In August, we hosted our first retreat designed to introduce new faculty to the liberal arts. John Agresto (Center of Inquiry), J.D. Phillips (Wabash College), David Neidorf (Middlebury College), Jane Jakoubek (Hanover College), and Charles Blaich (Center of Inquiry) organized and ran the retreat. Eighteen new faculty from Wabash College and Hanover College participated in the two day event.
The fundamental theme of the retreat was to ask new faculty to consider the importance of intellectual life outside of their disciplines. The retreat was built around discussions of a series of essays that were selected by the organizers.
The new faculty evaluated the workshop positively, and many of the faculty from Wabash have since become active in our brownbag lunch series and other Center of Inquiry activities. We shall continue to host this conference for Wabash faculty and faculty from other small liberal arts colleges. In addition, we are now working with several administrators and a representative from the American Association of Colleges and Universities to develop workshops for training individuals from across the country to hold similar retreats on their own campuses. For more information on the new faculty retreat, please see the following:
Reading for the Liberal Arts by Charles Blaich
On Wounds and Healing by J.D. Phillips
Participants