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Academic Excellence Symposium for Faculty and Staff

February 5, 2026

Academic Excellence Symposium for Faculty and Staff

  

Transforming Teaching and Learning:
Advancing Student Success for the Next Generation

We’re excited to invite all UCF faculty and staff to the 4th Annual Academic Excellence Symposium, dedicated to strengthening our collective commitment to student success. Join us on February 5th, 2026 at the UCF Student Union for a day of inspiring testimonies, interactive breakout sessions, and a demonstration on civility in practice.

The Academic Excellence Symposium brings UCF faculty and staff together to explore innovative practices that elevate teaching, learning, and student success. Join us as we share ideas, celebrate achievements, and continue building a culture of excellence across our university.

Full session details for the 2026 Symposium are now available.
Explore the complete schedule, including featured and breakout sessions, and start planning your experience. Use the button below to view this year’s insight‑driven conversations and programming.

View the Digital Flipbook

View the program as a PDF

Program Schedule

Morning Session

Check-in and Registration

8a.m.

Located at the front of Pegasus Ballroom.

Welcome Breakfast and Morning Session –
Knight Reels: Testimonies from Knight Nation

8:30a.m.

The Academic Excellence Symposium starts in the Pegasus Ballroom with a welcome from Provost John Buckwalter, Ph.D. Followed by Knight Reels: Testimonies from Knight Nation where current students and alumni share their academic experience and how to best support their success. This featured session will be moderated by Dr. Michael J. Rovito.

Morning Breakout Sessions

10a.m.

  • Knight Safety with UCF PD – SU 218A
  • Building Pathways to Success: Supporting Student Veterans in Transition – SU 218C
  • High-Impact Practices Unleashed: Faculty Shaping Student Success – SU 218D
  • Your Content Matters: Make It Accessible and Reach Everyone! – SU 221
  • “Rooms of Reality” with moderated discussion – SU Peg ABC

Afternoon Session

Lunch Session – I Don’t Agree: Civility in Practice

12p.m.

Enjoy lunch at the Pegasus Ballroom during I Don’t Agree: Civility in Practice, a demonstration in practicing civility with Dr. Edwanna Andrews and Mike Kepner. This featured session will be moderated by Dr. Lua Hancock.

Afternoon Breakout Sessions

2p.m.

  • Knight Safety with UCF PD – SU 218A
  • AI That Makes a Difference: Boosting Productivity to Support Student Success – SU 218B
  • High-Impact Practices Unleashed: Faculty Shaping Student Success – SU 218D
  • Emotional Intelligence: Applied Practices for Serving Today’s Students – SU 221
  • “Rooms of Reality” with moderated discussion – SU Peg ABC

Breakout Sessions

Join our interactive breakout groups during the symposium, where participants can engage in focused discussions and hands-on activities tailored to their interests. Each session is designed to foster collaboration, share expertise, and inspire actionable takeaways. Open the sessions below to view a detailed description of the presentation or workshop.

Session Descriptions

Morning and Afternoon – SU 218D

Presented by Kimberly R. Schneider, Ph.D.

High-Impact Practices (HIPs) are nationally recognized strategies that enhance student learning, engagement, and success for all students, with particularly strong benefits for non-traditional students. This session will trace the history of HIPs, examine research on their impact, and share UCF’s current data on participation and outcomes. We will highlight the critical role faculty play in steering HIPs and provide practical ways to get involved—from integrating HIPs into the classroom to mentoring undergraduate research. We will also share how faculty can strategically leverage HIPs to advance their teaching excellence, research opportunities, and professional development. Students will share insights on how HIPs have transformed their learning and career-readiness.

*Includes a facilitated student panel!

Morning – SU 218C

Presented by Michael Kepner

Student veterans bring valuable leadership and experience to campus, yet many face unique challenges when transferring to a large university. This session explores common barriers to student veteran success—including academic navigation, identity transition, benefits utilization, and campus engagement—and highlights intentional pathways being built to support persistence, belonging, and degree completion.

Attendees will gain practical insights into how coordinated support, success coaching, mentorship, and career readiness initiatives can improve outcomes for transferring student veterans and strengthen institutional impact.

Morning – SU 221

Presented by Daniel Molares and Azon Bonifacio

Digital accessibility makes your content usable and inclusive for everyone. Your Content Matters: Make it Accessible and Reach Everyone! is a hands‑on workshop that introduces key accessibility practices like alt text, headings, color contrast, and meaningful links. This session will include a demonstration of how to use tools such as UDOIT and the Canvas Accessibility Checker. Participants will also have open‑lab time to apply what they’ve learned directly to their own course materials with support from our team.

By the end of the session, participants will be able to:

  • Locate and leverage UCF accessibility resources including tools, training, and support services.
  • Identify common digital accessibility barriers and apply best practice techniques to correct them.
  • Create accessible content using contextual alt text, appropriate headings, sufficient color contrast, descriptive links, and other foundational principles.
  • Use UDOIT and the Canvas Accessibility Checker to evaluate and remediate accessibility issues within Webcourse pages.

Morning and Afternoon – SU 218A

Presented by UCF PD – Threat Management Team (TMT) and Community Partnerships Unit (CPU)

Left of Bang!

The first part of this combined presentation explores why the TMT unit was formed, its importance to both the team and the community, and their approach to threat assessment and threat management. It also describes the roles of each team member and shares a number of success stories.

Becoming your own Knight

The second part presents on how to be safe no matter where you are. Building on the principles of Avoid, Deny and Defend, to make informative decisions about personal safety.

Morning and Afternoon – SU PEG ABC

Presented by Civil Discourse and Engagement

Rooms of Reality is an interactive, immersive experience that places participants inside environments where expectations feel misaligned, the rules are unclear, and moving forward requires constant adjustment. Rather than observing social challenges from a distance, participants experience them physically, emotionally, and collectively. Through a series of intentionally disorienting scenarios followed by guided reflection, the experience explores what it’s like to navigate spaces that aren’t designed with everyone in mind. Participants are invited to notice moments of friction, uncertainty, and adaptation, and to reflect on how those moments shape understanding, decision-making, and connection. Rooms of Reality encourages empathy, challenges assumptions, and invites participants to consider how recognizing and responding to discomfort can lead to more humane, inclusive ways of engaging with one another and the systems we inhabit.

Afternoon – SU 218B

Presented by Kevin Yee, Ph.D.

AI is transforming the educational landscape, but its greatest impact may be in the day-to-day work that supports students behind the scenes. This workshop shows UCF faculty and staff how to use Generative AI to improve efficiency, reduce workload, and redirect time toward personalized support and meaningful student interactions.

We will explore what GenAI is, how it works, where it excels, and where caution is warranted. You’ll learn how to use UCF’s secure AI tools effectively and how to craft prompts that produce reliable, useful output that will help create more engaging learning experiences and improve student outcomes.

By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:

  • Explain how large language model AI works, including its strengths and limitations in educational contexts.
  • Log in to and use UCF’s safe, approved AI platform (Microsoft Copilot).
  • Apply foundational prompt engineering strategies to enhance productivity and teaching workflows.
  • Identify when AI is appropriate for instructional and administrative tasks—and when it isn’t.
  • Describe what “co creating with AI” means and differentiate tasks best suited to human expertise.
  • Use AI to streamline everyday responsibilities, freeing time for quality instruction and interactions.

Afternoon – SU 221

Presented by Dr. Michelle Dusseau

This session highlights the importance of emotional intelligence when serving or teaching today’s students, offering practical strategies to build self-awareness, empathy, and effective communication. Participants will explore applied practices that support student engagement, resilience, and success in increasingly complex learning environments.