05/17/24 - Refining the Reflective Essay

In this workshop, Dr. Laura Freidhoff will help faculty who are preparing materials for reappointment, promotion and tenure process to refine their reflective essay. The reflective essay is the abstract for the promotion dossier, hooking the reader’s attention, highlighting key arguments that will be developed further in other parts of the dossier, and summarizing the main message. To maximize its usefulness to reviewers throughout the process, it should address key points while being a pleasure for reviewers at every stage to read. Participants will learn to create a clear, concise and interesting narrative that will get all their reviewers in the right frame of mind as they study the other dossier materials. 

Laura Freidhoff, M.D. is a Senior Curriculum Specialist for the Shared Discovery Curriculum (SDC) at the College of Human Medicine. Laura’s background makes her uniquely suited for areas of medical education that require facility with multidisciplinary sciences (biological and social), clinical application, pedagogical design, and educational technologies. In addition to curriculum design and development, Laura’s work includes enhancing user experience of the JustInTime Medicine platform and designing and managing the curricular metadata infrastructure that supports curriculum mapping and continuous quality improvement processes. Laura has brought these talents for crafting front-end interfaces and back-end conceptual design of large digital content spaces to bear in her work supporting and mentoring people who are preparing a reappointment, promotion and tenure dossier.  

This information is important for any MSU-paid faculty member considering a promotion action in the next year or two, and for those who support or evaluate such people in working toward promotion. Community-based clinical/adjunct “non-prefix” faculty interested in seeking promotion at MSU should also find it useful. 

Sponsored by the College of Human Medicine Office of Faculty Affairs and Development with support from MSU’s Creating Inclusive Excellence Grant program.