***Please check back July 22nd for information about the Keynote speaker.

Keynote Speaker

Cecelia Martin. Information about Cecelia is to come.

Fall Faculty Focus is on Tuesday, September 15.

Fall Faculty Focus is an event during orientation week that provides space and time for faculty to come together and share ideas, get inspired, have fun, and gear up for the year ahead. This event centers faculty and Instructional staff, but it is open to other staff who find the content relevant to their work at Clark and would like to attend.

All attendees must register. Please register by August 28th.

Schedule

Welcome!

8 am - 9 am; Student Center

8 am- 8:30: Chat with colleagues and have some coffee or tea, muffins, and fruit as we settle in for the day.

8:30 - 9 am: We will begin introducing the day, land and labor acknowledgement, welcome, and preparing for the keynote speaker.

Keynote Speaker

9 am - 10 am; Gaiser Student Center

PPI: TBD

10:15 - 12:15; Gaiser Student Center

*Please note: In order to receive PPI credit, you need to attend the whole 2 hour training. If you show up late or leave early, you will not receive credit for this training. *

This Power, Privilege and Inequity training is eligible for Clark College's antiracist training program. This 2 hour workshop.

Lunch!

12:30 - 1:30; Student Center

Catered by Bleu Door Bakery. There will be meat, vegetarian, vegan, and gluten free options. We will provide sparkling water, Spindrift, and Coke, and there are refillable water stations throughout campus. If you are planning to attend, please register August 21st for a good count for lunch, seating, and assessment purposes. No need to register twice if you've done it already.

Block 1 Sessions

1:45 - 2:30 pm

Guided Pathways Budget Funding Project Planning; PUB 161

Join Rhianna Johnson as she will teach participants about the priorities that have been outlined in the 2026-2028 Guided Pathways State Plan. Concepts will include leading and lagging indicators, addressing equity gaps, and developing strategies that lead to greater student success outcomes.

Beyond the Referral: What Student Concern Data Can Tell Us About Student Needs; PUB 258 A

Faculty often notice when a student begins to struggle, disengage, or face challenges that affect their success. Christi Williams explores how observations, referrals, and campus data can help us better understand student needs and identify opportunities for support. Using examples from Clark College, participants will examine common student concerns, discuss what the data may be telling us, and explore ways to connect students with resources that promote engagement and success.

Creating Access: Practices and Discussion on Supporting Students with Disabilities; GHL 213

Join Megan Jasurda and some team members from the DAC for a workshop centering data, student experiences, and accommodation strategies for supporting Students With Disabilities (SWD) at Clark College. Hosted by Disability Access Center team with some guest Clark faculty from our advisory group.

Drawing on institutional and national accommodation data, we will explore how to better support students with disabilities and promote equitable accommodation and access in higher education.

Understanding the student population that Clark College Disability Access Center (DAC) serves and using the data to springboard discussion topics. Data Points will include: What percent of the Clark student population registers with DAC? (And comparison to national data info) How many students report multiple disabilities? What diagnosis does our student population experience (mental health, mobility, learning disabilities etc.)? Topics will include identifying with a disability; barriers to receiving diagnoses; stereotypes; and accommodation best practices.

Career Readiness in Action: Embedding Career Competencies into the Curriculum; GHL 205

Career readiness is most effective when it is embedded throughout the student learning experience. This collaborative session with Dr. Cara Cocchiarella and Stephanie Leeper will highlight a partnership between Health and Physical Education faculty and career-connected learning (CCL) to intentionally integrate career competencies and career exploration into coursework, helping students connect classroom learning with future career opportunities. Participants will hear how faculty and staff worked together to design career-connected assignments, reflection activities, and exploration practices that encourage students to identify transferable skills, explore career pathways, and articulate their strengths. The session will also explore simple strategies for measuring student growth in career readiness competencies and using that data to better understand student learning and engagement. Attendees will leave with practical examples and adaptable ideas for building faculty-staff partnerships that support career readiness, career exploration, and student success across disciplines.

What Should We Trust? Data Literacy, AI, and Professional Judgment in the Classroom; PUB 258 B and C

Generative AI is changing how students and educators access, interpret, and communicate information. This interactive session, led by DeGandhi Harris, explores data literacy through the lenses of AI, privacy, intellectual property, bias, and professional judgment. Participants will examine real-world classroom scenarios involving lesson plans, student work, assessments, and AI-generated content to better understand what information can be responsibly shared, what should remain protected, and how to critically evaluate AI-generated outputs. Faculty will leave with practical strategies for teaching students to question information sources, recognize bias, and make informed decisions in an increasingly AI-driven world.

Block 2 Sessions

2:45 - 3:30 pm

Adapting the Internship Model for Student Success; PUB 258 A

Experiential learning helps students connect classroom learning to career pathways, build professional skills, and deepen engagement in their educational experience. Natasja A. Swartz, Ph.D. and Stephanie Leeper will showcase how the SW Washington Regional Alliance for Inclusive Science Education (RAISE) implements their internship model as an example of career-connected experiential learning supported through intentional employer partnerships, applied learning, and structured student support through mentorship.

Participants will learn about key elements of the RAISE internship model, including internship design, engagement with intentional employers, student reflection, and support practices that contribute to meaningful learning experiences.

The session will invite faculty to explore how experiential learning strategies can be adapted across disciplines and course formats, even in areas where traditional internships may not be feasible. Through discussion and collaborative brainstorming, participants will identify practical ways to incorporate career-connected and experiential learning opportunities into their own teaching practices.

Attendees will leave with examples, ideas, and adaptable strategies for embedding experiential learning into curriculum design while considering meaningful ways to assess student engagement, skill development, and learning outcomes.

AI Foundations: Language, History, and Ideas; GHL 213

Join Helen Martin as she provides an introduction to artificial intelligence through its history, core concepts, and ethical questions. This workshop helps participants build shared language, develop AI literacy, and engage more confidently in conversations about AI.

Anxiety and Learning: What the Data Tells Us; PUB 161

Anxiety significantly impacts the learning environment, and the rate of anxiety in college students continues to rise.

Join Professor Amy Bratton as she shares data from her recent sabbatical: "Attuning to Anxiety in the Classroom." This project included taking a graduate-level course on anxiety and conducting qualitative interviews with mental health professionals. The overarching goal of Professor Bratton’s sabbatical project was to gain a theoretically-sound understanding of how anxiety impacts college students.

During this session, Professor Bratton will share the biggest themes from her research, with a special focus on the interview data she gathered from mental health professionals. The session will also explore the basic neuroscience of anxiety and offer participants research-backed strategies for managing anxiety in their students and in themselves.

DATA& 101: Introduction to Data: What it is, and who it’s for; PUB 258 B and C

As data becomes central to nearly every field, students across disciplines increasingly need foundational data literacy skills: not as future data scientists, but as informed professionals in whatever field they pursue. DATA& 101: Introduction to Data is a new Washington State Common Course designed to meet that need. John Mitchell and Kate Cook provide this workshop is an opportunity to explore whether it belongs in your program's pathway.

The course description reads: "Introduction to Data is a survey course designed to equip students with fundamental skills in data science. The curriculum encompasses key components such as data integrity, suitability, and cleaning, along with techniques for summarizing and visualizing data. Additionally, the course introduces basic concepts of statistical inference and machine learning. Students get hands-on experience through labs and applications."

DATA& 101 is not a course for students intending to be data scientists. It requires no programming background and no prior statistics knowledge. It is designed for the general college student — one who will encounter data throughout their career and needs the basic technical and statistical tools to work with it confidently, regardless of their field of study.

This workshop will give you a clear picture of the course: its content, its intended student population, and — if Clark College were to add this course to its offerings — the timeline from approval to first delivery.

The core activity of the workshop invites you to reflect on your own program's learning outcomes and work through a structured mapping exercise: which DATA& 101 outcomes support your students' goals, and where does the course add genuine value to your pathway? You'll leave with a concrete sense of whether the course is a good fit — and what your students would gain from it.

If you advise students, teach students, or simply want to understand where data literacy is heading in Washington State community colleges, this session is for you.

Zines & Data; GHL 205

In this session, Madeline Robert will discuss how zines can act as an accessible form of information/data sharing and how they are essential to dispersal of information on the community level.

Block 3 Sessions

3:45 - 4:30 pm

Is Your Syllabus AI-ready?; PUB 258 B and C

Crafting a clear, concise and fair AI policy is harder than it looks, especially when the technology is moving faster than our syllabi can keep up.

Join John Mitchelle in this AI-ready syllabus session. It will open with a brief, practical overview of generative AI: what it actually is, what it can do today, and what it cannot. From there, participants will use a structured framework to build or revise an AI policy that fits their own course and learning outcomes, and that a student acting in good faith can actually follow. Leave with a clearer understanding of AI, and an AI policy that demonstrates confidence and leadership to your students.

Career Readiness by Design: Employer Engagement, Data Literacy, and the Career Hub; GHL 213

As Clark College continues to prioritize career-connected learning and student success, faculty are encouraged both integrate employer engagement into the classroom and demonstrate its impact on student learning and career readiness. Stephanie Leeper's interactive session will explore practical ways faculty can incorporate employer and community engagement activities, such as guest speakers, work-based learning, mentorship, and service-learning across disciplines.

The session will highlight simple strategies for tracking career readiness skill development through reflections, participation tracking, and competency-based assessment practices. Participants will also learn how Clark College’s Career Hub can support faculty employer partnerships, streamline engagement requests, and help document experiential learning outcomes in more consistent and meaningful ways.

Attendees will leave with adaptable tools and ideas for connecting classroom learning, employer engagement, and student career readiness data.

Group EMDR: Wellness Tools for Demanding Times; PUB 161

Shayna Collins and Valentina Pishchanskaya-Cayanan both work in the Student Wellness Center and bring you this session.

The Group Resource Enhancement Protocol (GREP) is a resilience and resource-building experience, adapted from EMDR therapy, that helps participants access their own inner strengths, calm, and stability. It uses somatic and arts-based approaches in a structured, facilitated format. No trauma processing, just resource building. This entire workshop is an interactive, hands-on, arts-based experience, based on the latest research in neuroscience.

Accessibility at the TLC; GHL 205

Join Tre Sandlin, Instructional Accessibility Specialist, to explore his role and how it supports Faculty in their work facilitating students with disabilities in the classroom. You'll also get an overview of the various other resources, workshops, and workspaces offered to Faculty through the Teaching and Learning Center.

AI Task Force Update; PUB 258 A

Though it's was not much in the public eye, Clark's AI Task Force spent 2025-26 working behind the scenes to fulfill its charge:

develop a set of AI resources for Instruction
compile best practice
develop professional development for faculty at the college
draft recommendations for appropriate AI policy/procedure/practice for Instruction (and perhaps the college-at-large, depending on context).

Task Force participants will provide attendees with an update on that work, informing attendees where we are as an institution, and where we're be headed to support staff, faculty, and students to meet the many challenges of this transformative technology.
Though it's was not much in the public eye, Clark's AI Task Force spent 2025-26 working behind the scenes to fulfill its charge:

develop a set of AI resources for Instruction
compile best practice
develop professional development for faculty at the college
draft recommendations for appropriate AI policy/procedure/practice for Instruction (and perhaps the college-at-large, depending on context).

Task Force participants will provide attendees with an update on that work, informing attendees where we are as an institution, and where we're be headed to support staff, faculty, and students to meet the many challenges of this transformative technology.

Information and Resources

Modality

This year, Fall Faculty Focus will be held in person on Clark's main campus.

Food and Beverages

There will be coffee, tea, muffins, and fruit in the Student Center before the keynote, and lunch will be served there at 12:15 - 1:15. Lunch will include meat, vegetarian, vegan, and gluten free options. We will serve sparkling water, Coke, and Spindrift, and there are water refill stations throughout campus, so bringing a water bottle is a great idea. The bookstore will also be open and will be selling the usual array of snacks and drinks.

Quiet Room

If you are feeling overwhelmed from the events of the day and need a moment, GHL 207, located next to the women's bathroom upstairs, is available as a quiet space to unwind. Please be mindful of those who are in the space with you.

Maps and Locations

Fall Faculty Focus sessions will be on the main campus, mostly in Gaiser Hall, Cannell Library, and the Penguin Union Building. Here is the Gaiser/PUB map with elevators marked. The campus map has a checkbox for gender inclusive restrooms that will show you where to find those around campus.

Accommodations

If you need an accommodation due to a disability to participate in this event, please contact Human Resource Consultant, Melody Williams at MWilliams@clark.edu or (360) 992-2432. Please make requests as early as possible to ensure appropriate arrangements can be made.

Adjunct Faculty Compensation

Fall Faculty Focus is a workday for full-time faculty.

Adjunct faculty can receive compensation for their attendance. Adjunct and part-time faculty who attend the full day (keynote and afternoon presentations) will be paid a stipend of $200 by the Teaching and Learning Center.

Adjunct attendance form

This attendance form will be due no later than Friday, September 25 in order for payment to be processed. Please note that the full day includes the welcome, keynote, and three afternoon sessions.

Please note that if you are not able to attend the keynote and all afternoon sessions, your stipend will be adjusted accordingly. You are welcome to attend any portion of the day.

The morning PPI trainings are also compensated - the college pays for one mandatory PPI training for adjuncts each academic year. This is a great time to get that checked off your list! Contact the Administrative Services Manager of your unit to let them know if you attend a PPI training (these are not paid by the TLC).