Meet Kayt Sunwood,
Director, Faculty Development Center,
University of Wisconsin-Superior


This month, TTT's new regular column, "Meet the Experts," features Kayt Sunwood, UW-Superior's representative to the Learning Technology Development Council.

TTT: Please describe your work at the Faculty Development Center.
KS:
I understand my job to be facilitating teaching and learning at UW-Superior, in whatever ways best suit each particular situation. I wear many hats simultaneously and/or in quick succession. Some of the things I do include:

  • Meeting regularly with the Dean of Faculties to plan for and coordinate support to faculty for curricular redesign;
  • Facilitating dynamic connections between UW-Superior and UW System around teaching and learning;
  • Championing and facilitating Scholarship of Teaching and Learning;
  • Presenting workshops on curricular design/redesign;
  • Maintaining and enhancing the Faculty Development Center (FDC) website as well as a physical library;
  • Showcasing curricular redesign resources;
  • Attending/advising UW-Superior committees & advisory groups;
  • Coordinating with the Distance Learning Office for pedagogical aspects of online learning support;
  • Presenting at, supporting, and attending Teaching, Learning & Technology Roundtables.

TTT: How long have you been in your current position?
KS: I started at UW-Superior in October of 1998, so that makes it 3-1/2 years that I have been here now. The Faculty Development Center Director position at UW-Superior was created through System Curricular Redesign funds which are distributed to campuses. Faculty here felt that what UW-Superior needed was a Faculty Development Center (FDC) with a Director whose job it was to support the enhancement of teaching and learning from a pedagogical as well as a technological standpoint, so that became the mission/vision/goals for the FDC. I was the first person hired into this new position, and have had the pleasure of actualizing this vision and making it a reality.

TTT: What do you enjoy most about your job?
KS: What I enjoy most about my job is that my job connects perfectly with my passions. To explain what that statement means, I will grab a quote from my dissertation, which I am currently trying to finish writing: "Community is the core of my life. I have built the foundation of my everyday upon my connections to community. Little wonder...that building, facilitating and supporting scaffolded/connected learning communities is one of my major life passions." My job allows me to follow my passion(s) and to facilitate faculty, staff, student, and technological infastructure scaffolding and connections with and to learning community(ies).

TTT: What's the most memorable thing that has happened to you at this job?
KS: The most memorable thing that has happened to me at this job is the time that I had three meetings that I was participating in simultaneously (two online-plus-audio-over-the-phone conference calls...a phone to each ear, both on mute...AND a meeting with my boss in my office). While all of this was going on I was ALSO carrying on email consultation with a couple of faculty, AND, also over email, I helped to solve a major online learning crisis at the same time. Multi-tasking is taken to new heights at Superior!

TTT: What do you enjoy doing in your free time? Any hidden talents you'd care to tell our readers about?
KS: Free time! You are kidding, right? I guess walking on Wisconsin Point with my dog, and if I am really lucky, my partner and both of our dogs, is about my favorite thing to do if we can squeeze a little time out of hectic schedules spread across three states.
Watching deer outside my cabin window while I'm dissertating is an enjoyable activity that is about the closest that I've come to free time in quite a while.

I guess my hidden talent, which is probably more dormant than hidden, is log building. I taught log building briefly at the close of the 1970s, and I am quite proud of a beautiful log cabin with a commanding view of Lake Superior that I designed and contributed half of the hand-log-labor on. I've combined my love for log building and for working with wood, and my love of the sun and solar energy into my name (in case you were wondering where "Sunwood" comes from...even if you weren't wondering, you know now).

Didn't mean to go on and on like this, but, guess that is what happens when an "Expert" is asked!


Thanks, Kayt!

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