NECIT Seminars on Inclusive Teaching 
The Ford Foundation has provided funding for NECIT faculty development seminars to occur at seven New England institutions during the Fall 2005 and Spring 2005 semesters. The seminars will link effective teaching to an understanding of student differences in culture, linguistic background, skills, academic preparation, and learning style.
NECIT seminars are intensive, semester-long experiences where faculty members meet over an extended period of time to engage in professional reflection and engage in grassroots organizational change. This is in sharp contrast to “one shot” faculty development workshops, which seldom result in real transformation.
Rather than rely on outside experts, NECIT seminars are lead by faculty members at each of the seven participating institutions. The goal is to build capacity within institutions, and enable faculty to “take ownership” of the faculty development agenda. In a sense, faculty development goes hand in hand with faculty empowerment.
NECIT draws on the work of UMass Boston's Center for the Improvement of Teaching (CIT). As one of the nation's first university-level teaching centers, CIT represented a pioneering response (1983) to graduate school traditions that discouraged prospective faculty members from investing time, energy and intelligence in figuring out how to teach in ways that promote student learning. In the 1990s, with support from the Ford Foundation, CIT organized semester-long, faculty-led seminars that permitted faculty participants from across the university to share and experiment with new pedagogical strategies, visit each other's courses, revise already-existing courses and create new ones, and engage in shared and extended inquiry into their work as teachers.
NECIT Principles of Faculty Development Practice
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Faculty development should be faculty-lead rather than administered from the top-down.
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Faculty development should utilize a broad definition of diversity.
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Faculty development should consider not only curriculum, but also pedagogy.
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Faculty development should incorporate broad representation across the institution.
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Faculty development should be multi-institutional with collaboration across campuses.
- Faculty development should build and support democratic and collaborative leadership, so that faculty development will not become an initiative associated with a single person or department.
NECIT Diversity Definition
Diversity and NECIT:
- Diversity is defined in terms of race, social class, gender, age, disability, sexual orientation and culture.
- Definition of Inclusion: Acknowledging and paying attention to diversity in cultural backgrounds, academic skills, language backgrounds, learning styles and academic preparation.