Searle Fellows Program (Fall Retreat)
September 6, 2025
This past summer, I was honored to be selected for the 2025–26 Searle Fellows Program (SFP) by Northwestern’s Office of the Provost and the Searle Center for Advancing Learning and Teaching. Since 1999, the SFP has brought together early career research and teaching faculty to foster a collaborative learning and teaching community. Fellows participate in a year-long program focused on innovative and transformative learning and teaching practices. This year marks the program’s 27th anniversary.
Last Friday, I attended the Searle Fellows Program’s Fall Retreat, which marked the official start of the 2025–26 cohort. The retreat included a full day of activities to introduce participants to the program’s annual events, begin planning for the Fellows Project, start ePortfolio development, and meet our mentors.
As part of the SFP’s ePortfolio work, I will revise my teaching statement and develop a Fellows Project to showcase in my ePortfolio for the tenure-line path. I wrote my first teaching statement four years ago and have not significantly revised it since, so this process offers an opportunity for critical reflection. I now have the chance to review it with fresh eyes.
During the morning session, my mentor and I chatted about my teaching statement, and I received constructive feedback. Peer reviews consistently prompt me to evaluate my writing from new perspectives. Meeting our mentors was a highlight, and I was pleased to learn that my mentor had completed the SFP the previous year. I believe that my mentor’s familiarity with the program’s content and expectations will be so valuable to our work together.
In the afternoon, our small working groups gathered for the first time. Alongside the year’s retreats and teaching salons, these circles will serve as our creative space for sharing our journeys, exchanging strategies, and discussing our projects and ePortfolios each quarter.
At the Fall Retreat, Searle gifted us with the second edition of Stephen D. Brookfield’s book, “Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher.” According to Brookfield, critically reflective teaching requires identifying and examining the assumptions that shape teaching and learning practices, a process facilitated by considering different perspectives from students, colleagues, established theories, and personal experience. I am excited to add this book to my pedagogy library and look forward to exploring it further. I plan to write a separate blog post focusing on this book.
I am excited to embark on this year’s SFP journey. Ideas for my ePortfolio and Fellows Project are already taking shape, and I look forward to building my teaching portfolio webpage on GitHub and weaving it into my academic page. I plan to chronicle each SFP event with brief reflections along the way.