Faculty Development

A Template for Designing a Perfect One-Day Retreat

A worthwhile faculty retreat can breathe new life into the academic community. The structure and content of a good retreat can contribute to the development of college or school identity and can inspire a shared sense of reflection and forward motion. As many of us know, a retreat also can be seen as a dreadful bore, an unwelcome obligation that faculty may regard as a distraction from their real work. How many faculty feel that they cannot pause and enjoy the possibility of refreshment in the confinement of the obligatory faculty retreat? So often, retreats are positioned against the momentum of fall, of new students, of new classroom power realized from good summer reading, of the desire to be focused on the future. Retreats, by their nature, seem to speak to the past, and to reflection, just when faculty are getting warmed up to look forward…

Margaret Sullivan September 6, 2008

Improving Instruction Through a Faculty-Driven Initiative

During the 2000-2001 academic year, a group of faculty from the School of Physical Activity and Educational Services in Ohio State University’s College of Education began meeting regularly with the school’s director to find ways to enhance instruction. From these meetings came the idea for the PAES Instructional Enhancement Initiative, a faculty-driven series of instruction-related activities, which includes workshops, a book club, a quarterly newsletter, and seminars.

Rob Kelly September 3, 2008

Technology-Enhanced Faculty Learning Communities Expand Development Opportunities

Faculty learning communities provide opportunities for faculty to get together to discuss similar interests and improve their teaching and learning practices. In the past 15 years, they have become more formalized through the work of Milton Cox and others as well as through use of Web-based technologies to connect faculty in new ways.

Rob Kelly September 2, 2008

An Internship for the Professor

Reflecting on my career as a teaching psychologist, I realized I was missing something. Trained as an experimentalist and employed academically to teach courses in

Thomas J. Gerstenberger August 25, 2008

Balancing the Demands of Teaching, Scholarship, and Service

Faculty roles are defined by a combination of institutional culture and discipline standards, and achieving the right balance among teaching, scholarship, and service should be

Rob Kelly August 23, 2008

The Changing Role of the Online Learning Advocate

Early advocates of online learning focused their efforts on demonstrating online learning’s legitimacy to the broader community. Now, as an increasing body of literature supports

Rob Kelly August 21, 2008

Look to Midcareer Faculty for Learning Communities

Studies on faculty careers show that faculty research publication productivity plateaus or drops at midcareer. However, this one measure of faculty productivity should not be

Therese Kattner August 12, 2008

Electronic Portfolios for Faculty Evaluation

Tina Ashford, assistant professor of information technology, was among the first faculty members at Macon State College to use an electronic portfolio to support her bid for tenure. Although the portfolio’s format wasn’t a factor in her tenure bid, she found that it offered several advantages over the traditional paper-based format that might make it attractive both to individual faculty members and tenure and promotion committees.

Rob Kelly July 13, 2008

Performance Appraisal Interviews as a Tool to Improve Faculty Work

The primary cost associated with an academic department is personnel. Personnel can include secretarial and support staff, but is typically dominated by faculty. In fact, as much as 95 percent of a department’s budget can be tied directly to faculty costs. This means that department heads and chairs have little room to negotiate around faculty and must instead face challenges directly. Compounding the chair’s ability to create change is the reality of academic freedom and tenure, both of which can immobilize progress and growth.

Rob Kelly July 12, 2008

Faculty Learning Community Brings Together Diverse Group to Discuss Asynchronous Learning and Trends

No matter how long you’ve taught, there is always something you can learn from colleagues. This is the concept behind Kent State University’s faculty learning communities (FLCs). Currently, KSU offers 13 FLCs, one of which focuses solely on asynchronous communication.

Rob Kelly July 7, 2008

Faculty Development

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