Building Institutional Capacity for SoTL through Advocacy

Plenary Workshop: Friday, October 8, 2021, 3:15 - 4:30 pm EST

The majority of SoTL work conducted at most institutions stays in (or close to) the “micro” spaces surrounding teaching and learning: the single course or individual teacher level. In this manner, outcomes from SoTL projects are applied to future teaching and learning experiences. Without question, use of SoTL to improve a course and support student success is at the core of what SoTL is intended to be. This work is important and necessary and should be supported by institutions of all types that seek successful experiences for students and for teachers. That said, keeping SoTL at the micro level fails to build capacity (e.g., support, engagement) for SoTL within an institution. Sometimes, specific and purposeful advocacy for SoTL – outside the micro context – is needed to help stakeholders across institutions more broadly understand SoTL, its merits, and its potential positive impacts. To that end, strategic advocacy for SoTL is necessary. As SoTLists, we must consider how and why SoTL might be meaningful to a variety of individuals across our institutions: students, faculty, administrators, and alumni. Crafting plans for SoTL advocacy can help bring new institutional audiences to SoTL and can better position decision makers to support this work as critical to the mission of our institutions.   

This workshop will ask participants to consider two forms of SoTL advocacy, self-advocacy and collective advocacy, and ways in which each can help build a supportive institutional culture for SoTL. Together, participants will discuss ways in which SoTL can be made visible across their respective institutions in a manner that speaks directly to different audiences, their needs, and their priorities. Using resources provided by the facilitator, each participant will identify opportunities for SoTL advocacy and form an action plan to engage others in their SoTL work in ways that are “advocative” and customized for their own unique institutional culture.

Jennifer C. Friberg, Ed.D., CCC-SLP, ASHA Fellow

Interim Director, Center for Teaching, Learning, & Technology
Cross Endowed Chair in the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning
Professor, Communication Sciences & Disorders
Illinois State University

Dr. Jennifer Friberg is the Interim Director for the Center for Teaching, Learning and Technology, the Cross Endowed Chair for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, and a Professor of Communication Sciences and Disorders at Illinois State University. She is the founding Associate Editor for Teaching and Learning in Communication Sciences & Disorders, and is the co-editor of the recently published book, Evidence-Based Education in the Classroom: Examples from Clinical Disciplines. Friberg’s SoTL interests center on advocacy, mentorship, and learning that occurs outside of the traditional classroom setting.