Today our "breakfast with the deans" went on the road. We met with about nine or ten Gulf Coast faculty members to enjoy a (hot!) meal and some challenging and energizing conversation. We talked openly and frankly about how our college handles all manner of administrative issues relating to our Coast programs and faculty. We talked about how we should decide what comes next for our Coast programs, and agreed to some basic guidelines about what issues should drive these discussions as we move forward. It's great to see so much potential and so much commitment to serving student needs, no matter what it takes. We talked about how many other universities struggle with issues relating to remote campus organization; I personally take comfort knowing that there is no acknowledged "right" way to organize all of this. I cannot imagine a better location for these discussions.
October 2007 Archives
This spring I will teach a course I have not taught for several years, and will do so in a format I have not previously used for this class. With email down for much of the day today, I took the opportunity to begin work on the course materials. For those who have never taught, it is hard to describe the many hours of work required to prepare (or "prep") a course.
I always begin by reading the selected text in the order that I plan to cover the material. Next, I search for related materials in academic journals, related texts and academic books, and when appropriate on the internet and in news sources. I then think about the major themes of the course and how I will illustrate and amplify the key points that students will need to remember. I also explicitly plan from the outset how I will test the students and what key points I'll expect THEM to be able to explain in their essays--because knowing this always helps me keep the presentations focused.
In many ways, the skills I use in developing materials for a course are similar to the ones I used as a student studying from lecture notes. Back then I tried to figure out what the professor's key points were and what I thought s/he would want me to know. Today, I essentially am using the same skills in reverse!
As part of a university-wide effort to provide clear and useful information to faculty seeking tenure and/or promotion in academic rank, the college has asked each department to review its written guidelines for promotion and tenure or to create one if none currently exists.
Some have asked me why we should write our standards down. Other faculty have expressed concerns that our college is "too diverse" to create written documents like this. I believe we do need written guidelines and that we can work together to create documents that are both broad enough to suit our needs and specific enough to be helpful to candidates.
My recent experience as department chair in Political Science, International Development and Affairs provides an illustration. Our department was created by a merger of several disparate degree programs--undergraduate and master's political science degrees, an undergraduate paralegal studies degree, an interdisciplinary undergraduate american studies degree, and an interdisciplinary doctoral program in international policy and development. Our faculty include political scientists, paralegals with law degrees, economists, and a geographer. The document we created is quite specific, providing narrative explanations of the standards we apply for teaching, for research and for service. Yet it is clearly broad in that it recognizes the wide variety of teaching, scholarship, and service activities applicable to faculty in such diverse programs.
If we begin with the proposition that we are creating these documents to provide guidance for our colleagues--so that they know what is expected of them and how they can satisfy our requirements--then we should be able to create department-specific documents that evidence both our diversity and our rigor. Once these are all in place, I will work with the College Advisory Committee and College Executive Committee (chairs and directors) to establish a process for creating an overarching standards document that ties these individual guidelines together for use by the CAC and higher authorities in their evaluation of our candidates for tenure and promotion.
This morning, in one of our "breakfast with the deans" sessions on the topic of service learning, we had a lively discussion of what is working well within, and how we can improve our support for, service learning activities. We heard about innovative ways that faculty connect students, pedagogy, and hands-on service to the local community. We heard about research and the ways in which our service learning courses can become "labs" or "centers" through which related research can be conducted. We discussed ways to Identify, Recognize, and Support this important pedagogy through the college and the larger university. I am excited to be part of these ongoing discussions. When we can find ways to connect student learning to research and community outreach, we can truly begin to achieve the goal of integrating the various aspects of our work.
Homecoming is a great time for Southern Miss fans--both athletic and arts fans. Yesterday afternoon we opened a very fine new exhibit showcasing the work of our Art faculty members. Last night, I attended a rousing performance of Guys and Dolls, a must-see, good-time show that will do as much to lift your spirits as attending a pep rally. Today, our School of Mass Communication honors alumni and former faculty at its "Photojournalism Summit" and hall of fame induction ceremonies. Sunday afternoon, I plan to attend a performance of the Pulitzer prize-winning play, Doubt. Somewhere in between I think there are tailgating parties and a football game!
I was amazed to read through the large number of sabbatical applications our college received for next year. Each proposal was so intriguing; and all were unique.
Sometimes those outside of the university think of sabbaticals as a paid vacation. Yet as these recent applications confirm, sabbaticals are far from a time of leisure. Most of the proposals included time for travel to such diverse sites as Brazil, Reykjavik, Virginia, and Iowa, but these will not be tourist trips! Faculty have proposed in-depth research projects, many of which will not only lead to new publications, but also to new courses for either undergraduate or graduate students.
The two halves of most faculty members' careers, teaching, and research or creative activity, are often in conflict. Sabbaticals are one way to restore balance, and as such can lead to significant leaps forward in productivity.
Friday afternoon I had the opportunity to take part in one of the Campus Dialogue sessions organized by President Saunders. It was very eye-opening and everybody seemed to get a great deal out of the sessions. We come from so many different perspectives--administrators, faculty, students, and alumni--yet we all share so much in the way of core values and dreams. We also heard that many of the same themes have emerged from the earlier sessions, which is a sure sign that Southern Miss is already in great shape to design a clear set of visions and goals that we can all work toward together.
If you have not yet signed up for a session, I urge you to do so on the USM homepage (upper right corner).
We've just concluded the first two of our new "breakfast with the dean" conversations. The idea is borrowed from an Arts & Sciences dean we met at a dean's conference; we have taken his open forum idea and made it more focused, to better suit our needs.
Basically the plan is to invite groups of faculty and/or staff members who share common interests to join us for discussion, brainstorming, and information sharing in a relaxed setting. We serve a very light breakfast, keep the coffee flowing, and watch the creative juices begin to flow.
Our first session was with faculty involved in preparing K-12 and secondary teachers. The discussion was lively and included lots of sharing of ideas, solutions, and suggestions. We will follow-up with the group again to continue working on some of the proposals that emerged. This morning we met with administrative staff and discussed some of the issues and ideas they have for improving our workflows.
Our next sessions will be at the Gulf Coast at the end of this month, and later in November we will invite tenured, full professors in to discuss issues of import to this most accomplished group of faculty members.
In an earlier entry I talked about "faculty workloads." Building upon the themes that emerged in that entry, this entry discusses course rotations. The two are closely linked. Over the past five years, the university has been under pressure from a variety of sources to ensure that our employees are "fully engaged." Partially in response to that pressure, most of our departments began scheduling more sections of courses to ensure that each member of the faculty was teaching at least the equivalent of three, three-hour courses per term.
Enrollments at our university have been, for the most part, stable during this same period. Our faculty has grown very slightly, but the number of course sections offered has grown by a greater percentage. The result is more class sections with fewer students each.
Rather than becoming MORE efficient, we have become inefficient! This puts strain on our facilities, our support mechanisms, and of course on our faculty. An obvious solution is to teach fewer sections but allow them to grow slightly larger than is currently the norm. Radical shifts in class size are not required--growing the average class from, say, 11 students to 17 or 18 probably is realistic and will achieve the needed result.
We must do this in such a way as to minimize or eliminate, if possible, any negative impact on students' ability to graduate on time. The key is course rotations. By planning carefully and communicating these course schedules to students, we can actually help them plan better, as well, and hopefully improve retention in our programs.
The benefits are worth the time we invest in the process. Students will know what courses to expect, faculty will know what they will be teaching and when, and overall the number of sections taught will go down. I invite feedback and comments on these ideas; I look forward to working with our departments during the scheduling process for 2008-2009 to create workable course rotations.