Background
The University’s Strategic Enrollment and Retention Plan establishes goals for reducing gaps in student retention rates. Currently, various student populations have lower first-to-second year retention rates and lower graduation rates compared to other students. One way of approaching these disparities is to reduce course-level gaps in student outcomes (e.g., DFW rates and grades).
The Opportunity
With this goal in mind, in Spring 2026, the Center for Teaching & Learning will offer the Designing for Student Success Faculty Learning Community (FLC). This opportunity is intended for instructors who want to better support student success in their courses. We especially encourage instructors of large enrollment or first year courses to apply. Instructors in the FLC will explore elements of course design, communication approaches, and teaching strategies that have been shown to better support student success. As a community, we will brainstorm ways to implement these ideas in our courses and troubleshoot potential challenges and barriers to implementation.
The Spring 2026 Commitment
The FLC will meet on Tuesdays from 1:30-2:45 pm a total of 12 times during spring semester (starting on January 27, 2026). Participants will be expected to attend all meetings. At the end of spring semester, participants will submit a plan for changes they intend to make in one or more courses in the 2026-2027 academic year.
The 2026-2027 Commitment
FLC participants will enact changes in one or more of their courses in Fall 2026 or Spring 2027. After teaching their revised course(s), participants will complete a short reflection on their experience and deliver a presentation (written or oral) to a broader audience about some aspect of their experience or the outcomes of the changes they made. This could be in a departmental faculty meeting, a conference, or a CTL session (workshop, Great Ideas Summit lightning talk, etc.).
Compensation
Participants will receive $500 for their participation in the FLC meetings in the spring and an additional $100 for presenting an aspect of what they learned to a broader audience.
How to Apply
All Boise State instructors are eligible to apply to participate, including adjunct faculty, clinical faculty, teaching faculty, lecturers, tenure-track faculty, and Professional Staff with teaching responsibilities. If you would like to apply, please complete the application form no later than Friday, Nov 8, 2025.
What do past faculty participants say?
- I appreciated the structure of each meeting that gave us a specific idea to focus on, and also allowed us to talk to each other . . . [and] hear from other amazing teachers.
- Viewing and discussing the disaggregated data early in the FLC was transformative for me. Looking at not only my own data, but the data of instructors that I view as exceptional and then realizing we still had gaps in success made me realize just how much more work there is to be done.
- The group was very thoughtful and aware that this was not going to be a one-size-fits-all approach. It gave us space to ideate.
- This FLC changed the way that I think of teaching and my role as an educator.