Meetings (9/06)

To: All Faculty

Last fall, Christine and I attended a conference on faculty development. One thing the keynote speaker mentioned was that across this nation faculty as a whole complain of feeling “meetinged” to death. The speaker challenged us to determine approximately what it costs our institution to hold all of the various meetings that we are involved in on our campus. One of the items in our current Faculty Strategic Plan involves understanding and improving faculty time usage (Item 11.3e). Below is a table based on the average faculty salary at Carthage for academic year 2004-05, with the average hourly wage determined based on 40 weeks of 40 hrs/wk labor:

Average faculty salary, 04-05 $56,412.00
Average hourly wage (40hrs/40wks) $35.26
Number of faculty in meeting, Average cost/hour
3, $105.77
4, $141.03
5, $176.29
10, $352.58
25, $881.44
75, $2,644.31
100, $3,525.75

The main question the speaker wanted us to ask ourselves was “Are we getting our moneys worth with all of the meetings that we have over the course of the year?” Certainly there is no good way to estimate our hourly value, but the idea of the above example is to try to think in terms of what we accomplish with our meetings based on the cost of having them. The typical departmental meeting costs the institution over $200 dollars. Committee meetings can cost up to $500. Division meetings are typically over $1000 and a faculty meeting where everyone attended would be over $5000. Do you feel like the business we accomplish in our meetings is equal to those values?

What can we do to maximize our meeting value?

The following ideas were reported in the Racine Journal Times (May 28, 2006) based on interviews of the following professionals: Kara DeFrias, instructional designer for a NJ-based insurance company; Linda Dunkel, CEO of Interaction Associates in Cambridge, Mass.; Barbara Streibel, author of “The Manager’s Guide to Effective Meetings” (McGraw-Hill, 2002);

· Do not meet just for the sake of meeting. Just because we have regularly scheduled meeting times does not mean that we have something to meet about. If you have no real agenda, don’t meet.
· There is nothing wrong with a 20 minute meeting. We often have a few items worth meeting about but feel like we have to fill the entire hour and one-half meeting slot. A few items don’t need to be stretched to fill up time. Ask yourself, “Would we be spending this much time on these items if it was 4:30 pm on a Friday?”
· Scrap the traditional agenda. The leader of the meeting can make a list of “desired outcomes” rather than topics for discussion. All participants have a better idea of what needs to be accomplished in the meeting and hopefully can be more prepared and focused in the meeting.
· Rotate the leadership of ongoing meetings. This is not possible in all meetings, but allowing each member to take a turn at leadership tends to make each member value the meetings more. It also empowers individuals who are less involved and can cut down on side conversations as each participant will eventually have their opportunity for structuring the agenda.

I would add that one of the things we may be losing as an institution is the value of the hallway conversation. As we get busier and time becomes more precious we have less time for casual conversation with colleagues that provides opportunities to flesh out issues that need to be decided upon in meetings. Thus meetings become longer and more tedious as we have to flesh out all of the issues in front of everyone in a more formal setting. In fact, Robert’s Rules of Order, which we claim to follow in our meetings, was actually predicated on the idea that most business would occur outside of the meeting, and that meetings provided the opportunity to state your opinion once for the record and then cast a vote on outcome.

We encourage you to work with your colleagues in your various meetings to determine whether your time is being spent most efficiently and effectively. We hope you will find ways to reduce meeting time, and that the time savings will be applied in ways that improve the quality of the institution overall. We also hope this exercise will begin conversations regarding ways to control committee proliferation. Finally, we hope to see you in the hallways and hear what you think!

Sincerely,

Dan Miller

Scholarship at Carthage Report (2/07)

Access Word document here

Scholarship Report

When evaluating faculty performance at Carthage, we have traditionally used the analogy of the “three legged stool.” Teaching, scholarship, and community service comprise the three legs of the stool. We have always acknowledged the critical importance of teaching excellence. In hiring and retaining faculty at Carthage, evidence of competency progressing to mastery in the classroom has been and will continue to be an essential characteristic of Carthage faculty.

Evidence of scholarly productivity and contributions to the Carthage community, while not as critically essential as teaching excellence, continue to be very important characteristics of Carthage faculty. Some would suggest that over the past couple of decades, as the size of the Carthage faculty has increased and the hiring emphasis has been focused on applicants from top graduate programs, that our (i.e., faculty) desire for and expectations of research productivity has also increased. Most of us, if asked to define scholarship, would respond with characteristics that included some type of research culminating in the creation of something new and tangible, often in the form of a book or paper in many areas of the academy.

The purpose of this report is to ask the question “What constitutes scholarly productivity at Carthage?” Our purpose is not to provide a simple answer to that question. We firmly believe that such a question can only be answered through dedicated conversations across the institution with one’s colleagues, especially at departmental and divisional levels. For more than a decade, the issue of what constitutes scholarly activity has been debated in the academy at large. A redefining and broadening of the concept of scholarship is taking place, and with the encouragement and support of the Faculty Executive Committee and the Personnel and Tenure committee we would like to report on some of these developments. The traditional work of publishing books and papers comprises a small part of the expanding understanding of scholarly activity in higher education. We also propose a time frame and method for engaging the question of scholarly productivity at Carthage. We feel strongly that before we as a faculty attempt to answer that question, we need to be informed of the multiple ways of participating in scholarship that are increasingly acceptable at reputable institutions across our nation.

Below we provide for faculty consideration an initial framework for redefining scholarship at Carthage. This framework emphasizes process over the particular products that we normally associate with scholarship. Rather than placing a particular activity into discipline specific categories, criteria are provided that can be applied across disciplines.

Criteria for Scholarship

The following have been suggested as ways of identifying scholarly activity:

1. The activity or work requires a high level of discipline-related expertise.
2. The activity or work is conducted in a scholarly manner with (a) clear goals, (b) adequate preparation, and (c) appropriate methodology.
3. The activity or work and its results are appropriately and effectively documented and disseminated.
This reporting should include a reflective critique that addresses the significance of the work, the process that was used, and what was learned.
4. The activity or work has significance beyond the individual context. It (a) breaks new ground or is innovative, and (b) can be replicated or elaborated.
5. The activity or work, both process and product or result, is reviewed and judged to be meritorious and significant by a panel of one’s peers.

It will be the responsibility of the academic unit (at Carthage, that would involve departments, divisions, and DAC) to determine if the activity or work itself falls within the priorities of the department, college, and discipline.
(Diamond, 2002)

Redefining Scholarship

In 1990, Ernest Boyer catalyzed a sustained and lively debate about the meaning of scholarship with the publication of Scholarship Reconsidered, Priorities of the Professoriate. A brief summary of his categorization of scholarly activities, with several illustrative examples, is provided below. These terms will provide the framework for a departmental, divisional, and faculty-wide discussion of scholarship in the coming months. A bibliography is also provided. Most of these texts are available in the Hedberg Library.

Four Categories of Scholarship of the Professoriate

Scholarship of Discovery

Where new and unique knowledge is generated (This is what we have traditionally described as scholarship in the academy)

This form of scholarship includes but is not limited to:

• A refereed journal article reporting findings of research designed to gain new knowledge and/or provide new understanding within a discipline
• A book or book chapter describing a new theory developed by the author

Scholarship of Teaching

Where the teacher creatively builds bridges between his or her own understanding and the students’ learning.

Teaching as a scholarly inquiry involves formal, peer-reviewed communication in an appropriate media and venue that becomes part of the knowledge base of teaching and learning in higher education (Richlin, 2006). This form of scholarship includes but is not limited to:

• Presentation about new instructional technique to colleagues
• Publication on examples, materials, class exercises, or assignments that help students to learn difficult course concepts
• Publication listing resource materials for a course

Scholarship of Engagement

Where the emphasis is on the use of new knowledge in solving society’s problems

The Scholarship of Engagement emphasizes collaboration, the learning and instruction will be multi-directional and the expertise will be shared. The Scholarship of Engagement can involve community-based pedagogy and research (Rice, 2002). In 1990, Boyer termed this the Scholarship of Application. This form of scholarship includes but is not limited to:

• Study conducted for a local organization or government agency
• Seminars conducted for laypersons on current disciplinary topics
• An article that applies new disciplinary knowledge to a practical problem

Scholarship of Integration

Where new relationships among disciplines are discovered

The Scholarship of Integration involves making connections across disciplines, placing the specialized work of individual faculty members into a larger context, and educating non-specialists. This form of scholarship includes but is not limited to:

• A book or book chapter interpreting a theory or area for a lay audience
• A review of literature on a disciplinary or interdisciplinary topic
• A critical book review published in an academic or professional journal

Timeline

• Spring term: CADRE open forum to discuss the redefined categories of scholarship and activities included in those categories.

• Spring or Summer: departmental retreats to discuss forms of redefined scholarship that are appropriate for one’s department at Carthage.

• Beginning of Fall term: opening faculty retreat to include divisional conversations regarding departmental work over the summer.

• Fall term: information is pooled and considered by the Dean and DAC. A publication of scholarship redefined at Carthage is released at the end of the term.

Bibliography

*on reserve at the Hedberg Library Circulation Desk, ask for the CADRE Reserves

*Boyer, E. Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. 1997. [Former citation: Boyer, E. Scholarship Reconsidered, Priorities of the Professoriate. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Princeton University Press, Lawrenceville, New Jersey, 1990.]

Braxton, J. M., Luckey, W., & Helland, P. Institutionalizing a Broader View of Scholarship Through Boyer’s Four Domains. ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report: Volume 29, Number 2. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. 2002.

*Diamond, R. Defining Scholarship for the Twenty-First Century. In Zahorski, K., ed. Scholarship in the Postmodern Era: New Venues, New Values, New Visions. New Directions For Teaching and Learning, no. 90. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. 2002 p. 73-79.

*O’Meara, K. & Rice, R.E. Faculty Priorities Reconsidered: Rewarding Multiple Forms of Scholarship. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. 2005.

*Rice, E. Beyond “Scholarship Reconsidered”: Toward an Enlarged Vision of the Scholarly Work of Faculty Members. In Zahorski, K., ed. Scholarship in the Postmodern Era: New Venues, New Values, New Visions. New Directions For Teaching and Learning, no. 90. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. 2002 p. 7-17.

*Richlin, L. Blueprint for Learning: Constructing College Courses to Facilitate, Assess and Document Learning. Sterling, VA: Stylus Pub. 2006.

*Zahorski, K., ed. Scholarship in the Postmodern Era: New Venues, New Values, New Visions. New Directions For Teaching and Learning, no. 90. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. 2002.

Dan Miller
Christine Rener
January 30, 2007

Ways to End the Semester (11/06)

Dear Colleagues,

How do you spend the last class of the semester? Below are a sampling of suggestions offered by faculty from other colleges. Please consider this memo food for thought as you plan for the coming weeks.

If you would like to add to this list and share your favorite way to cap off a course, please email me and I will add your ideas to the Faculty Resource Guide, under “Teaching, Learning, and Classroom Resources.”

Regards,
Christine Rener

*********************************

Ways to End the Semester

· Remember that by the final class it is too late to teach students anything, let alone any new material. But the last class can influence student attitudes towards the course, the discipline, you, and the institution. Various authors suggest that the final class meeting is a key student retention milepost and recommend ending a course with the same high energy with which we start it.

· Don't let dreary course evaluations be the very last class activity. If you are doing them on the last day, have students complete them at the beginning of the class, and then carry out the wrap-up program.

· Each student (and the instructor) brings in an object to symbolize what meaningful experience each is taking with her/him from the class. They each, then, have to stand up, introduce themselves for the last time, and talk about their symbolic object and their experiences. Powerful things happen.

· Greet each student as they enter the classroom, or as they leave, recognizing one of their course achievements and encouraging their completion of their educational goal

· When the entire class convenes, summarize the role of the course, how it feeds subsequent courses in the curriculum, and thanking them for their contributing to the overall mission of your course.

· In large lecture class formats, you can also give a brief 'overview' lecture at the end, giving them the big picture view of the course ideas. Such overviews may be more persuasive at the end of the course than at the beginning.

· You can ask students (all of them or a random sample for a large class) to relate their most significant experience in the course. For small classes, they can write it down on a card first and then read it out or the cards can be shuffled and read anonymously.

· Have some sort of closing event. Food/drink is good, if possible, and is appropriate.

· Use the course material to point to something in the future that is hopeful or can be eagerly anticipated.

· Plan the final exit. If you can, position yourself at the door and shake hands with students as they leave.

*********************************

For advice, ideas, and practical teaching suggestions, please visit the Tomorrow’s Professor Mailing List. You may either subscribe to the list and receive brief, helpful articles via email or simply browse the archives. The “Teaching and Learning” list is one of five lists of interest to college professors sponsored by the Stanford Center for Teaching and Learning.

Tomorrow’s Teaching and Learning
http://ctl.standford.edu/Tomprof/postings.html#teaching

Topics include:
Benefits of Learning Teams (#750)
The Perils of PowerPoint (#663)
The Challenges of Teaching with Others (#636)
Making the Most of Office Hours (#519)
Injecting Jest Into Your Test (#541)
Inspiring Students (#357)

Ways to End the Semester - Suggestions from Carthage Faculty (12/06)

Sam Chell:
I like to distinguish for students at this time between
"information" and "knowledge" (understanding). I concede
that they've received much information and witnessed many
practices (like close reading, and rigorous paper
correcting) that have no doubt seemed useless or so much
"busy work." The value of such activity necessarily takes
time to be realized--but it necessarily will, and when its
likely to count for more than a grade.

Tom Simpson:
Chronicle of Higher Education article, "Finishing Strong: Is there a way to close the semester with an inspiring class that doesn't require a ton of planning or energy?" James M. Lang
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v53/i15/15c00201.htm
Section: Chronicle Careers
Volume 53, Issue 9, Page C2

Leslie Cameron:
I got an idea from a teaching journal that I have tried and find fun. I type up a bunch of unfinished statements about the course - things like "My favorite lab was...." "The most surprising thing I learned was in this class was..." "Psychology is..." "Something I would like to ask Professor Cameron is..." and so on. Then I tape those to a beach ball. We toss the ball around the room and the students are supposed to finish whatever sentence is facing them on the ball when they catch it. They seem to enjoy it and I think it is interesting to hear what they say.

Redefining Scholarship at Carthage: Sources, Sites, and Examples (3/07)

Redefining Scholarship
Additional Sources of Information,
Including Discipline-Specific Websites

CADRE offers the following sites in order to stimulate conversations about scholarship. In doing so, we do not imply endorsement of any of these definitions or statements. We encourage faculty to seek out statements and helpful documents from professional societies and from favorite departments at other colleges. If you would like to add to these listings, please send information to crener@carthage.edu.

Sample Definitions or Scholarship Statements

Luther College Departmental Scholarship Statements
http://dean.luther.edu/departmental_scholarship_statements/index.html

Each department answers the following questions:
1. What forms of scholarship define the work of those in your department at their best?
2. What forms of peer review – including those beyond the Luther campus – are appropriate for that work?
3. How can you encourage and enable your colleagues to see that such work bears fruit in their teaching?
4. What depth and range of achievement in scholarship at the third year, tenure review, and application for promotion to full professor should distinguish the work of Luther faculty?
5. What distinctive forms of scholarship can thrive at a liberal arts college of the church?

Fine Arts

Position Statement of the Interior Design Educators Council, Appointment, Tenure and Promotion: a position paper on criteria for evaluation of interior design faculty in post-secondary institutions
http://www.idec.org/resource/position_statement.html

North Carolina State University
Department of Art and Design reappointment, promotion and tenure standards and procedures
http://www.ncsu.edu/policies/employment/rpt/RUL05.67.101.php

State University of New York, Brockport
Department of Art criteria for personnel actions
http://www.brockport.edu/acadaff/2006APT/ART.doc

Humanities

MLA Report on Evaluating Scholarship for Tenure and Promotion, Dec 06
http://www.mla.org/tenure_promotion

APA Statements on the Profession, Research in Philosophy
http://www.apa.udel.edu/apa/governance/statements/research.html

American Historical Association, Redefining historical scholarship
http://www.historians.org/pubs/Free/RedefiningScholarship.htm

Buffalo State University, Scholarship and creative activity statements
http://www.buffalostate.edu/artsandhumanities/x693.xml

Natural Sciences

Scholarship Expectations
Department of Computer Science and 
Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Grinnell College
http://www.cs.grinnell.edu/~walker/csdept/scholarship-expectations.shtml

Mathematical Association of America
Guidelines for Programs and Departments in Undergraduate Mathematical Sciences
http://www.maa.org/guidelines/guidelines.html

“Chemistry Education Research” prepared by The Task Force on Chemical Education Research of The ACS Division of Chemical Education
http://www.users.muohio.edu/bretzsl/cerTaskForceReport.pdf

Defining the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Microbiology
http://cte.umd.edu/staff/spencer/Sbenson-SoTL-FOME.pdf

American Association of Colleges of Nursing Position Statement
March 1999
Position Statement on Defining Scholarship for the Discipline of Nursing
http://www.aacn.nche.edu/Publications/positions/scholar.htm

Social Sciences

“Redefining the scholarship of business ethics: an editorial”
Journal of Business Ethics v. 48, no. 1, p. 1-6
http://www.springerlink.com/content/k22072m3818632j4/

St. Olaf Sociology and Anthropology Department
“Statement regarding significant professional activities”
http://www.stolaf.edu/depts/sociology/activities_statement.html

School of Social Work University of Missouri-Columbia
Criteria to be used for: tenured and tenure track faculty activity
http://ssw.missouri.edu/facultyres.shtml

Articles related to particular areas of scholarship

“Uncovering the Values in Faculty Evaluation of Service as Scholarship”, KerryAnn O’Meara
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/review_of_higher_education/v026/26.1omeara.pdf

Definitions of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
http://www.sotl.ilstu.edu/downloads/pdf/definingSoTL.pdf

Ithaca College Faculty Handbook Definition of Scholarship, using a separate category for the Scholarship of Artistic Endeavor

University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Statement on Scholarship
http://www.uth.tmc.edu/ut_general/admin_fin/planning/pub/hoop/app_c/c_4_25.html
Note the section, “Evaluating and Rewarding Scholarship”

Articles about the general issue of redefining scholarship

Encouraging multiple forms of scholarship in faculty reward systems: Does It Make a Difference?
Kerry Ann O’Meara, Research in Higher Education, v. 46, no. 5, p. 479-510, 2005.

Abstract This article presents findings from a national study of Chief Academic Officers of 4-year institutions on the impact of policy efforts to encourage multiple forms of scholarship in faculty roles and rewards. The extent of reform, kinds of reform and influence of initiating reform is examined in four areas: expectations for faculty evaluation, the faculty evaluation process, promotion and tenure outcomes, and institutional effectiveness. The findings are also examined by institutional type. Findings from this study show that campuses that initiated policy reforms to encourage multiple forms of scholarship were significantly more likely than their counterparts to report that teaching scholarship and engagement counted more for faculty evaluation, to report a broader set of criteria used to assess scholarship, and report a higher percentage of tenure and promotion cases that emphasized their work in these areas. In addition, CAOs at campuses that initiated reforms reported a greater congruence between faculty priorities and institutional mission, and greater improvement in attention to undergraduate learning over the last decade.

Sources for More Information about the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Arizona State University Center for Learning and Teaching Excellence

Illinois State University, Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Article, "The Scholarship of Teaching: What's the Problem?" by Randy Bass, Georgetown University

"'Scholarship Reconsidered' as Tenure Policy" in Inside Higher Education, October 2, 2007