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Katherine Sanders

The academic life is challenging, and without networks of support can seem daunting. Faculty and staff continually seek information about teaching in particular and academic community in general. What can be a lonely process is made more pleasant and more productive by an innovative program on the UW-Madison campus.

Creating a Collaborative Academic Environment (CCAE) focuses on advancing undergraduate and graduate learning and nurturing faculty and staff to develop citizenship, equity, and diversity across campus. Directed by Catherine Sanders and associate director Chris Carlson-Dakes, the program is funded through the UW Foundation and the Hilldale Trust Fund.

CCAE helps faculty and staff build community across disciplines, creating supportive professional relationships that nurture the quest to improve teaching and learning and to develop community. Participants come together to work in small groups to question and test personal beliefs and create new approaches to work.

CCAE's small-group settings elicit conversations about a variety of challenging issues in addition to teaching and learning-for example, approaches to inquiry and research, leadership, inclusivity and diversity, and community service.

CCAE creates opportunities for personal growth that complement skill-based training programs. "These efforts are based on theories of organizational change and job design," Sanders says. "CCAE helps individuals to find their place at UW-Madison, to clarify their role in its community, and to become leaders and contributors to the campus vision." Many CCAE participants have gone on to become leaders in teaching, research, and administration across campus.

One CCAE project, Creating a Collaborative Learning Environment, has taken root at the University of South Australia and at Texas A&M University. A former participant observed, "CCLE has very supportive interactions and I've met the most progressive-thinking people. It's like a haven where I can actually explore these things in a safe place with people. It's the only place you can go to and think you actually do these things and make a difference. It's a very good essential place, because without that, none of [my rejuvenation about teaching] would have happened."

Other CCAE programs

CCAE complements the work of faculty development groups in several colleges on the UW-Madison campus. CCAE originated in the College of Engineering in 1993 and has since developed partnerships with such faculty development groups as the Center for Biology Education, the Teaching Academy, the Wisconsin Engineering Education Laboratory, University Health Services, and the Equity and Diversity Resource Center.

This year, CCAE is piloting its newest program, Creating a Collaborative Research Environment (CCRE). The idea grew out of the observation that one obstacle to interdepartmental collaboration is the fact that the disciplines speak different languages and make largely different assumptions about the world. Many faculty want to bridge this gap so they can grow beyond their established research area. This desire to reach out to other scholars is made more challenging because scholars across disciplines ask and answer questions in widely varying ways. By focusing on the underlying philosophies and approaches that disciplines use to frame their approaches to inquiry, CCRE aims to help faculty and research staff broaden their possibilities for inquiry.

A sister program, under development, is Creating a Collaborative Service Environment (CCSE). CCSE aims to help faculty and staff learn about the Madison community by engaging in community service projects. Just as faculty are expected to teach, conduct research, and serve, a central theme in CCSE is finding one's "calling" to serve. The assumption is that coming together to reflect on personal beliefs and motivations for making a better community of faculty can greatly magnify the potential for appropriate action and effective collaboration. CCSE assumes that through such an in-depth conversation university and community members can better understand each other's gifts, needs, and potential, instead of falling into stereotypes (for example, community members' seeing "experts" as well meaning but disconnected from community issues and lacking experience with implementation, or academics' seeing community members as lacking the expertise necessary to take action to help their own neighborhoods).

For more information, contact Chris Carlson Dakes at cgcarlso@facstaff.wisc.edu or visit the Web site at www.wisc.edu/provost/ccae/.