Faculty Writing Retreat: Fostering Writing Productivity, Collaboration, and Community-Building through an Interdisciplinary, Multi-Day Program

In May 2014, the Center for Excellence in Teaching (CET) at Simmons College developed a residential writing retreat program for its faculty members. This article will describe the impetus and goals for the program, the program design, and results from participant interviews describing the program's success.IMPETUS FOR THE PROGRAM AND PROGRAM GOALSThe impetus for this program grew from a number of sources: first, support for faculty research and scholarship was identified as one of four institutional priorities in a White Paper written by a newly-appointed Provost. The Provost had recently completed a "listening tour" of stakeholders across campus, and at a leadership meeting, encouraged campus leaders to increase support for the identified institutional priorities.Concurrently, the CET conducted a needs assessment of the faculty as part of the process of onboarding a new director. During the director's candidate presentation as part of the interview process, faculty members were asked to "vote" for programs and topics of interest by placing stickers beside the program and topic names on pieces of flip-chart paper posted to the walls. One of the areas of strong interest was a faculty writing retreat.In order to align with institutional strategic initiatives and to meet program needs and preferences identified by the faculty, the CET decided to develop a faculty writing retreat for the following spring. The CET identified a number of goals for the faculty writing retreat program:1. Support faculty writing and the writing process in order to increase productivity;2. Foster cross-disciplinary connections among the participants;3. Create a sense of community to build positive relationships, both among the participants and with CET staff; and4. Create opportunities for continued collaborations and mutual writing support through modeling professional peer feedback processes.While scholarship and productivity were the primary goals of the retreat, the goals related to community and relationship-building were also very important. First, common complaints at the institution include a lack of community and a "siloing" of faculty members in individual departments and schools with little opportunity for interaction. Therefore, one of the purposes of this program was to break down barriers within the institution to allow for the growth of community and interdisciplinary interactions. Additionally, the CET had been founded less than two years prior, and one of the goals was to allow the participants to build relationships with the CET staff. The final goal was to model professional peer feedback processes and to create opportunities for participants to continue to support each other's writing long-term through small group or one-on-one writing partnerships.DESCRIPTION OF THE PROGRAMThe writing retreat took place at an off-campus residential retreat center 45 minutes from downtown Boston. The retreat center included multiple shared occupancy bedrooms, common areas such as living rooms, a dining room, and porch, a communal kitchen, and a large outdoor grassy space for writing or relaxing. The property also featured walking paths and a private beach. Overall, the space was secluded enough to provide a sense of separation and quiet.In early February, a call for applications for the retreat was distributed via email to all full and part-time faculty members at the institution. After a three week application period, 21 people applied for 10 available spaces. Participants were selected using a random number generator, and the remaining applicants were placed on a waiting list. A description of the participants appears in Table 1 below.The retreat took place in mid-May, on the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday immediately following graduation. This time was chosen for a number of reasons: faculty members were still under contract, faculty members with children had fewer conflicts because school was still in session, and many faculty members begin summer research work immediately following graduation. …