A long-term focus of the Associated Colleges of the South is fostering connection and collaboration among faculty and staff across member colleges. That mission has been particularly front and center as our colleges have dealt with the changing and dynamic impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic as well as the surge of awareness and focus on systemic issues of racial injustice. Working collaboratively to discuss and tackle these major issues has been crucial.
A key way in which ACS makes collaboration possible and effective is by taking the lead in organizing collaborative groups and providing and expanding a technical infrastructure to make it happen.
Specific efforts include:
- Leadership Group video meetings – Regular meetings of key academic leadership groups have been organized and managed by ACS resulting in bi-weekly to monthly meetings of leadership groups including Presidents, Chief Academic Officers, Chief Business Officers, Chief Information/Technology Officers, Chief Enrollment Officers, Directors of Centers for Teaching and Learning, Chief Diversity Officers, Chief Student Affairs Officers and International Program Directors.
- Collaborative on-line workshop training – In response the move to on-line teaching this year, a series of on-line training events were created and presented by teams of faculty across institutions and presented to almost 200 faculty from everyone of our member institutions.
- ACS is promoting and organizing a consortial convocation speaking series that will be available to students, staff and faculty at all ACS colleges.
- ACS is also promoting and organizing an Early Career Faculty Seminar series to provide exposure and presentation opportunities for younger faculty with a target audience of faculty across all of ACS.
- ACS Career Collaborative – Bringing major employers to the collective students at the ACS member colleges.