Professional Development

Watch the recording of this practical, faculty-focused workshop on boosting student engagement in in-person classes and using closed-loop feedback to continuously improve your course. You’ll leave with ready-to-use strategies for active learning and participation, plus a simple process for collecting feedback, making targeted changes, and “closing the loop” by communicating what you adjusted and why. Ideal for instructors who want more responsive teaching, stronger classroom momentum, and measurable course improvements.

Watch the recording of the full day faculty workshop on Monday, January 12, 2026.

Agenda

• 2025-2026 Highlights: Enrollment, Budget, Academic Program Development, Teaching & Learning Survey, EAB
• University Day planning
• Advising updates
• General Education Curriculum
• Title II Core Group
• Q&A with Tricia Bertram Gallant (not recorded)
• Ally demo
• YourPace
• AI Committee

Watch our Faculty Showcase where we share all of the wonderful or curious things happening in our classrooms and community. UMPI is a magical place where faculty care deeply about their learners and humbly explore and experiment to improve the learning experience to ensure success for every student. In this engaging conversation, Associate Professor of Mathematics, Dr. Teri St. Pierre, shares her journey of transitioning math courses to the YourPace modality, and Associate Professor of Social Work, Dr. Beverly Wagner, discusses an engaging activity that brings learners through the experiential learning cycle.

Higher education often pressures faculty to fragment their time, energy, and identity into isolated buckets: teaching, research, service, and “life.” But what if sustained productivity and purpose came from approaching your career as a unified whole? Join a fellow faculty member for an inspiring and practical one-hour session designed to help you thrive, not just survive, in academic life. This talk is built on three transformative, big-picture principles:

1. The Law of the Whole Person: Reclaiming your right and responsibility to act as a unified person, refusing to separate yourself into discrete work and life components.
2. Consistency Beats Performance: Discovering how showing up regularly for your most important work is more vital than chasing high-stakes outcomes or occasional bursts of intense effort.
3. Small Steps within Coherent Systems: Learning that daily, sustainable action within a well-structured personal system creates more progress than ambitious, high-profile “wins.”

Join Sara Henry, Director of Equal Opportunity and Title IX Services for the University of Maine System, for an in-person workshop on digital accessibility at the University of Maine at Presque Isle on Friday, October 10. This session will help equip faculty and staff with the knowledge and tools needed to comply with the upcoming Title II regulations, which require public universities to make all digital content accessible by April 24, 2026. The workshop will cover the importance of accessibility for various document types, including PDFs, Google and Word documents, and PowerPoints. Participants will learn practical skills such as creating alternate text for images, writing effective image descriptions, and providing accurate captions for video content. Additionally, Henry will introduce Anthology Ally, a powerful new tool from the University of Maine System designed to help faculty integrate accessibility into their course materials.

As artificial intelligence rapidly transforms higher education, we’ll explore strategies for designing fair, meaningful, and innovative assessments that uphold academic integrity while embracing new opportunities. This interactive session will provide practical ideas, space for discussion, and resources to support your teaching. We look forward to sharing lunch and conversation with you!