When best practices for teaching are applied to professional development, instructors are supported to challenge their inaccurate ideas about teaching and learning and reconstruct beliefs and teaching practices that have been shown to improve student learning outcomes. The Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE) at Miami University engages learning communities, cohorts, and unstructured groups of personnel who teach in learner-centered programming centered on scholarly teaching. By making programming available to all ranks of faculty, graduate students, and staff, the CTE can support anyone who is interested, including non-tenure track faculty. This presentation will outline the principles, philosophy, and structure of CTE programming, particularly how community building and scholarly teaching are central to its operation.

In January 2019, the Wright State University (WSU) faculty went on strike.  This became the second longest strike in US higher education history. In Fall 2018, the administration proposed a contract that included suspending tenure protections, weakening job security for non-tenure track faculty, cancelling a workload agreement (which enabled quality classroom instruction), no raises, and eliminating the right to negotiate health care. The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) WSU faculty voted and, with 94% responding, 85% authorized a strike. After 20 days, a tentative agreement was reached.  A new long-term contract was signed that reversed most of the negative terms and included maintaining the workload agreement, providing faculty raises, and maintaining the right to negotiate health care.  Faculty concessions included not having salaries restored for the interval of the strike and degraded health insurance. Since the strike there has been a high turnover in administrators, including the President.

Regional institutions that serve local populations are ingrained in the culture and community in which they are located. Local and national views about education and politics surrounding education play a major role in how communities, internal and external, view teaching and learning. This can affect instruction, how resources are used, and how students view the practice of teaching. In 2016, Illinois and Chicago faced severe political and funding issues that threatened and impacted education and services throughout the state, sending strong messages about how education is valued. Despite challenges and ongoing resource needs, institutions are able to leverage the community of students and faculty to enact successful efforts. We provide some historical context around teaching and learning at Chicago State University and describe how community can come together, in the context of the Learning Assistant Model, to establish support for teachers (LAs and faculty), creating the best possible learning spaces.