Steury to speak at Fort Wayne Teaching Conference
FOR RELEASE: Thursday, January 17, 2008
Huntington, Ind.-The 11th Annual Fort Wayne Teaching Conference will take place on Feb. 8 in the Walb Memorial Union of Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne. The conference theme is "Critical Thinking: Analysis and Evaluation." The conference is open to faculty at area colleges and universities, as well as area school administrators. Sponsoring institutions are Huntington University, Indiana Tech, IPFW, Ivy Tech Community College, Manchester College, Taylor University Fort Wayne, and the University of St. Francis. The conference features presentations by faculty from the sponsoring universities. As a local event, the conference provides a platform for area practitioners and scholars to present their research within a network of colleagues.
Dr. Cindy Steury, associate professor of education at Huntington University, will present "Thinking Critically about Instruction" at the conference. Steury teaches in the Department of Education and serves the institution as assistant dean for faculty development and as chair of the Division of Education, Kinesiology and Recreation Management. Her teaching load includes courses in children's literature, classroom management and organization, mathematics methods, and field experience supervision.
Dr. Sharon Hamilton, associate vice chancellor for academic affairs at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, will be the keynote speaker and will address the topic "Critical Thinking or Thinking Critically: What's the Difference and Why Should It Matter?" She is currently the director of Indiana University's Faculty Colloquium for Excellence in Teaching (FACET) and director of the Center on Integrated Learning (COIL). Hamilton began her teaching career almost 40 years ago in a one-room eight-grade schoolhouse on the Canadian prairies. Since then, she has garnered many awards and fellowships for teaching and research, from agencies ranging from the Social Sciences and Research Council of Canada to the Council of Vice-Chancellors in the UK to the Research Foundation of the National Council of Teachers of English in the U.S.
The Fort Wayne Teaching Conference, informally known as the "Area Deans' Conference," began in 1998. The academic deans of seven area colleges and universities had begun meeting a few times a year to share information about issues that affected them all, irrespective of differences in mission, size, or philosophy. The growing need to understand and use instructional technology led to a decision to sponsor a conference at which faculty from their institutions could share their work.
Additional information on the conference including a complete schedule is available at the conference Web site www.fortwayneteachingconference.org or by contacting Dr. Russ Baker at Ivy Tech Community College, (260) 481-2238. Conference attendees should register via the conference Web site. There is a registration fee of $25 for any attendee not from one of the sponsoring universities.
