The Center for Teaching is pleased to welcome Sarah Rose Cavanagh to the UMW campus on Thursday, January 11th for a keynote address and workshops on supporting youth mental health with compassionate challenge.
You can learn more about Dr. Cavanagh and the January 11th sessions below. Registration is open now to all UMW faculty and staff–mark your calendars and look forward to an interactive day of learning, discussion, and brainstorming!
Interactive Keynote Address
Hope in a Time of Monsters: Supporting Faculty and Student Mental Health
9:00 am – 10:30 am in the Cedric Rucker University Center, Chandler Ballroom C
Teaching is a vocation. When supported with resources and security, it is a constantly renewing source of excitement and richness. The last several years of disruption, uncertainty, and overburdened workloads have exhausted teachers and students alike. Monsters have reared their heads, and we have understandably shrunk from them. Faculty are burnt out—sacrificing their own mental health, phoning it in out of desperation, or leaving the profession entirely. Students are experiencing an epidemic of mental health problems, especially of anxiety. As instructors, we can support and encourage student mental health through pedagogies of care. A pedagogy of care involves high-touch practices like frequent communication, flexibility, inclusive teaching practices, learning new technologies and techniques, and being enthusiastic and passionate. All these practices involve both a heavy investment of time and a high degree of emotional labor. How can we support our students without burning ourselves out? How can we revive our sparks? In this interactive keynote, Sarah Rose Cavanagh will present some research and food for thought based on her upcoming book on how higher education should respond to both faculty depletion and the student mental health crisis.
Workshop Session
Teaching Self-Determined Seekers: Balancing High Expectations and Compassion
Two session options are available:
- 11:00 am – 12:15 pm (Cedric Rucker University Center, Chandler Ballroom C)
- 1:30 pm – 2:45 pm (Cedric Rucker University Center, Chandler Ballroom C)
When you ask people to tell a story about their favorite teacher in their educational journey, they nearly always describe an instructor or coach who was warm, funny, empathetic…. but who also challenged them to rise to high expectations of effort and success. We know from motivation research that the best goals are those that are specific and difficult, as setting a low bar for oneself can be enervating rather than energizing. How can we create classrooms that encourage students to set challenging goals for themselves, that mobilize energy and stimulate creativity, while also being compassionate about the many difficulties our students face and nimbly flexible to adjust to their learning needs? In this interactive workshop, Sarah Rose Cavanagh will present some research and food for thought based on her most recent book on creating learning environments of compassionate challenge, ending on practical tips for teaching self-determined seekers of knowledge.
Get to Know Sarah Rose Cavanagh…
Sarah Rose Cavanagh is the Senior Associate Director for Teaching and Learning in the Center for Faculty Excellence at Simmons University, where she also teaches in the Psychology Department as an Associate Professor of Practice. She continues collaborations developed in her postdoctoral years with an ongoing appointment as a Research Associate in the Emotion, Brain, and Behavior Laboratory at Tufts University. Before joining Simmons, she was an Associate Professor of psychology and neuroscience (tenured) at Assumption University, where she also served in the D’Amour Center for Teaching Excellence as Associate Director for Grants and Research. Sarah’s research considers the interplay of emotions, motivation, learning, and quality of life. Her most recent research project, funded by the National Science Foundation, convenes a network of scholars to develop teaching practices aimed at greater effectiveness and equity in undergraduate biology education. She is author of The Spark of Learning: Energizing the College Classroom with the Science of Emotion (2016), HIVEMIND (2019), Emotion and Motivation (4e, with Lani Shiota), and Mind Over Monsters: Supporting Youth Mental Health with Compassionate Challenge (2023). She gives keynote addresses and workshops at a variety of colleges and regional conferences, blogs for Psychology Today, and writes essays for venues like Literary Hub and The Chronicle of Higher Education. She’s also on BlueSky too much, at @SaRoseCav.