Thoughts on Faculty 360
The first Faculty 360 Summit wrapped up a few days ago, and I'm still thinking about it. The energy throughout the day felt both grounded and alive, steady yet full of curiosity.
It opened with Dr. Grace Thomson from the Center for AI and Digital Policy, whose talk set a clear and purposeful tone. Her ideas flowed naturally into a conversation with Prof. Nancy W. Gleason from MBZUAI, who has a remarkable gift for making the future feel both urgent and within reach. By the closing panel, led by Dr. Svetlana Chigaeva-Heddad from the AI Education Forum, the day felt complete: a thoughtful arc across where we are, what unsettles us, and where we might be headed.
I moderated three sessions in the Wellbeing and Institutional Culture strand. One with Teresa Doxen explored mindfulness. Another with Dr. Tina Mistry asked what it means to bring humanity back into how we approach wellbeing in universities. The third, with Dr. Svetlana Chigaeva-Heddad, went deeper into questions of trust, agency, and AI in academic life. Each session came from a different angle, yet they all circled the same essential question: how do we support educators as everything around them shifts?
What stays with me most is how people showed up: open, honest, unguarded. Speakers leaned into the difficult conversations. Attendees asked questions that carried real weight. Even the chat running alongside the live sessions had its own energy. When the early survey results came in, they felt meaningful: 95% found the summit very useful, 98% rated the sessions as high quality, and 98% said they'd recommend it to colleagues. Those aren't just numbers. They point to something people genuinely needed.
Many thanks to Michael Pazinas, for inviting me to moderate. I'm grateful to have been part of the team. Thanks too to everyone behind the scenes, the people who made sure everything ran smoothly, who carried the details and momentum from start to finish. And to the speakers, who gave their time and thinking so generously.
My hope is that this becomes more than an annual event, that it continues as an ongoing conversation. Wellbeing, institutional culture, and AI are all moving targets. They need sustained attention within and across universities. I'm looking forward to seeing how the Faculty 360 Summit evolves and to being part of what comes next.
