Welcome to the CFE Beat!
American University’s online publication on teaching, scholarship, service, career advancement, and leadership for AU faculty
Welcome to a new issue of The CFE Beat!
The spring 2026 issue features a short history of the Center for Faculty Excellence and its predecessors that highlights the importance of change and agility, and showcases one department’s unique efforts to embrace R1. It also features articles on coping with Artificial Intelligence, through one faculty member’s return to oral exams, and another’s efforts to prepare graduate students for the job market. The issue concludes with a piece on a faculty member taking his students on a dive into AU’s disability history.
The articles published in this first issue of the CFE Beat exemplify the vision of our new Center as one that embraces change as an opportunity for re-imagination.
Sincerely,
Anna Olsson (Assistant Vice Provost, CFE)
Nicole Angotti (CFE Faculty Associate and Associate Professor, CAS | Sociology)
Sonja Walti (CFE Faculty Associate and Senior Professorial Lecturer, SPA | Public Administration & Policy)
Spring 2026 Issue
Recentering Through Change: A Short History of the Center for Teaching Excellence / Teaching, Research & Learning / Faculty Excellence – Anna OIsson
Strengthening Ties, Building Trust, and Leveraging Tactics: How “R1 the AU Sociology Way” Partners with Students as Researchers – Nicole Angotti, Sarah Iverson, and Michelle Newton-Francis
Getting Back to the Basics: Why I Replaced a Written Midterm with an Oral Exam – Demonica Jones
Quantitative Methods and AI: Preparing Graduate Students for the Job Market – Shirin Sabetghadam
