Developing Excellence in Eastern’s Professors: DEEP

Eastern Kentucky University (EKU) promotes deep learning in our students and prioritizes quality teaching among faculty. The Developing Excellence in Eastern’s Professors (DEEP) system builds on the faculty development initiatives offered at the University, including the Provost’s Professional Development Speaker series, Teaching & Learning Innovation (TLI) series, Professional Learning Communities (PLCs), and Faculty Innovators program to ensure that faculty development opportunities are available to all members of the University community.

Designed as an online system, DEEP provides an opportunity for all faculty and academic staff--full-time, part-time, and online--to pursue quality professional development at any time and from any location. By the conclusion of AY 2016-2017, DEEP participants will have the option to choose from a full menu of courses—beginning with Metacognition, followed by Foundations of Pedagogy, Flipping the Classroom, Critical and Creative Thinking, and Diversity in Higher Education as well as courses based on EKU’s QEP theme, to include Critical Reading through Metacognitive Strategies.

Participants advance through four levels of expertise—Learner, Practitioner, Advocate, and Scholar—achieving recognition as they complete each level and course. As DEEP contains its own record-keeping feature, participants can benefit from the professional development and use the online system to document their work for their promotion, tenure, and evaluation applications.

DEEP demonstrates EKU’s commitment to professional development as evidence that “Excellence in Teaching is Job One.”