CTSE Communities of Practice (CoP), formerly Faculty and Professional Learning Communities (FPLCs), are groups of 8 to 10 people who meet regularly throughout the academic year to connect around a common teaching and learning interest with the goal of contributing knowledge in that area to the Suffolk community. Members can be faculty of any rank or appointment, staff, or administrators. CoP provide the time and space to come together, engage in discussions sparked by emerging ideas and practices in higher education, and develop an artifact or learning experience that can be shared with the larger Suffolk community. They aim to develop a culture of reflecting on and investigating teaching and learning.

CoP offer participants an opportunity to listen deeply to other experts, exchange resources and experiences, and draw on the diverse perspectives of community members. Open, supportive, non-judgmental exchanges like CoP can deepen participants’ commitment to education, which has the potential to significantly benefit individual participants and the entire Suffolk community.

Sense of community has been defined as a “feeling that members have belonging, a feeling that members matter to one another and to the group, and a shared faith the members’ needs will be met through their commitment to be together” (McMillan & Chavis, 1986). Milton Cox, the founder of the first Faculty Learning Community at Miami University in 1979, considers the following qualities essential to creating a felt sense of community: safety and trust, openness, respect, responsiveness, collaboration, relevance, challenge, enjoyment, esprit de corps, and empowerment (Cox, 2004).

Leading researchers on communities of practice Etienne and Beverly Wenger-Trayner (2015) distinguish communities of practice from less intentional communities: “In pursuing their interest in their domain, [CoP] members engage in joint activities and discussions, help each other, and share information. They build relationships that enable them to learn from each other; they care about their standing with each other.” CoP participants are practitioners who, through their sustained interactions, explore and develop not only a shared language and practice across disciplines, schools, and roles, but also a shared culture of respect and collegiality.