Each year, LLCC provides the opportunity for full-time tenured faculty members who have served at least six consecutive years to apply for sabbatical leave. Sabbatical leave allows a faculty member to pursue a professional development project for a semester or a year. Professor David Leitner of English and humanities is currently completing a sabbatical and Professor Leslie Stalter of arts and communications has been awarded a sabbatical for spring 2023.

Professor Leitner’s spring 2022 sabbatical project was to write the first draft of a no-cost textbook for EGL 110: Introduction to Poetry. The textbook will be titled “The Poetry of Song” because it is inspired by the poetry in lyrics from popular music, including rock, country and rap. The book engages students by building on their preexistent interest in these popular genres. The textbook will be released under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 (BY-NC-SA) International License, which lets others remix, adapt and build upon this work non-commercially, as long as they credit the source and license their new creations under the identical terms. This book will allow students to have the resources to work toward meeting the outcomes of the course and the general education outcomes that the course develops without being burdened by the expense of a commercial textbook. In this course, students will learn to apply close reading techniques, use literary terminology, analyze poetry from multiple historical and cultural contexts, and create well-informed written analysis that incorporates scholarly resources. Leitner will offer this course using the new materials during Mod 1 in the fall.

Professor Stalter’s spring 2023 project will be to develop open educational resources (OERs) for instructors who want to incorporate materials on non-Western art and culture into their courses. Stalter has explained that one of the barriers to teaching a more non-Western centered curriculum can be a comfortability level with delivering this material to students when many of our own educational backgrounds did not cover this in much detail. For teachers who might be trying to expand their knowledge of the subject before educating the students, it can be quite intimidating. Expanding viewpoints outside of the Western perspective is important, especially as the world becomes smaller and academia works toward moving beyond the Eurocentric viewpoint that is the mainstay of our present educational system. Including more of these diverse perspectives on a regular basis would help position LLCC at the forefront of curricular change. Stalter intends for these materials to be available for use in online or face-to-face classes via the Canvas learning management system. The materials will include pronunciation guides, images and collateral information in a ready-to-use format, and an accompanying video suggestion list. These resources could be useful in a wide variety of courses: history, sociology, humanities, anthropology, religion.

Great work by our faculty! Per Article XI of the Faculty Contract concerning Professional Development, information regarding sabbaticals is sent out in early October with a mid-November submission deadline for AY 23/24. These are two examples of projects that are not only student centered but also are anchored in curriculum development and enrichment and are connected to the new strategic plan.