Each fall, we come together on Faculty Development Day and prepare for a new academic year. The beginning of the fall term can be a time for creating stability—shaping our courses, scholarship, and student experiences with purpose and clarity. As our community faces multiple challenges to our safety, our academic freedom, and higher education itself, our teaching and research call us to foster growth, inspire curiosity, and build a vibrant learning community. This August, we are responding to these challenges with “Here & Now: Justice-Centered Higher Education,” our Fall 2025 Faculty Development theme.
This fall, we will offer breakout sessions in person and Zoom (not hyflex). We anticipate a lively community discussion centered on where we are with policy changes and recommendations. For many of us, the high point of the day will be our shared lunch with friends and new colleagues, a time of reconnections, laughter, and sharing.
For our breakout sessions, we invite proposals that address our conference theme along the following tracks. Please read the descriptions and recommended formats for each track as you develop your proposals. We ask that you include each of your potential co-presenters, even if these are not confirmed, and that you provide alternate email addresses to support communications over the summer break if needed.
Please contact the TLC Director, Gina Rae Foster, at [email protected] if you have questions.
The deadline for proposal submissions is Friday, May 30, 2025, 11:59 pm ET. We will make every effort to send notifications by Monday, June 9, 2025.
We look forward to reading your submissions!
Fall 2025 FDD Details:
Date: Thursday, August 21 (classes begin on August 26)
Time: 9 am-2.30 pm ET (locations and specific times will be shared in our online program mid-July)
Join us for:
- Breakout sessions with faculty, staff, and student presenters (Zoom & In-Person)
- Community Discussions (In Person)
- Lunch with college updates (and swag!) (In Person)
Breakout Session Tracks:
- Justice Career Readiness
- Student Support in Changing Times
- QR and Critical Thinking Development
- Constructive Approaches to Teaching with AI
- Maintaining Balance: Justice-Centered Faculty
Proposal Deadline: Friday, May 30, 2025, 11:59 pm ET.
Rationale:
For the past 60 years, John Jay College of Criminal Justice has been THE COLLEGE for studying and researching criminal justice and justice principles and practice. We have worked hard to define our mission and connect with our communities. Our students, faculty, and staff have held government, nonprofit, and corporate positions of leadership, innovation, and support locally, nationally, and globally,
In the past year, we are among the many higher education institutions experiencing assaults on who we are and what we do. Our students are at higher risks than ever; our research has been defunded and limited in unprecedented decisions. Academic freedom and the pursuit of knowledge are under attack. What can we do, here and now, that respects and advances the justice-centered higher education that brings us together?
This fall’s Faculty Development Day opens spaces for these conversations. Supporting our students, increasing justice-centered career readiness, continuing our commitments to increasing and improving knowledge, and through it all, finding and maintaining balance are areas in which we can share our wisdom and learn from each other.
Breakout Session Track Descriptions:
Justice Career Readiness: We are increasingly encouraging faculty to Incorporate career-readiness skills and career connections into our courses. Embedding awareness of employment prospects into our assignments and discussions is one of these approaches. For example, justice reform careers call to many of our students across disciplines and are the focus of many faculty researchers. What are successful examples of justice career readiness teaching? What do justice-job savvy students need to know and do? Panel discussions, workshops, and presentations would all fit this track, and we recommend including students, advisors, and especially our Career Center Lab staff in developing and presenting these sessions.
Supporting Students in Changing Times: Many of our students are at risk, individually and in our classes and other academic spaces. Our class discussions are often challenging, and our students’ desires to advocate for themselves and their communities ask for increased communication skills on all sides. At the same time, mental and physical health needs are affecting our students’ capacities to learn. How are we shifting our resources and interventions to meet these new and increased vulnerabilities? This is a good track for panel discussions, workshops, and presentations that include data, referrals, and practical tips.
QR and Critical Thinking Development: Quantitative Reasoning (QR) principles and skills are frequent gaps in our students’ preparation and performance, both in our courses and in their internships and outside employment. Gaining and maintaining these skills requires also gaining and maintaining related critical thinking skills such as applying and analyzing, making logical connections, and generating inferences from data. In this track, demonstrations of successful course design and assignments, workshops to develop assignments and activities, and discussion-oriented sessions that focus on identifying the connections between QR and critical thinking for Gen Ed and justice-themed courses are suggested.
Constructive Approaches to Teaching with AI: How can we work with our own perceptions and with our students to view AI with constructive rather than reactive skepticism? Students benefit from understanding AI tendencies towards biases and misinformation. At the same time, effective selection and use of AI tools helps students improve their learning and prepare themselves for professional employment. What examples and recommendations can we share that ask students to use AI tools intentionally and ethically to support their learning? Workshops and demonstrations match well with this track: pleae consider inviting students to join in delivering these sessions.
Maintaining Balance: Justice-Centered Faculty: As justice-centered faculty, we face multiple demands and risks at this time. Research grant and funding cancelations; attacks on academic freedom, our students’ increasing needs for advocacy and support, and our own complex professional lives: all these challenge our capacities to balance the many parts of our lives. In this track, presentations, panel discussions, and large group conversations will benefit participants and lead to ongoing growth and positive changes.
Proposals will be reviewed the week of June 2nd, with notifications anticipated by Monday, June 9th. Please be sure to include your contact information and any times that you may be away from your college email in July or August.
We are particularly interested in proposals that include career readiness, civil engagement, and student-faculty-staff partnerships within and across disciplines.
Please submit your proposal by completing the application linked here.
Proposal Deadline: Friday, May 30, 2025, 11:59 pm ET.
Program Questions? Email Gina Foster [email protected]
