It’s spring, a time for renewal and celebration! In Block 7, we encourage you to check out a variety of opportunities to learn from and connect with colleagues: join faculty and staff workshops that support communication and problem-solving skills, take a deep dive into the programs and people supporting student success, share your insights with our global Block teaching community, celebrate colleagues’ accomplishments, and commit to nourishing your creative self by joining an interdisciplinary community of innovative thinkers in academic year 2027. The Crown Center is here to provide support, encouragement, and pathways to community, this and every block.

Thursday, March 26, 2-3:30 p.m., Honnen 101
C&I Afternoon Workshop: Creative Problem Solving as a Strategy, by Kris Stanec
Registration
Looking for non-arts-based strategies to engage in creative thinking? This workshop explores the systematic process of Creative Problem Solving (CPS). This evidence-based framework can be applied across disciplines and allows participants time to adapt the approach to multiple pedagogical contexts.

Wednesday, April 1, 12:15-1:30 p.m., Tutt Library 105
Crown Lunch Workshop: Mentorship Strategies, by Marion Hourdequin and Corina McKendry
Registration 
A significant amount of students’ learning occurs outside the classroom, often in extracurricular settings such as coaching, advising, work-study positions, or faculty/student research projects. This session will explore both structured and informal ways to help students effectively plan next steps toward their goals.

Thursday, April 16, 8:30-10:30 a.m., Cossitt Lounge
On the fourth Thursday of each Block, join the Crown Center staff for an informal gathering over coffee/tea and a light breakfast. Drop by any time for conversation and collegiality.

Join Creativity & Innovation’s 2026-27 Creative Courage Cohort 
Registration
The Creative Courage Cohort offers faculty members a structured, year-long program to cultivate creative thinking in the classroom. The program begins with a two-day immersive experience on August 13-14, during which participants learn evidence-based theories, frameworks, and methodologies for creative problem-solving. Attendance at both immersion days is required, as these sessions form the foundational scaffolding upon which the remainder of the program builds. Following the immersion, cohort members reconvene for workshops, structured discussions, and applied exercises held on the third Thursday of Blocks 1-3 and 5-7. Support is tailored to each faculty member’s disciplinary context and pedagogical objectives, ensuring meaningful, transferable outcomes. Upon successful completion of the program, participants are awarded a stipend of up to $4,000. 

Thursday, April 16, 9 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Tutt Library
Student Success Forum
Registration
The inaugural Student Success Forum will bring together academic offices that support student learning to share how students are navigating the rigors of the Block Plan outside of individual classrooms. Students come to our academic resources to access academic coaching and peer-to-peer tutoring. These learning hubs also provide space to unpack the hidden expectations of CC and the curriculum. Peer tutors and peer mentors see firsthand how students tackle writing assignments, handle quantitative data, prepare for oral presentations, and visualize data in spatial reasoning projects. Their insights can illuminate how students interact with your assignments, feedback, and course materials. So, whether you’re a junior faculty member or visiting faculty member looking for some more perspectives on pedagogies or an established professor looking to see another side of teaching and learning and the student experience, please join us for one (or all) of the sessions in the Student Success Forum. A full program is forthcoming, but the forum begins with Welcome and Introduction in the Tim Fuller Event Space, followed by breakout sessions from 9:15-10 a.m., 10:15-11 a.m., and 11:30 a.m.-12:15 p.m. We’ll reconvene in the Fuller Event Space at 12:30 p.m. for a catered lunch and open discussion. The Student Success Forum is co-hosted by Accessibility Resources, the Advising Hub, the Colket Center for Academic Excellence, College Transition Programs, and Digital Student Experience.

Tuesday, March 31, 4 p.m., Fuller Event Space, Tutt Library
Book Celebration: Art-Science Undisciplined: A Playbook for Transformative Collaboration by Associate Professor Natalie Gosnell and multidisciplinary artist Janani Balasubramanian
From the publisher’s website: Art-Science Undisciplined invites us into a collaborative journey grounded in mutual exploration and transformation. Moving beyond transactional exchanges of expertise, artist Janani Balasubramanian and astrophysicist Natalie Gosnell, Associate Professor of Physics, draw on their own experiences and stories from other art-science collaborators to offer an imaginative guide to developing a values-based, joyful, undisciplined practice. This playbook offers practical and conceptual tools for co-creation that foster new, powerful alliances among artists, scientists, and their supporters. While attentive to the everyday realities of busy schedules and institutional demands, Balasubramanian and Gosnell illuminate strategies for changing our current ways of working and dare us to imagine a more expansive future. The projects, potentials, and possibilities resulting from undisciplined creation will reshape not only the practitioners but their worlds altogether. All faculty, students, and staff are invited, and refreshments will be provided.

Share Your Block Teaching Strategies!
The International Block and Intensive Learning and Teaching Association (IBILTA) is seeking abstracts for its online conference taking place September 29-30. IBILTA began as a conversation among faculty at block- and intensive-based institutions in Australia, North America, and China. The organization seeks to: advance scholarship and practice in block- and intensive-mode pedagogy, education, and research; share and disseminate knowledge; and build networks and promote greater collaboration among the association’s members, its various stakeholders, and alliance partners. Submit your proposal by April 24. If it is accepted, the Crown Center will cover your conference registration!

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