Tenure Year 3: 2025-2026

My third year as Cañada’s Instructional Designer included some interesting changes, and also a better sense of stability in the role in the campus community. Faculty seem to be more familar with the role and the specific perspective that I can offer from this role.

I was out on maternity leave for part of the year, which brought wonderful additions to our team as we took on part-time Instructional Designers to cover my time. It was amazing to experience a bigger team that included more than one Instructional Designer, it made many more things possible.

This year I focused on doing as much as I could while accommodating the arrival of my second baby. Luckily our team picked things up while I was out and so we were able to continue our faculty support without any gaps in availability. When I wasn’t out on leave during my third year, I focused on:

🌳 Continuing to offer regular FTLCL workshops, focused on RSI and AI, our current hot topics,

🌳 Representing DE in campus governance on IPC and Academic Senate,

🌳 Updating our DE Handbook (for this first time in over a decade!)

🌳 Consolidating our web resources and connecting them to the Faculty Teaching & Learning Center and Equity and Anitraciscm Council.

Thank you for being here and all of your wonderful support!

Academic Senate RSI Resolution

In order to institutionalize the best practices outlined in the ACCJC standards around RSI, we proposed the Resolution of Support for Aligning DE Courses with Regular and Substantive Interaction (RSI) Standards.

While the resolution was a timely addition to our ACCJC visit documentation, our goal was to have the best practices for RSI implementation institutionalized for our online course design standards beyond accreditation review.

I brought the first draft of the resolution to Academic Senate on 9/11. Academic Senate formed a writing group to address the feedback generated by the committee and our team met with writing group, and then I brought back the edited version on 9/25/25 and the resolution was adopted.

Next Steps for Faculty Support

Consultations were very quiet after I returned from leave. I think this was due in part to my limited availability being back part time and also to our focus and emphasis on preparing for RSI Review. We were able to engage with 95% of our online faculty who will be eligible for RSI Review, which was a huge feat and really important accomplishment.

Beginning in the Spring of 2026, I want to put a greater emphasis on increasing the number of consultations that I have in the 26-27 academic year, and I’d also like to see how we can increase drop-in attendance in our Instructional Technology & Design office hour sessions. I often see the same faculty reaching out and getting on my calendar who I often meeting with and chat with, I’d like to see if we can engage with other members of our faculty community. Some next steps in increasing our Faculty Support include:

• Communication Plan – now that our team is established and we’ve worked through three years together, I want to outline a communication plan for each academic year where we can be more consistent and clear with how we’re communicating with the campus.
• Division Tours – visit division and department meetings with support offerings more often throughout the year, and consider bringing an FAQ or Hot Topic to each visit.
• Instructional Design Survey – I did an instructional design survey during my first year in the role, and it might be time to re-do the survey and see what’s changed.
• Retreats – Because we have a few complex topics that are on our horizon right now, AI, Accessibilty and a new POCR Rubric, it might be helpful to host some faculty retreats to support folks in these areas.