Keynote Speaker

Beyond Gut Feeling: Why We Need Data

Dr. Cecelia G. Martin (she/her) is the Associate Vice President of Planning & Effectiveness and has worked in institutional research and assessment for the past 20 years. Along with the members of Planning & Effectiveness, she oversees institutional research, assessment, accreditation, strategic planning, and surveys. Prior to Clark College, she led the assessment processes at the University of Western States in Portland, Oregon and the University of South Alabama in Mobile, Alabama. She began her career in higher education as an applied researcher focusing on social policy issues.

Higher education is increasingly expected to make decisions that are evidence-based, equitable, and effective. This presentation demonstrates how data can serve as a powerful tool for understanding student needs, evaluating institutional performance, and guiding continuous improvement while maintaining the essential role of human judgment and experience.

Block 1 Sessions

1:45 - 2:30 pm

Beyond the Referral: What Student Concern Data Can Tell Us About Student Needs

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

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

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.

Career Readiness in Action (2)-1.pptx

What Should We Trust? Data Literacy, AI, and Professional Judgment in the Classroom

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.

What_Should_We_Trust_AI_Data_Literacy_Workshop (1).pptx

Block 2 Sessions

2:45 - 3:30 pm

Digital Accessibility

Join Arjun Khosla for an overview of Clark College and WATECH accessibility policies and why they matter.

Digital Accessibility at Clark - FFF.pptx

AI Foundations: Language, History, and Ideas

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.

AI_Foundations_Full_Redesign - to TLC.pptx

Anxiety and Learning: What the Data Tells Us

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.

Faculty Focus Presentation - Amy Bratton - Anxiety and Learning - FINAL.pptx

DATA& 101: Introduction to Data: What it is, and who it’s for

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.

Data_101.pptx

DATA& 101 course outcomes.docx

Informing the Gap: Assessing and Addressing PPI Distribution Equity Gaps

Participants will join Don Romesburg (Dean of SOFA), Humera Dinar (ANTH), Caleb Feldman (GEOG), Heath Rakes (WGES); supported by working group team: Tanya Diaz-Kozlowski (WGES Chair), Don Ludwig (SOC Chair), Heather McAfee (GEOG Chair), and learn more about the findings of four years of data related to success rate in the PPI Distribution requirement of the AA-DTA (transfer) degree, as well as recommendations on closing the equity gap in PPI distribution courses. Presenters will also share a set of best practices based on a literature review of relevant scholarship. Participants will collaborate on how to apply and build upon the report and findings in their own courses. This workshop will launch a yearlong working group to address these equity gaps. The hope is that this report and working group can be a pilot for understanding and tackling equity gaps through data-driven approaches in transfer distribution areas across the campus.

Block 3 Sessions

3:45 - 4:30 pm

Is Your Syllabus AI-ready?

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.

Is Your Syllabus AI-Ready final.pptx

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

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.

Career Readiness by Design.pptx

Group EMDR: Wellness Tools for Demanding Times

We’re living in an era of chronic stress, information overload, and regular exposure to personal and vicarious trauma. EMDR is a wildly popular, evidence-based treatment that calms the nervous system and resets your stress response. This group protocol has been used with frontline workers worldwide to navigate high stress environments and is now being offered at the Student Wellness Center (formerly the Counseling and Health Center). Using elements of embodied mindfulness, art therapy and cutting-edge research in neuroscience, this workshop will provide practical tools to ground your body, dial down your stress, and increase capacity. No talking is required - your experience will be completely confidential. Come try out the latest Hollywood-obsessed calming technique in a chill, supportive environment.

Presented by Student Wellness Center faculty counselors Valentina Pishchanskaya-Cayanan, LMFT and Shayna Collins, LMHC

Group EMDR G-REP 45 minute presentation 2026.pptx

Accessibility at the TLC

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.

Accessibility at the TLC.pptx

AI Task Force Update

Though it 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 headed to support staff, faculty, and students to meet the many challenges of this transformative technology.

FF 2026 AI Task Force Update.pptx

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).