The Symposium is an annual gathering that focuses on 

• Connecting with colleagues from across the University, 
• Exploring innovative ideas and approaches to teaching and learning, and 
• Gathering colleagues from across campus to celebrate Suffolk’s vibrant teaching community.  

All members of Suffolk’s teaching community—full-time and part-time faculty, staff, and administrators—are welcome.  

The 2025 Symposium will take place on Tuesday, May 13, 2025 on campus in Sargent Hall. 

Our theme for this year is Teaching with Intention: Reconnecting with Our Values in Changing Times.

As our knowledge of how people learn deepens, we are reminded that certain fundamentals remain essential for effective teaching: engaging students with active learning techniques, providing timely feedback, and guiding students to reflect on their own thinking and learning process. These evidence-informed approaches provide a solid foundation as we continue to navigate unprecedented changes in higher education. 

Our landscape continues to shift dramatically: demographic trends are reshaping our student populations, artificial intelligence is transforming both how we teach and how students learn, and broader societal challenges are entering our classrooms in new ways. In this context of change, we have an opportunity to pause and reflect on why we chose our paths as educators and how we can move ahead together:  

• What core values drew us to teaching, and how can these values energize and guide us in our work?  

• How can we use what we know about the science of learning to address common teaching challenges? 

• How can we leverage both established principles and emerging tools, such as generative AI, to create more inclusive and effective learning environments? 

As we end another academic year, we bring forward valuable lessons learned from our experiences. The Symposium creates space to share these insights while recommitting to our fundamental purpose as educators. Together, we'll explore how intentional teaching—informed by the science of learning, grounded in our values, and responsive to change— can strengthen our ability to support and inspire diverse learners in an evolving educational landscape. 

The annual Symposium on Innovation in Teaching and Learning is a daylong event that showcases and celebrates teaching and learning at Suffolk University. This year the Symposium will offer three kinds of sessions, described below. We enthusiastically invite all faculty, instructors, and staff to get involved by submitting a proposal for a session.

Session Formats and Proposal Requirements

Whether you have a completed research project and are ready to share results, or if you’re thinking about a question you’d like to explore further, the following formats offer different ways for our community to engage throughout the day:

Presentations of Scholarship or Creative Work (30 minutes): During the academic year it is difficult to keep up with our own scholarship and creative production, not to mention that of our colleagues. These sessions give attendees the opportunity to learn about presenters’ research questions and findings, educational innovation and research, or creative production and processes (20 minutes). Such presentations might include early research findings that challenge a traditional view, plans for a new series of paintings or a new novel, or observations about a learning trend you’ve noticed and have gathered preliminary data on. Presentations will include time for discussion and Q&A (10 minutes). Proposals should include the following information:

• Title of presentation
• Name of presenter and any co-presenters (titles and affiliations)
• Abstract (150 words) 

Perspectives Panels (45-60 minutes): Perspectives panels provide a structured approach for sharing various perspectives and approaches related to topics of interest across schools. In these sessions, a moderator will lead a discussion with at least three (3) panelists with diverse experiences and then extend that discussion to the audience to engage even more perspectives. Some examples of topics include experiential learning, student success and retention, supporting international students, assessment practices, generative AI, etc. Please include the following information in the proposal:

• Moderator + panelists (titles and affiliations)
• Title of Panel
• Short Description (150 words)

World Café (60 minutes): World Café is an interactive, informal way to engage with colleagues around specific questions and challenges within a broader theme. In this format, each table host leads three 15-minute discussion rounds on their specific question or challenge, inviting the exchange of ideas among attendees. After attendees have rotated through three rounds, each host shares the main takeaways from the discussions. Some suggestions for themes include AI, inclusive pedagogies, experiential learning, compassionate challenge, etc. Examples of questions or challenges for these themes might be, “How can we support student mental health while raising the bar for learning?” “How can we design learning experiences that help students recognize the value of their own voices?” Please include the following in the proposal:

• Name of host (or co-hosts)
• Theme alignment (AI in Teaching & Learning, Inclusive Pedagogies, Experiential Learning, Compassionate Challenge, etc.)
• Discussion Question or Challenge
• Statement on why this question is important to you and its relevancy to the work we do together (150 words)

Proposal Process and Deadline

Please submit your proposal through the online Qualtrics form by March 14, 2025, at 5:00 pm.