SE 2017

SELF EVALUATION, Karen Goodlad, Assistant Professor, 2017

Reflections on the Contributions I made to be Recognized by Chancellor Milliken for My

“Outstanding Contributions of Faculty in Teaching and Public Service“

Preparation for the PARSE requires deep reflect and consideration of what I have done and what I plan to accomplish over the next year and more at City Tech. This year I realize so much of my work is not tangible or easily quantified but it does make an impact on the goals and targets of the University, College, Department and Community. This reflection must start with the recognition I received from Chancellor Milliken, the message read:

“Chancellor James B. Milliken invites you to a reception to celebrate the Outstanding Contributions of our Faculty in Teaching and Public Service”

I could not help but return to all the accomplishments I made with my astounding colleagues to receive such an honor. Teaching and service are at the core of what I do and sharing what I do is important. The remainder of the self evaluation will provide examples of why I was recognized by the Chancellor.

Teaching

Of greatest impact in changing my teaching practices this year is the contribution I made to the Dining Room Operation course. As a guest lecturer, I lead a beverage tasting and service seminar. This was done because it was recognized through various assessment measures that students were not as prepared as necessary to learn about and execute professional beverage service. The dedicated seminar I developed was designed to more deliberately address the learning outcome of communicating about beverages in a simulated dining experience. In assessing this seminar, I learned that after the seminar students were more able to identify and properly use the tools needed to provide professional beverage service and were more able to read a wine label. In addition, students revealed that they believe learning about beverage service and tasting techniques will help them progress in their career. Results of the assessment (as well as the teaching and assessment tools) can be found in the teaching folder of this PARSE under “Emerging Scholars Poster”.

Development and execution of the collaborative wine making project at City Tech “Connecting Community, Philanthropy and Education”, implemented during the Wines of the New World course for five years, has yielded many results including extensive student impact. At the most recent graduation celebration for hospitality students the department honored the Julia Child Foundation, the wine making project’s grant funder. I had the honor of presenting the award and asked the graduates to raise their hand if they either made wine as a student in the Wines of the New World course or served the wine made by their peers in the Janet Lefler Dining Room. Almost every student in attendance (about 70 students) raised their hand. WOW. I knew the learning objectives of this grant funded project would make a difference in student’s engagement to the learning process but to see the results in a celebratory environment was an assessment measure that made learning visible to students, their families, faculty, administration, and our industry partners and donors.

 

Service to the Department

Preparing new faculty for student advisement prepares faculty for successful communication with students and in turn creates a better environment for our students as they learn to plan their own way to graduation, think of it as “way finding”. Positioning students to better understand opportunities in curricular and co-curricular opportunities is critical to ensuring they can systematically and knowledgably define their own, effective plan to achieve their collegiate goals. It is this that the HMGT Advisement Model has been defined.

The HMGT Advisement Model, including tools and techniques, which I have been influential in developing, will now be used as a model for the newly formed college wide advisement initiative called “Project Way Finding”. My plan is to take what I have been doing within the HMGT department and guide all departments in a direction for them to purposefully consider how students are being advised by faculty and how they develop students towards thoughtfully and knowledgably planning their own path to graduation. It is the 10 years of service to the HMGT department as the Advisement Liaison that has provided the foundation for me to do this. I have used innovative practices when mentoring faculty to provide them with the knowledge and tools needed to confidently advise students. A sample of new faculty training is in the “Service to the Department” section of the PARSE.

Additional service to the department is conducted through my work in beverage. My service here is distinctive as I am quite possibly the only full-time faculty member in all of CUNY with this specialty. As I serve as the sommelier for all department events; planning, organizing, purchasing, and soliciting donations, I am also teaching student volunteers and work study students about beverage management. Mentoring students interested in pursuing a career in the beverage industry through the service I provide to the department creates a unique perspective into beverage management that is not part of their academic curriculum.

My efforts to support students as they work to attain their goals is evident through my service as co-chairperson of the Scholarship Committee. Along with Lynda Dias, we help students focus on what is most important:  furthering their education. We strive for them to do so with less worry about their finances. Students apply to earn both financial and networking enhanced awards in a variety of areas in the hospitality field.

Service to the College

Living Lab General Education Seminar: This five-part seminar in which faculty more explicitly incorporate the General Education Learning Outcome of Ethical Reasoning into their courses supports effective pedagogical changes, including place-based learning, open pedagogy on the OpenLab and strengthened assessment tools in participant’s courses. Planning and executing this seminar series is not done independently, it takes management, organizational, diplomatic, and mentoring skills to lead this initiative. To envision, create, and execute this seminar I collaborated with many extraordinary people. Of course no faculty development program is possible without the support of the administration; The Living Lab Seminar is an extension of the Gen Ed Committee which is lead by Dr. B. August. The careful and thoughtful guidance of Prof. J. Jordan of Faculty Commons is priceless. In addition, I believe it is of utmost importance to bring in the experts we have here at the college to facilitate the various components of this complex seminar, they are:  Prof. L. Westengard and Prof. A. Matthews, leaders of “L4”; Prof. R Hanely of The Brooklyn Waterfront Research Center; Prof. Jill Belli of the OpenLab; and Ms. T Cummings, Ms. Zhao, and Prof. S. Phillip of AIR, among others.

The gratitude of faculty participants is noted below:

“Thanks so much for taking so much time to help me evaluate my assignment.  I’ve never actually had someone sit down with me and take such a close look as my teaching practice and make such concrete suggestions. I really appreciate it.”

–Sara Woolley Gomez, COMD

“Just wanted to say thanks for the great time this semester. I really enjoyed the subject and the challenges it gave me. Please let me know if there’s any way I can stay involved with your efforts.” –Jesse Ricke, ENT

At the conclusion of this year 207 full-time and part-time faculty members have participated in Living Lab General Education Seminar since 2010.

 

First Year Learning Community, Faculty Coordinator:   After many years as a First-year Learning Community (FYLC) faculty member and occasionally leading a workshop, I accepted the challenge of revitalizing the FYLC program and became a Faculty Coordinator along with Jennifer Sears and Sandra Cheng. This year we took a well established program that has been at City Tech for over 20 years and revitalized the program. Many of our successes are due to the support of both the administration and a vibrant group of faculty dedicated to helping students transition into college.

During the fall we listened to and learned from FYLC faculty, established objectives, designed workshops, shared our work with Chairs, developed an OpenLab site, detailed expectations for implementing General Education Learning Outcomes and open pedagogy in FYLC courses and built relationships to tap into the deep and thoughtful resources in our local community, City Tech and CUNY.

In the fall we implemented three workshops 1) Helping Students Successfully Transition into College, 2) Open Pedagogy on the OpenLab, and 3) Scholarship of FYLC. During these workshop speakers were invited, panels presented, learning activities were developed, scholarship was shared and the desire for future collaborative projects was expressed. In addition, we collaborated with members of the OpenLab team and presented our work at the CUE Conference.  Information about the work of the FYLC can be found in the “Service to the College” folder and on the FYLC OpenLab Site (the site it private, contact me with a request to view the site). Information about the presentation can be found in the “Scholarship” folder.

First Year Experience Steering Committee and Academic Basics:   Since 2014 I have been a member of the First Year Experience (FYE) Steering Committee led Dr. Bonne August. Our goal is to re-imagine the First Year Experience of City Tech students. We have been addressing this goal and finding success ever since. Starting with a pilot group of nine departments, we have grown to successfully incorporate enhanced orientation practices into all departments. Enhancements include at least one faculty member leading an interactive tour and information session utilizing faculty invited student leaders to share their experiences in regard to their own transition into college. This was a hefty goal to say the least, but one that was met with enthusiasm and motivation to make change. During the fall semester, faculty shared their best practices and continue to improve how they welcome students on the day of orientation.

 

Recognizing that orienting to a new highly stressful environment such as college is not a day-long event but a timely process. The committee has dedicated their time to including meta-cognition into events and activities that span a student’s entire first year in college to help with the transition. Workshops were led by Steering Committee members included the use of The First-year Companion in first-year courses (Lauri Aguire), introduction to Student Life and Development initiatives (Dorie Clay), and sharing the goals and achievement of the FYE Committee with faculty (me). The overarching concept is always the inclusion and implementation of meta-cognition practices with students.

 

As our approach to welcoming our newest students changes to include a well thought out set of objectives, involving student leaders and then assessing the changes made is a good one. My role as the sole faculty member on the Steering Committee is to plan the implementation of the strategies, mentor faculty and communicate with all the departments. We continue to use the Open lab site I created for the committee to share their work; the results can be found here: https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/newstudentorientationcommittee/sample-page/.

 

Service to the Community

This year I had the privilege to focus my service to the community through my service to Les Dames d’Escoffier, the premiere organization of women leaders in food, fine beverage, and hospitality. As an International Delegate representing the New York Chapter I vetted and voted on new chapter applications, voted on changes to the bylaws and represented the chapter at the annual international conference. Helped plan a fundraising dinner by connecting with alumni scholarship recipients, securing donations and presenting the wine served during the reception and dinner.

When participating in community service (and all other activities as shown by my work here at City Tech) I believe it is important to be participate fully. Therefore, I joined the Executive Committee of the New York Chapter of Les Dames d’Escoffier. As a Member at Large I am responsible for guiding the direction of the organization and focus on new member transitions and membership continuity.

My service to the community helps me hone my own leadership skills and helps lead to the connections that are made between students and industry leaders and innovators. For instance, this year guest speaker Lori Tiezen, Scholarship Chair of Les Dames d’Escoffier, provided a spirits and beverage marketing lecture. In addition, my service provides a foundation to nurture our department’s long term relationship with Nora Favelukes, President, QW Wine Experts. In addition to donating her wine and time for over 22 years, she also hires our students (of the 5 people she employs all are City Tech graduates).

It is the information presented here and much more that lead to my recognition by the Chancellor. It was an honor to provide this service here at City Tech and to represent the college but most of all it is the success of our students that makes what we do so honorable.