Thursday, February 5, 2026  Noon – 4:30 p.m. Eastern 
Friday, February 6, 2026  8:30 a.m. – Noon Eastern 
Virtual and Free via Zoom 

Ball State University's Division of Online and Strategic Learning, Office of the Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, and Office of Strategic Planning Support are pleased to announce the 2026 Provost's Faculty Summit: Cultivating Kindness and Belonging in Higher Education. This event is free and virtual.

Register Now 

The summit will showcase the meaningful work of faculty, staff, and students in higher education institutions. Presenters will share teaching practices, especially those related to experiences that cultivate kindness and create a sense of belonging for teachers and learners.  

Sessions will address these themes:

  • Assessment Practices: Assessment data, strategies, and/or tools that inform your practices in and out of the classroom space 
  • Pedagogy of Belonging Practices: Pedagogical approaches that support a sense of belonging  
  • Empowering and Supporting Faculty: Strategies that empower and support faculty in their work with learners 
  • Trends in Higher Education: Strategies for addressing current and emerging influences in higher education   
Keynote Speakers

Learn from Inspiring Keynotes

Meet Catherine (Cate) Denial 

A headshot of Cate Denial

 

Catherine (Cate) Denial, Ph.D. is the Bright Distinguished Professor of American History and Director of the Bright Institute at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. A winner of the American Historical Association’s Eugene Asher Distinguished Teaching Award, Cate has served as a member of the Educational Advisory Committee of the Digital Library of America, as a Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians, and as a Learned Scholar for the National Historic Landmarks division of the National Park Service. Cate currently sits on the board of Commonplace: A Journal of Early American Life. She has held an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation fellowship from the American Philosophical Society, and she is an elected member of the American Antiquarian Society. 

From 2001 to 2011 Cate served as the Lead Historian for Bringing History Home, a professional development program for K-12 educators funded by $3m from the U.S. Department of Education. Cate’s new book, A Pedagogy of Kindness argues that higher education needs to get aggressively and determinedly kind. A Pedagogy of Kindness is about attending to justice, believing people, and believing in people. It’s a transformational discipline. 

As creator and director of the Bright Institute at Knox College, Cate oversees a program which supports 13 faculty from liberal arts schools across the United States in their teaching and research for three years, while providing them with $10,500 in research funds and convening an annual summer seminar. From 2022 to 2023, she was PI on a $150,000 grant awarded to Knox College by the Mellon Foundation, bringing together thirty-six participants from across higher education in the United States to explore “Pedagogies, Communities, and Practices of Care in the Academy After COVID-19.” Cate is also a pedagogical consultant who works with individuals, departments, and institutions in the U.S., the U.K., Ireland, Canada, and Australia. 

Meet Jose Antonio Bowen

A headshot of Jose Antonio Bowen

 

José Antonio Bowen has been leading innovation and change for over 40 years at Stanford, Georgetown, and the University of Southampton (UK), then as a dean at Miami University and SMU and as President of Goucher College (voted a Top 10 Most Innovative College under his leadership). He now runs Bowen Innovation Group L.L.C., and does innovation, pedagogy and D&I consulting and training in both higher education and for Fortune 500 companies including AT&T, Chevron, Pfizer, Toyota, and Walmart. 

Bowen has long been a pioneer in education, classroom design and technology, featured in The New York Times, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Newsweek, PBS News Hour, and on NPR. He was given a Stanford Centennial Award for Undergraduate Teaching in 1990 and he has presented keynotes and workshops at more than 400 campuses and conferences in 46 states and 20 countries around the world. 

His books on teaching include Teaching Naked (2012) winner of the Ness Award for Best Book on HigherEducation from the American Association of Colleges and Universities, the sequel, Teaching Naked Techniques: A Practical Guide to Designing Better Classes with C. Edward Watson (2017) and Teaching Change: How to Develop Independent Thinkers using Relationships, Resilience and Reflection (2021, Johns Hopkins University Press). His latest book with C. Edward Watson is Teaching with AI: A Practical Guide to a New Era of Human Learning (2024, Johns Hopkins University Press).

 In 2018 he received the Ernest L. Boyer Award (for significant contributions to American higher education) from the New American Colleges and Universities. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA) in England, is currently a Senior Fellow at the Association of American of Colleges and Universities. 

12:15-1:30 p.m.– Welcome and Keynote

Beneficence Room

12:00 p.m. – Beneficence Room Opens for Attendees

12:15-12:30 p.m. – Welcome from the Summit Committee and Anand R. Marri, Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs at Ball State University

12:30-1:30 p.m. – Keynote with Cate Denial, “The Pedagogy of Kindness”

 

1:30-1:45 – Break

Beneficence Room 

Excellence In Assessment Recognition Announcement

 

1:45-2:30 p.m. – Concurrent Sessions

Cardinal Room

Rethinking Grading in a Methods Course

Tracks: Assessment Practices

Frog Baby Room

Belonging Beyond Borders: Empowering International Faculty through Cultural Awareness and Andragogical Practice

Tracks: Pedagogy and Belonging Practices, Empowering and Supporting Faculty

Shafer Tower Room

Beyond ChatGPT: Empowering Business Students to Use AI for Real-World Impact

Tracks: Pedagogy and Belonging Practices

Marketing That Moved Me: Designing for Belonging in an Age of AI

Tracks: Assessment Practices Pedagogy, Belonging Practices Trends in Higher Education

 

2:30-2:45 p.m. – Break

 

2:45-3:30 p.m. – Concurrent Sessions

Cardinal Room

Humans or Adults? A Debate on Empathy, Accountability, and Student Motivation

Tracks: Pedagogy and Belonging Practices Empowering,  Supporting Faculty, Trends in Higher Education

Frog Baby Room

What if My Teacher Responded Differently? A Mixed Methods Study of What Students Want vs What They Receive

  • Rebecca Gold, Ball State University

Tracks: Pedagogy and Belonging Practices

Shafer Tower Room

Don’t Delay: Using Midterm Anonymous Assessments to Make In-Semester Course Changes

Tracks: Assessment Practices, Pedagogy and Belonging Practices

Kindness in Action Appreciative Inquiry for Accounting Instruction 

Tracks: Pedagogy and Belonging Practices

 

3:30-4:30 p.m. – Break 

 

3:45-4:30 p.m. – Concurrent Sessions

Beneficence Room

Passport to Success: The Preservice Teaching Community of Practice

Tracks: Pedagogy and Belonging Practices, Empowering and Supporting Faculty, Trends in Higher Education

Balancing Kindness and High Expectations in Teaching and Learning Using Specifications Grading

Tracks: Pedagogy and Belonging Practices

Cardinal Room

Making the Case for SoTL: From Classroom Practice to Peer Reviewed Pedagogy

Tracks: Assessment Practices

Frog Baby Room

Designing Better Learning Spaces: The Role of Classroom Layout and Furniture Flexibility

Tracks: Empowering and Supporting Faculty, Trends in Higher Education

Developing a Pedagogy of Belonging: Cultivating a Sense of Belonging in the Classroom and Research Laboratory

Tracks: Pedagogy and Belonging Practices, Empowering and Supporting Faculty

Shafer Tower Room

Peace-Centered Pedagogy in Practice: Encountering Each Other, Repairing Harm, and Transforming Educational Experiences

Tracks: Pedagogy and Belonging Practices

8:30-9:45 Welcoming Keynote

Beneficence Room

8:15 a.m. – Beneficence Room Opens for Attendees

8:30-8:45 a.m. – Welcome to Day 2

8:45-9:45 a.m. – Keynote with Jose Antonio Bowen, “Educating Humans to Thrive in an AI World”

 

9:45-10:00a.m. – Break

Beneficence Room

Excellence in Assessment Recognition Announcement

 

10:00-10:45 a.m. – Concurrent Sessions

Cardinal Room

Random Acts of Kindness in the Classroom

Tracks: Pedagogy and Belonging Practices

Plot Twist: Using Student Feedback to Transform Your Teaching Practice

Tracks: Assessment Practices, Pedagogy and Belonging Practices

Frog Baby Room

Cultivating Belonging through Project-Based Learning: A Practical Roadmap for Resource-Stretched Faculty

Tracks: Pedagogy and Belonging Practices

Shafer Tower Room

Instructors Use of Rituals

Tracks: Pedagogy and Belonging Practices

Cultivating Beneficence: Integrating Ethical and Purpose-Driven Learning into Higher Education

Tracks: Pedagogy and Belonging Practices

 

  10:45-11:00 a.m. – Break

 

11:00-11:45 a.m. – Concurrent Sessions

Cardinal Room

Decoding Research in the Disciplines: Faculty and Librarian Collaborations to Support Student Success

Tracks: Empowering and Supporting Faculty, Trends in Higher Education

Frog Baby Room

Preparing Students for What Comes Next: A Faculty-Student Dialogue on Skill Development

Tracks: Assessment Practice, Pedagogy and Belonging Practices, Empowering and Supporting Faculty, Trends in Higher Education

Shafer Tower Room

Library Lockdown: Using an Escape Room Design to Engage Education Students in Library Literacy

Tracks: Pedagogy and Belonging Practices

Open Pedagogy, Belonging, and the Ball State University Libraries

Tracks: Empowering and Supporting Faculty

 

11:45 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. – Closing

Beneficence Room

Closing Remarks with Trudi Weyermann, Assistant Provost for Learning Initiative, Ball State University

Summit Experience Survey