveals to them the importance of understanding how they learn and provides the lens through which they can view learning activities and measure their intellectual growth. Next, she presents a specific study system that can quickly empower students to maximize their learning. Then, she addresses the importance of dealing with emotion, attitudes, and motivation by suggesting ways to change students’ mindsets about ability and by providing a range of strategies to boost motivation and learning; finally, she offers guidance to faculty on partnering with campus learning centers.

The Fall Faculty Book Club will meet three times this semester, so please only request a space if you are committed to attending all three of the following meetings:

1. Monday, September 12, 5:00-6:30 pm
2. Monday, October 3, 5:00-6:30 pm
3. Monday, November 14, 5:00-6:30 pm

If you are interested, please contact CAT+FD. We will accept the first 10 people who respond, and will deliver the books as soon as possible.

We look forward to reading with you and learning with you!

2021

The Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Faculty Development is pleased to announce its Fourteenth Annual Fall Faculty Book Club. This fall we will be reading Skim, Dive, Surface: Teaching Digital Reading by Jenae Cohn.

Here is a description of the book from the publisher:

Students are reading on screens more than ever—how can we teach them to be better digital readers?

Smartphones, laptops, tablets: college students are reading on-screen all the time, and digital devices shape students’ understanding of and experiences with reading. In higher education, however, teachers rarely consider how digital reading experiences may have an impact on learning abilities, unless they’re lamenting students’ attention spans or the distractions available to students when they’re learning online.

Skim, Dive, Surface offers a corrective to these conversations—an invitation to focus not on losses to student learning but on the spectrum of affordances available within digital learning environments. It is designed to help college instructors across the curriculum teach digital reading in their classes, whether they teach face-to-face, fully online, or somewhere in between. Placing research from cognitive psychology, neuroscience, learning science, and composition in dialogue with insight from the scholarship of teaching and learning, Jenae Cohn shows how teachers can better frame, scaffold, and implement effective digital reading assignments. She positions digital reading as part of a cluster of literacies that students should develop in order to communicate effectively in a digital environment.

The Fall Faculty Book Club will meet three times this semester, so please only request a space if you are committed to attending all three of the following meetings:

1. Monday, September 27, 4:30 pm
2. Monday, October 25, 4:30 pm
3. Monday, November 22, 4:30 pm

If you are interested, please email Jay Todd. We will accept the first 10 people who respond, and will deliver the books as soon as possible.

We look forward to reading with you and learning with you!

2019

Lives on the Boundary: A Moving Account of the Struggles and Achievements of America's Educationally Underprepared by Mike Rose

2018

Backlash: What Happens When We Talk Honestly about Racism in America by George Yancy

2017

The Slow Professor: Challenging the Culture of Speed in the Academy by Maggie Berg and Barbara Seeber

2016

Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning by James M. Lang

2015

How Learning Works: Seven Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching by Susan A. Ambrose, Marsha C. Lovett, Richard E. Mayer (Foreword), Michael W. Bridges, Michele DiPietro, Marie K. Norman

2014

Earth in Mind: On Education, Environment, and the Human Prospect by David W. Orr

Co-sponsored with Read Today, Lead Tomorrow:

Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain by Maryanne Wolfe

2013

Sentipensante (Sensing/Thinking) Pedagogy: Educating for Wholeness, Social Justice and Liberation by Laura I. Rendón

2012

What the Best College Students Do by Ken Bain

2011

How Black Colleges Empower Black Students: Lessons for Higher Education by Frank W. Hale Jr.

2010

The Heart of Higher Education: A Call to Renewal by Parker J. Palmer and Arthur Zajonc

2009

The Skillful Teacher: On Technique, Trust, and Responsiveness in the Classroom by Stephen D. Brookfield

2008

A Will to Learn: Being a Student in an Age of Uncertainty by Ronald Barnett

2007

What the Best College Teachers Do by Ken Bain