LET'S TALK OVER

COFFEE!
DETAILED DESIGN

Prepared By Carol Koo • April 2019

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INTRODUCTION

Despite receiving training on how to interact with students in university

courses, the new non-tenured faculty at LaFortune University are not using

the strategies that they were taught to make their lectures more interactive,

and instead use traditional methods of lecturing in their courses.

In order to help new faculty facilitate interactive sessions, the networking

event "Let's Talk Over Coffee!" is an intervention designed to provide new

faculty and students with an opportunity to interact with one another in an

informal setting.

Please note that LaFortune University is a fictional university. As such,

while the information presented in this document is fictional, it will be based

loosely on an existing university.

PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVES 

The intervention "Let's Talk Over Coffee!" addresses the following

performance objectives:

For new non-tenured faculty

Given the opportunity to interact with students, new faculty identify their

students' characteristics and needs as much as possible

Given the opportunity to interact with students, new faculty practice

communicating with their students as much as possible

For students
Given the opportunity to interact with new faculty, students provide new

faculty with advice and suggestions for interacting with them

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DESCRIPTION OF THE INTERVENTION

The intervention "Let's Talk Over Coffee!" is a networking event between

new faculty and students. The purpose of this intervention is to provide an

opportunity for new faculty and students to meet and interact with one

another informally outside of the classroom setting. 

This intervention was chosen to encourage meaningful conversations

between new faculty and students so that new faculty can gain feedback on

how to meet students' needs better. This intervention is also meant to

increase contact between new faculty and students in order to reduce the

sense of anonymity that students may feel ("Managing the large enrollment

course", n.d.).

As the name of the event suggests, the intervention is meant to encourage

meaningful discussions over coffee, but other refreshments and snacks will be

available. The format will be very similar to a conversation café.

ORGANIZING THE EVENT

Step 1: Approval process

Step 2: Timeline of the event

Step 3: Booking the venue

Step 4: Catering services

Step 5: Event registration

Step 6: Promoting the event

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STEP 1: APPROVAL PROCESS

Since the networking event is an internal event and will not be serving

alcohol, the event will be going through a normal approval process (“Policy

on Hospitality, meetings, and events”, n.d.; “Hospitality, meetings, and events

handbook”, n.d.). The expenses will be paid for using the University

corporate credit card (“Hospitality, meetings, and events handbook”, n.d.).

LaFortune University's Center for Faculty Development will be working with

LaFortune Hospitality Services as the event will take place on campus.

Volunteers will also be recruited via email to help out with the event.

Individuals who are signed up to the university's mailing list will receive an

email informing them of the volunteer opportunity.

STEP 2: TIMELINE OF THE EVENT

This intervention will take place on the last Friday of every month during

the Fall and Winter semesters, except for the first month of the semesters.

More specifically, in September and in January, the event will occur 2 times

on the last two Fridays of the months. As such, the event will take place for a

total of 4 times for the Fall and Winter semesters respectively. 

The event will take place during the evening at around 7:00 PM so that the

faculty and students can attend the event after work or after class. Friday

was also chosen to provide faculty and students with an opportunity to relax

after a long week of work right before the weekend.

The event will take place 4 times during the Fall and Winter semesters so

that students within each Faculty have an equal opportunity to interact with

the professors within their own programs. There are 4 Faculties: The Faculty of

Arts and Sciences, the Faculty of Fine Arts, the Faculty of Engineering, and the

Faculty of Business.
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STEP 3: BOOKING THE VENUE

The event will take place at a venue on the campus of LaFortune

University. More specifically, the event will take place at the Conference

Center on the 9th floor of Building B at LaFortune University. The setting will

include 30 tables that can seat 4 people, with new faculty and students

sitting at each table. The venue can accommodate 120 people in total.

The venue will be booked online through LaFortune University's Lspace, an

intranet for faculty and staff. For more information on booking the venue,

Ada Smith can be contacted via email at ada.smith@lafortune.ca or by

telephone at (514) 650-8484 ext. 5267.

STEP 4: CATERING SERVICES

Since the event's main selling point is the free coffee, along with free food

and other refreshments, LaFortune University will be contacting a caterer

from its approved list of caterers that is available on their Hospitality page. 

More specifically, we will be contacting Cedric Lamar from Café to Go

Catering Services by email at cedric.lamar@cafetogo.com, or by telephone at

514-738-8989. There is also the option of filling out an online form on

https://www.cafetogocatering.com in order to get a quote about the price

of providing food and refreshments for 120 people.

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STEP 5: EVENT REGISTRATION

Students and faculty who are registered on LaFortune University's mailing

list will receive an email informing them about the event and how they can

sign up for the event. The email will redirect them to the event's page on the

university's website where there will be a "Register" button on the top-right

corner of the page. 

When the students or faculty click on the "Register" button, they will be

redirected to the MyLaFortune's log-in page. Students will be asked to sign

up for the event through their MyLaFortune accounts, whereas faculty will be

asked to sign up for the event through their Lspace intranet account for

faculty and staff. There is a button on the MyLaFortune log-in page that can

redirect faculty to their Lspace log-in page.

STEP 6: PROMOTING THE EVENT

The event will be promoted through a dry-erase pop-up banner with a

retractable stand that will feature a promotional poster for the event (See

Appendix A for a sample of the poster). The reason for using a dry erase pop-

up banner as opposed to a regular one is so that it can be re-used to

promote the event for different Faculties at different dates. There are blank

spaces on the poster where the name of the Faculty, date, and location, can

be written by hand and erased so that the banner can be re-used.

2 dry-erase pop-up banners will be ordered, 1 of which will be posted in

Buildings E and H as there is a lot of student traffic in these particular

buildings.

In addition to putting up physical pop-banners, the event will also be

advertised on the university's social media page, specifically on Facebook,

and will contain a link to the event's page on the university's website.
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DURING THE EVENT: USER EXPERIENCE

Please refer to Appendix B for a detailed schedule of the event. Below is a

description of the process that the participants will be going through during

the event, which is very similar to a conversation café.

Registration: The event will begin at 7:00 PM, but participants will be
asked to arrive 30 minutes earlier in order to give their names. This will

take place at a table at the entrance of the room. Participants will be

asked to write their names and occupation (Student or Faculty) on a

sticker that they will then stick on their shirts, and will also receive a

printed copy of the detailed schedule. A laminated copy of the

PowerPoint Slides that will be displayed during the event will be placed on

each table (See Appendix C).

Welcome: 1 or 2 faculty should be seated at each table, with 2 or 3

students seated at the same table. Once seated, participants will be

introduced to the guidelines, or "Agreements" of the event (See Appendix

D), followed the process of how the event will go (See Appendix E).

Phase 1 - Home Round (Parts A - B): Part A will consist of brief responses
to the discussion questions (see Appendix F for the discussion questions),

after which the participants will elaborate on their responses. Part B will

consist of a reflection period where they collect their thoughts silently.

Phase 2 - Travelling Round: 1 person remains at the table as the host

whereas the others will be asked to "travel" a different table for another

round of dialogue.

Phase 3 - Return to Home Round: Another round of dialogue will take

place where participants will return to their original tables and talk about

the insights they have gained from their "travels" to the other tables.

Final Phase - Town Meeting Style: This will consist of a whole group

discussion.
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CONSTRAINTS: EVENT

Students and faculty may not want to attend the event on a Friday

evening because they may have other plans for celebrating the end of a

work week.

Students and faculty may not want to see each other at the end of the

work week.

Students and faculty may be uncomfortable with the idea of interacting

with one another in an informal setting.

Students may be uncomfortable sharing their honest opinions with faculty

who are in positions of authority, and who may likely be teaching them.

Students may be reluctant to interact with their professors because they

may prefer remain anonymous.

Since the event is quite large, it may be difficult to manage and ensure

that the dialogue remains structured, especially with 120 participants.

Despite the event being organized as a structured dialogue, participants'

conversations may go off-topic.

CONSTRAINTS: PROMOTING THE EVENT

Students and faculty who do not have classes in Buildings E and H are

likely not to see the pop-up banners as they may not pass by those

buildings.

While the pop-up banner with a retractable stand is large enough to see,

people may not pay attention to it and may not notice it.

Since the pop-banner is dry-erasable, people can erase and write on it as

well.
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FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT

Pilot test: Since the intervention consists of an event, a "mockup" or test

run of sorts can be conducted. This will be done through tabling on the

Mezzanine floor of Building H. As the name suggests, tabling refers to the

act of setting up a table on campus to advertise a student group's

activities. During the tabling, the event will be promoted by providing

samples of the food that will be served during the event. The users for the

pilot testing are random and could either include students and faculty, or

anyone who passes by the Mezzanine floor of Building H. The tabling

would also serve as a good opportunity to advertise the event and gauge

the students’ and faculty's interest in the event. To conduct the pilot

testing, a student volunteer should ideally be recruited via email. Students

who are registered in LaFortune University's mailing list will receive an

email informing them of the volunteer opportunity. The faculty

development specialist from the Center for Faculty Development will also

be working on the pilot testing.

Technical review: Experts, perhaps current faculty at LaFortune

University, with experience in writing open-ended questions will be asked

to review the discussion questions that will be used during the event. If

the experts are current faculty, they will be recruited on a volunteer basis

via email if they are registered to the university's mailing list. The experts

will be using a rubric to evaluate the discussion questions (See Appendix

G for the rubric).

Editorial review: Editors, perhaps graphic designers who work for

LaFortune University, will be asked to review the style and design of the

poster. They will be asked to evaluate the placement of the images and

texts. Staff who are registered to the university's mailing list will be

recruited on a volunteer basis via email.

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REFERENCES

Hospitality, meetings, and events handbook. (n.d.). Retrieved from

http://www.concordia.ca/content/dam/cspace/services/financial/docs/H

ospitality_Meetings_and_Events_Policy_Handbook.pdf

How to craft questions. (n.d.). Retrieved from

http://www.conversationcafe.org/wp-

content/docsPDF/docTopicCraftQuestions.pdf

Managing the large enrollment course. (n.d.). Retrieved from

https://serc.carleton.edu/sp/library/interactive/mgtlarge.html

Policy on hospitality, meetings, and events. (n.d.). Retrieved from

http://www.concordia.ca/content/dam/common/docs/policies/official-

policies/CFO-10.pdf

The complete hosting manual. (n.d.). Retrieved from

http://www.conversationcafe.org/the-complete-hosting-manual/

The Let's Talk America Café: Hosting a large group dialogue. (n.d.). Retrieved

from http://www.conversationcafe.org/wp-

content/docsPDF/docVariationLTALetsTalkAmerica.pdf
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APPENDIX A

Sample of the event poster

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APPENDIX B

Detailed event schedule

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APPENDIX C

Copy of the PowerPoint Slides

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APPENDIX D

"Agreements" slide
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APPENDIX E

Process slide
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APPENDIX F

Discussion questions slide

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APPENDIX G

Rubric for the technical review