The Professional Development Center hosted representatives from higher education from across North America for the 4th Annual Professional and Organizational Development Conference. The event, held Feb. 16 – 18, was attended by 20 different universities. Participants attended sessions, networked and shared best practices related to staff and faculty development in higher education.

Session topics included:
· Successful Succession Planning
· Leadership Development Programs: Staying Fresh
· Online Education: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
· Partnering for Success
· Oh No. . . Not Another Boring New Employee Orientation!

Institutions in Attendance included: Bucknell, Case Western Reserve, Colorado College, Colorado State, Elon, Forsyth Technical Community College, Guilford Technical Community College, N.C. State, South Piedmont Community College, Texas A&M, University of Arkansas, University of Guelph, UNC (Chapel Hill), University of North Dakota, University of Richmond, University of South Carolina, University of Virginia, Wake Technical Community College, Wilfred Laurier University, Wor-Wic Community College

Spring 2014 Safe Zone training sessions are open for registration.

The Safe Zone program is an in-depth, interactive presentation designed to educate Wake Forest faculty, staff and students about the LGBTQ community. Anti-LGBTQ bias and prejudice affects all members of a community, and we all have the opportunity to work against it. Participants learn what it means to be an ally—a person who supports and stands up for the rights of LGBTQ people—as well as how to create a Safe Zone. Allies who have completed the training program will be given a Safe Zone sticker, identifiable to the entire campus, which may be displayed on the ally’s door to designate it as a safe place for all members of the community.

To sign up for a Safe Zone training session, register on the PDC website.

Available sessions:
Feb. 28, 2014 – 9 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
March 18, 2014 – 6 p.m. – 9:30 p.m.
April 16, 2014 – 1 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.

Follow Wake Forest’s LGBTQ Center on Twitter @wfu_lgbtq

The Professional Development Center is offering several career development opportunities with approaching application deadlines. These programs were highlighted in the January 2014 Provost’s Newsletter.

Career Group Coaching

Planning one’s career can be empowering, yet daunting if the path is unclear. Career Group Coaching will help participants begin to envision and prepare for the next step of their careers. The group is limited to eight faculty and staff. Application deadline is February 14. Learn more about Career Group Coaching here.

Aspiring Leaders Program (ALP) Fall 2014

The ALP is a unique opportunity to develop a cohort of faculty and staff throughout the academic year. The program is geared towards faculty who may someday assume a leadership position (i.e. program director, center director or department chair), and staff with a minimum of five to seven years of professional experience who are new to leadership. Application deadline is March 7. Learn more about the Aspiring Leaders Program here.

Career Development for Women Leaders

The Office of Women in Medicine and Science’s (OWIMS) Leadership & Mentoring Program sponsors the Career Development for Women Leaders (CDWL) Program. The CDWL program is modeled after national programs for women in academic health sciences, is eight days and spans nine months, from September through May. Application deadline is March 7. This is a fee-based program. Visit the Career Development for Women Leaders website for more information about the program.

Leadership Winston-Salem

Leadership Winston-Salem is a 25-year-old program that provides a select group of professionals with the opportunity to learn about community leadership. In addition to Wake Forest being a long-time supporter of Leadership Winston-Salem, this opportunity blends well with the community building aspects of our Strategic Plan, as leaders are immersed into several facets of the Winston-Salem community. Learn more about Leadership Winston-Salem here.

Wake Forest now provides faculty, students and staff access to VoiceThread, a Web-based software that allows you to converse asynchronously around a document with voice or video. Commonly used for narrated PowerPoint presentations, VoiceThread is a highly flexible, collaborative environment for video, voice, images and common documents. VoiceThread presentations include narration using text, audio, or Webcam and the ability to allow others to view and comment.

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Jones, Lockhart, Griffin and Reitz

Five staff members have completed the necessary requirements for the CORE certification offered through the Professional Development Center (PDC). Recipients are: Tammy Griffin, Dean’s Office; Marc Jones, Facilities and Campus Services; Sheila Lockhart, Department of Religion; Jennifer Price, Facilities and Campus Services; Stephanie Reitz, Center for Bioethics, Health, and Society

CORE, which stands for “Cultivating our Organization to Realize Excellence,” was launched in September of 2011 as an outcome of the climate survey to offer more sustained developmental options for faculty and staff on campus. CORE is built around five competencies that are meaningful and relevant to the campus: communication, community, leadership, organizational acumen and personal progression.

The CORE Program allows participants to recognize personal and professional strengths that can be applied to better themselves and the campus community.

Learn more about the CORE curriculum here.

Follow @thepdc for the latest news on professional development at Wake Forest.

Ellis

Wake Forest recently was featured on an episode of “Hear It From a Peer” on the PeopleAdmin website. The episode was called “Collective Unity,” and it focused on organizational development in higher education.

Wake Forest’s Professional Development Center, which won CUPA-HR’s 2012 Innovation Award, was highlighted as an example of being a change agent that brought unity across departments and successful aligned them with the mission of the university.

Champlin

The summary said, “With professional development activities for both faculty and staff, WFU has been able market this through one location, thus generating a sense of community across the campus, and encouraging collaboration between departments.”

Featured from WFU were: Andrea Ellis, the director of recruitment and organizational development; and John Champlin, the manager of professional and leadership development.

See and hear the episode here »

The Office of Investments presents the first InvestConnect Speaker Series of the semester featuring Guggenheim Partners. The event will be Friday, Oct. 4, from 4:30-5:30 p.m. in the Broyhill Auditorium of Farrell Hall, and it is open to students, faculty and staff. Because of Family Weekend, students’ relatives are also welcome to attend.

Through this series, the Office of Investments brings industry leaders to campus, providing a great opportunity to network and learn more about our speakers’ respective fields. Guggenheim Partners, a global financial services firm with more than $180 billion in assets under management, will be on campus to discuss various aspects of the investment industry, including portfolio management, client services and relations, business development, and marketing.

For those in attendance, there will be a raffle for four box-seat tickets to the WFU vs. N.C. State football game on Saturday, Oct. 5.

Click here to register: PDC Website

Flu season is just around the corner, and anyone can be a potential target. For this reason, Wake Forest is sponsoring onsite flu shot drives in October for faculty, staff and retirees. Talk to your primary care physician to see if the flu vaccine is right for you.

To register for your free flu shot, please visit the Professional Development Center website. Shots are offered at various times from Oct. 1-14.

Flu Facts: The flu is a disease of the breathing passages caused by the influenza virus. It can be as contagious as the common cold & transmitted from people who are already infected. You can also get the flu from others who have been exposed, but have not yet developed symptoms. It is more serious than a cold, often causing severe symptoms (ie body aches, exhaustion, high fever, respiratory inflammation, congestion, cough & more).

For people classified by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) as high-risk, it is especially important to get vaccinated (including people over 65; a household contact of persons at increased risk of flu-related complications, anyone with heart disease, diabetes, kidney disorder, blood disorder or an impaired immune system). The flu vaccine is your best protection, as it is 75 to 90% effective in preventing infection.

Contrary to a popular myth, you cannot get the flu from the vaccine since it is made from highly purified, egg-grown viruses that have been rendered noninfectious. Annual flu shots should be received, as new strains develop each year and your body slowly loses its immunity to the flu.

On June 10, members of the Wake Forest community gathered in the Magnolia Room for the Gatekeepers Recognition Ceremony. The event honored 109 faculty and staff that have completed the first three workshops in the Gatekeepers Workshop Initiative in the 2012-2013.

Created by Shayla Herndon-Edmunds, manager of diversity education for Wake Forest, the Gatekeepers Workshop Initiative enhances participants’ cultural competence through tools and exercises that explore perception, various communication and conflict styles; value differences, stereotype threat, implicit bias, contact theory, among other phenomena that impact the engagement of faculty, staff and students on campus.

Provost Rogan Kersh and other University leaders spoke about the importance of cultural competence in building an inclusive community, while participants and internal trainers were celebrated for their efforts.

To date, more than 1,000 staff, faculty and students have attended the Gatekeepers 1 Workshop, “Enhancing Our Community Through Inclusion.”

Check the Professional Development Center’s website for Gatekeeper’s courses available in 2013-14.

The School of Business is very excited about the upcoming completion of Farrell Hall — a building that will not only provide a dynamic home to the undergraduate and graduate business programs, but also represent an exciting addition to the facilities portfolio of the  Wake Forest campus.

The school looks forward to welcoming students, faculty and staff into the space, and it is providing opportunities to tour the building. Currently, tours are scheduled for May 3, 10, 17 and 24 at 3:30 p.m.

Register for a tour on the PDC site »