Information for:
Orientation Meetings
Two days of orientation and professional development workshops will be held from 8:30 AM to 4:00 PM on August 25th and August 26th, 2009. Updates for these workshops will be posted here in summer 2009.
The following paragraphs describe the 2008 workshops.
New composition faculty -- new-to-teaching TAs and new-to-GMU instructors -- will attend Orientation meetings on Wednesday, August 20, 8:30-5:00 (coffee and muffins will arrive at 8:15). This will cover departmental nuts and bolts, information about campus resources and composition program policies, discussion of composition learning objectives and ideas for first-day icebreakers, orientation to the computer classrooms and research resources at Mason, and general Q&A. Lunch will be provided; new adjunct faculty who attend both the Orientation and the Workshop will receive a stipend equivalent to a faculty parking pass.
Note: We have scheduled a full day of activities, so you may want to plan an extra visit to campus during or before that week to be sure that you have access to office space (see Barb), that your books have arrived in the bookstore (see Stacey if there are any problems), that your classroom doesn't have asthma-inducing chalkboards or intolerably loud ventilation systems (see Laura to ask about high-priority classroom changes). You should also log in to Patriot Web (https://patriotweb.gmu.edu/) to be sure that you can view your class lists. (You'll need a GMU email account to do that. If you have questions, Stacey or Barb can help with Patriot Web stuff.)
All instructors, new and returning, are encouraged to attend our August Professional Development Workshop Day: Thursday August 21, 8:30-3:30. Coffee and lunch will be provided as usual; stipends will be provided as usual (the equivalent of a GMU faculty parking pass) for adjunct faculty attendees.