Lincoln Legacy Teaching and Learning Community

The Origins

For over a quarter century the conference was known as "The Faculty Summer Institute" (or FSI). FSI was founded in 1996 when the Presidents and Chancellors of Illinois public universities called for the development of an Inter-institutional Faculty Summer Institute on Learning Technologies, supported by the Illinois Board of Higher Education. For years FSI was directed by a succession of steering committees, composed of instructors and educational technologists from each of the four-year universities in Illinois. Over the years, FSI grew and became more diverse, welcoming community colleges, K12s and institutions beyond the state of Illinois.

Recent Transformations

In 2015, FSI lost support from the Illinois Board for Higher Education during a state funding downturn. Faced with the option of ending FSI, leadership at the Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning at Illinois worked with the FSI community to transform the conference to a funding model that utilizes sponsorships and modest registration fees. That successful transformation was followed by a COVID pivot to virtual and hybrid modality conferences.

Becoming Lincoln Legacy TLC

The most recent change for FSI began in 2022 when the committee began rethinking its mission and the name itself. For many years, the name Faculty Summer Institute felt less than ideal. While FSI enjoyed great name recognition among our community after 25 years, the acronym itself was confused with the Fire Service Institute on the University of Illinois campus. Moreover, the Faculty Summer Institute had been, for many years, a conference that involved more participants than just faculty, especially the many educational technologists and instructional designers that constitute a vital part of this community.

Through a long process of brainstorming and discussing possible new identities, the FSI community settled on "Lincoln Legacy Teaching and Learning Community" for several reasons:

• Lincoln Legacy evokes President Abraham Lincoln and his commitment to lifelong learning, the land-grant mission of our Illinois universities, and our midwestern geography.
• Since our community includes participants and institutions from beyond the state of Illinois, we did not want to limit our reach by adopting "Illinois" alone.
• FSI has always been multi-institutional so we, likewise, avoid using our conference location—University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign—as a defining element.
• Most importantly, FSI has always been a diverse, supportive and fun community devoted to exploring and enhancing teaching and learning.