Faculty Learning Communities (FLCs)

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What is a Faculty Learning Community (FLC)?

Each FLC is comprised of 6-12 faculty, academic staff and academic administrators, who have an interest in and commitment to attending discussion sessions on a regular basis throughout the academic year. Each FLC is led by two facilitators from among the ranks of MSU faculty members, academic administrators, and/or academic staff. We would like at least one of the facilitators to be a faculty member.

Are you interested in starting your own Faculty Learning Community?

You can download the proposal form and 09-10 Guidelines (both in .doc format) and submit to Eron Drake, Associate Director of Faculty and Instructional Development Programs, at facdevel@msu.edu.

Please visit our Semester Schedule page to discover the FLC topics for 2009-2010.

Origin of the Faculty Learning Community Initiative

In recent years, MSU faculty have expressed a desire for sustained conversations on college teaching and learning to complement the Lilly Seminars and the Spring Institute we sponsor. In response to these requests, the Office of Faculty and Organizational Development applied for membership in the Research University Consortium for the Advancement of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (RUCASTL), sponsored by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, with Faculty Learning Communities as the core of our proposed campus project.

In Spring 2004, the Office of Faculty and Organizational Development launched a new initiative to create and support ongoing faculty-led discussion groups on focused topics on teaching and learning entitled Faculty Learning Communities (FLCs). The success of the FLCs during a pilot semester encouraged us to continue and expand this program over the past two academic years.