Attracting Faculty to Attend and Participate in CI Days Events

From the beginning of the planning process, the program committee worked to ensure that a large number of faculty would attend the event. We wanted to involve faculty representing research, teaching, and service from as many disciplines as possible.  Our deliberate pursuit of that goal was successful. Here's how we did it:

• Program Committee - In addition to the CIO and the IT staff one might expect to serve on a CI Days committee, members included faculty with acknowledged expertise in CI and faculty held in high esteem and able to lend influence.
• Communication Materials - CIO Jim Bottum attended a Teaching with Technology Community meeting where he elicited faculty comments about their needs and their vision. We used those comments to develop language that would make clear we understood their vision and would collaborate with them at CI Days to move toward realizing their vision. Examples of the communication materials are available (see Communication; note especially the language on the postcard that was distributed to all faculty.
• Face-to-face Communication - Program Committee members gave presentations at departmental faculty meetings to explain why we wanted the faculty to attend and we visited each of Clemson's 70+ department chairs to ask that they encourage their faculty to attend.
• Agenda - We designed the agenda to include topics that addressed issues important to faculty with interests in teaching and service, not just research. A panel discussion of humanities faculty who discussed their projects that could benefit from the humanities grid, as well as a panel discussion of teaching faculty, had broad appeal. You can see the agenda here.
• Students - Encouraging students to present posters of their work meant their faculty would attend the poster session in at least a supportive role.
• CI Seed Grants - Each of Clemson's three vice presidents contributed funds to support six $5,000 CI seed grants. To apply for these grants, faculty had to attend CI Days at Clemson University.
• Door Prizes - In addition to five 32GB Touch iPods and 20 4GB flash drives in Clemson orange with the words Clemson CI Days 2008 etched in white on them, we had other door prizes specifically aimed to please faculty: three $1,500 travel awards and a tablet PC.