Programs at CAST

CAST offers a wide variety of programming to holistically support Goucher faculty as teachers, scholars, and people. The following are some of the signature programs that CAST provides for Goucher faculty. Goucher faculty can reach out to Bill Harder, Director of CAST, to learn more about any of these programs.

New Faculty Institute & Mentor Program

CAST takes the responsibility of welcoming new faculty into the Goucher community seriously. As a result, all new full-time faculty members participate in CAST’s New Faculty Institute during their first year at Goucher College. This monthly convening brings together a cohort of new—and new-to-Goucher—faculty to discuss pedagogy, inclusive practices, balancing teaching and research/creative works, and much more. The institute also serves as a formal way for new faculty to be introduced to and partner with signature components of Goucher College, like the Goucher Commons Curriculum, our commitments to global, community and Baltimore-based education, the Hallowed Ground Project, and the Goucher Prison Education Partnership. During the first year, all new faculty are also paired with an established mentor faculty member from outside their home academic discipline to offer additional support.

Faculty Development Days

Every August, January, and May, Goucher faculty set aside time to come together to explicitly discuss teaching and learning. During these sessions CAST coordinates with other offices across campus to facilitate interdisciplinary conversations about recent developments in pedagogy; critical, inclusive, and antiracist practices; and the state of our classrooms and campus community.

Often, these sessions will feature keynote workshops with nationally renowned speakers in the fields of higher education. Recent Faculty Development Days sessions have featured Felicia Rose Chavez, Kevin Gannon, James Lang, Lisa Schirch, and Vershawn Young among others.

Faculty BroadCAST Newsletter

Distributed to Goucher faculty every other Wednesday during the academic year, the Faculty BroadCAST Newsletter is full of teaching, learning, and scholarship resources. This newsletter is intended to be a place to share resources from past CAST events, reminders about upcoming events, recent publications on teaching and learning, celebrations of faculty achievements, information about upcoming funding and grant opportunities, and much more.

Faculty Scholarship Talks & Book Events

Every semester CAST organizes a series of events in which faculty present their ongoing and recently published scholarly and creative work to the campus and broader communities. If you are a Goucher faculty member interested in presenting as part of this series please reach out to Bill Harder (william.harder@goucher.edu).

In addition to individual talks CAST also organizes a reception each semester honoring faculty who have recently published book-length manuscripts. All scholarship events will be posted on the main Goucher Events Calendar.

The Office of the Provost also maintains a webpage of recent faculty achievement including publications, presentations, performances, exhibitions, and more.

Faculty Book Groups

At least twice a year—typically during summer and January breaks—CAST invites interested faculty to come together in discussion about a recently published—or timeless—book on teaching, pedagogy, or higher education more generally. Recent faculty book groups have read:

Faculty Writing Groups

During the academic year CAST convenes a weekly faculty writing group offering faculty an opportunity to use the CAST conference space as a place to gather and make progress on their scholarly and creative work. Additionally, CAST often facilitates 1-3 week “writing sprints.”

Teaching and Learning Workshops

Every semester CAST offers a variety of teaching and learning workshops for faculty. Topics for these workshops are generated both from faculty requests as well as recent developments in the field of teaching and learning. All workshops are rooted in evidence-based practices and inclusive pedagogy.

Faculty Learning Communities

Often a single workshop is not nearly long enough to fully consider a topic. In those cases, CAST is glad to facilitate a Faculty Learning Community (FLC) that meets multiple times over the course of a semester to consider a single theme related to our work as faculty members. Calls for FLCs will be advertised in the bi-weekly CAST newsletter. If you have an idea for a FLC and/or are interested in co-facilitating one on a particular subject please contact cast@goucher.edu or any of the CAST team directly.

Breakfast with CAST

Goucher faculty are invited to come together for breakfast, coffee, and conversation throughout the academic year. Multiple times each semester CAST hosts a faculty breakfast, and we guarantee something home-baked at each one. Come to connect with your colleagues and start your day off right.

Goucher Symposium

Every May, Goucher College sets aside a day in the academic calendar to hold the Goucher Symposium, a celebration of student learning and scholarship. CAST organizes this annual event which captures the breadth and depth of our students’ accomplishments and typifies the transformative power of a Goucher education in and beyond the classroom.

Each year the Symposium features more than 150 students from across all the college’s academic programs sharing their talents, their reflections, and their research through displays, performances, and presentations. The wide range of student work includes the presentation of original research in the sciences and humanities, advocacy for social justice, community-based projects, and creative works in the fine and performing arts.

The majority of the day’s presentations are also live-streamed via Microsoft Teams, and we invite all friends and family who are unable to join us in-person to sign-on and join in the celebration of our students’ work.