Dr. Renetta Garrison Tull is an educator, mentor, advocate, and scholar. She is trained as an Electrical Engineer, who received both her B.S. and M.S., from Howard University and Northwestern University, respectively. In addition, Dr. Tull received her Ph.D. in Speech Science from Northwestern, and completed a postdoc at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, prior to joining the faculty at Wisconsin with speech technology research ties to the departments of Communicative Disorders and Industrial Engineering. She is a highly sought after speaker who travels both nationally and internationally in an attempt to increase the numbers of underrepresented students in STEM.

Dr. Tull has been nominated to receive the 2015 GEDC AIRBUS Diversity in Engineering Education Award, and she is one of the three finalists! This prestigious award was “launched to promote a more diverse engineering workforce globally and recognizes initiatives and people behind them who facilitate and encourage students from all backgrounds and profiles to pursue and finish a career in Engineering and to help them develop as successful engineers for the workforce through initiatives that have the potential to be replicated elsewhere.”

Dr. Tull exemplifies these characteristics, and during her 12-year tenure as the Director of the PROMISE Program, Maryland’s AGEP, a program sponsored by the National Science Foundation, she has implemented a holistic approach for student development. PROMISE has created several modules of workshops and seminars that have been replicated in several institutions of higher education across the country.

Currently, in her role as Associate Vice Provost for Graduate Student Development & Postdoctoral Affairs at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) and as Co-PI for the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation, LSAMP Bridge to the Doctorate, Dr. Tull proves that when you love what you do and are good at it, the possibility to positively impact and change lives is inevitable.

This particular award is extra special because it has brought candidates from 13 countries totalling 29 diverse candidates, and Dr. Tull has been listed amongst them! Similarly, not only did Dr. Tull make it to the semi-finals, she was selected as one of the top three finalist to receive the 2015 GEDC AIRBUS Diversity in Engineering Education Award! On November 30, 2015, Dr. Tull and the other two finalists will have the opportunity to present their ideas to a jury led by Charles Champion, Airbus’ Executive Vice President Engineering at the annual GEDC conference in Adelaide, Australia, where the final selection will be made!

Dr. Tull, we wish you all the best of luck!

PROMISE AGEP Team

For more information:

• Award page: http://diversityinengineering.com/
• Dr. Tull’s GEDC application video – https://youtu.be/A8xFZv9dPSw
• Dr. Tull’s professional blog: https://renettatull.wordpress.com/professional/

Through a University System of Maryland partnership with the Online Learning Consortium (OLC), DoIT is pleased to offer an exceptional online training opportunity to UMBC full-time and part-time faculty.

The OLC workshop format utilizes proven teaching strategies and learning activities while modeling best practices for online and hybrid learning. Participants engage with experienced instructors and collaborate with peers via synchronous (live) and asynchronous environments. Normally these workshop cost about $300 each, but our partnership provides a limited number of seats at no cost to UMBC faculty.

These workshops require a time commitment of 3-7 days on average with some lasting up to 3 weeks. All workshops are delivered online with either a synchronous or asynchronous component. A  full list of workshop titles is available through this year.  

Below you will find a list of recommended workshops for the FA2015 and WT2016 semesters. The workshop descriptions are linked in titles.

October 2015

• New to Online: Putting Your Content Online, 10/30-11/5
• New to Online: The Essentials, 10/30-11/5
• Designing Courses with a Multimodal Approach, 10/30-11/5
• Exploring Competency Based Instruction, 10/30-11/5
• Engaging Learners in Online Discussions, 10/30-11/5
• Designing Gamified Learning Environments, 10/30-11/5

November 2015 

• Strategies to Improve Retention, 11/6-11/13

• ADA & Web Accessibility, 11/13-11/20
• Facilitating Student Research & Curation, 11/13-11/20
• Facilitating Group Work Online, 11/13-11/20
• Giving Effective Feedback, 11/13-11/20
• Creating an Interactive Syllabus, 11/18-11/20

December 2015 

• Exploring ePortfolios, 12/4-12/11

• Infographics for Learning, 12/4-12/11
• Designing a Flipped Classroom, 12/4-12/11
• Strategies for Supporting Online Faculty, 12/11-12/18

January 2016

• Fundamentals: Increasing Interaction & Engagement, 1/11-1/17

• Facilitating Group Work Online, 1/25-1/31
• Creating Effective Assessments, 1/25-1/31
• Intro to Online Presentation Tools, 1/25-1/31

To register for a workshop, please open an RT ticket. Be sure to include the name of the workshop you would like to attend and the date(s). Instructional technology staff will assist with your registration, answer any questions you may have about the experience, etc. Sign up early -- some workshops fill up due to popular demand.

[Note: The Mastery Series workshops are not eligible for the coupon code.]