Documenting Your Involvement with the Reinert Center

Because of our commitment to confidentiality, Reinert Center staff does not disclose to anyone the nature of your individual interactions with the Center (or even the fact that you have sought assistance) unless you ask us to do so. However, you are free to share information about these interactions in any way you deem appropriate.

Often (especially when preparing dossiers for tenure and promotion), faculty do wish to document their participation in the Center's services and programs. In these instances, you may want to contact the staff member(s) with whom you've worked and ask them to document these interactions in some way.

Typically, in cases where faculty wish to document their involvement with the Reinert Center, Center staff will write a letter - addressed directly to the instructor - and list the kinds of interactions they've had, perhaps with a general sense of the topics discussed. In no case will this letter be evaluative; thus, it serves as neither an endorsement nor a criticism of your teaching. All of the work you do with the Center is considered formative-that is, focused on empowering you to enhance your own pedagogical practice in ways that are consistent with your teaching philosophy, learning goals, and disciplinary values. A letter from us will simply help you to demonstrate that you have been actively working to enhance your teaching practice.

Certainly, if you wish to include in your dossier the written documentation given to you after a classroom observation, Small Group Instructional Feedback Session, or interactions with Center staff, that's entirely up to you. On their own, these materials may not provide much information. Therefore, we recommend that you frame such documents with a reflection of some sort, to help readers understand the larger context in which the work was done, as well as both the ways you interpreted the information about student learning and any specific changes you made to your teaching and/or course materials as a result of this experience.

Please note: since we do not keep notes on individual instructor consultations, we are unable to produce a complete list of all the ways you have interacted with the Center. We can, however, prepare a list of events (including workshops) you have attended during a given period of time. We consider attendance at workshops and other events to be public and, therefore, we do keep registration records of who attended these events. If you'd like a list of events you've attended recently, please contact Mary Cook at mary.cook@slu.edu.