{"id":2263,"date":"2026-08-17T16:44:19","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T16:44:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/tlc\/?p=2263"},"modified":"2026-08-17T16:44:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T16:44:19","slug":"two-professors-walk-into-a-workshop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/tlc\/2026\/08\/17\/two-professors-walk-into-a-workshop\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Professors Walk into a Workshop"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Reflective Self-Study of Co-Facilitation Through Critical Friendship<\/em><\/strong><\/h1>\n

By Smitty Miller<\/a> & Dr. Andrea Sator<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Co-Facilitation<\/h2>\n

As faculty, we are encouraged to seek out interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary collaborations. These collaborations can be energizing, creative, and even transformative.<\/p>\n

They can also be awkward, stressful, and occasionally make you wonder why you ever agreed to put another meeting in your calendar.<\/p>\n

For us, the experience turned out to be very much worth it.<\/p>\n

When we signed up to co-facilitate a faculty workshop on community engagement for the 2025\u20132026 Launch\u2014a year-long professional development program for newly hired permanent faculty\u2014we did not really know each other. We were both still settling into new roles, new environments, and the general \u201cWhere is that form? Who do I ask? Am I supposed to know this already?\u201d stage of academic life.<\/p>\n

But we quickly discovered that we worked well together. We had an easy rapport, and our different approaches complemented each other. One of us brought structure, planning, and a love of making sure things were grounded in theory. The other brought a more relational, intuitive, and experience-based approach.<\/p>\n

In other words, one of us brought the plan. The other helped make sure the plan left room for actual humans.<\/p>\n

Somehow, it worked.<\/p>\n

The workshop itself was a success. Participants responded positively, and we received encouraging feedback from Launch leaders. But after the session, we realized that the most interesting part of the experience was not just whether the workshop had \u201cgone well.\u201d It was how we had worked together to create it.<\/p>\n

So, we decided to keep talking.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Critical Friendship<\/h2>\n

After the session, we met for a debrief. Because we both found the collaboration meaningful, we decided to look more closely at our experience using the idea of \u201ccritical friendship\u201d (Schuck & Russell 2005). That term sounds a bit formal, and possibly like something that requires a cardigan and a bibliography, but the idea is simple: a critical friend is someone who supports you, asks thoughtful questions, challenges you with care, and helps you better understand your own practice.<\/p>\n

A good critical friend does not simply say, \u201cGreat job!\u201d and move on. They also do not say, \u201cHere are twelve reasons you are wrong.\u201d Ideally, they help create a space where honest reflection can happen without defensiveness.<\/p>\n

That was what we wanted to do.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Process<\/h2>\n

We began with a guiding question: How did engaging in critical friendship help us better understand our co-facilitation of the community engagement session? More specifically, what values, tensions, and relational practices shaped the experience, and what might we learn from this for future collaborations?<\/p>\n

To guide our conversation, we agreed on a simple process. We would talk first about what happened, then about what it meant. We would ask each other questions, notice assumptions, name any tensions, and look for themes that emerged from the experience.<\/p>\n

Some of the questions we explored included:<\/p>\n