Planning Department Staffing to Meet Academic Needs
As changes among traditional faculty lines have taken place, and as new appointment types have emerged and been adopted, little thought seems to have been given to establishing the ideal balance of instructional resources in a given unit, neither has there been much planning for future changes that would result...
Translucent Academic Leadership in 3 Steps
At a college meeting I once attended, one of the department chairs accused the dean of not being transparent enough in the way she made decisions. The dean answered that it wasn’t that simple. Confidential matters were sometimes involved. She couldn’t violate the trust of people who had shared certain...
Effective Transitioning to College Teaching: Part 2
Fourth, no matter how well intentioned and no matter how much material is covered, student learning will be severely limited by lack of retention. Retention in learning must be built into syllabus construction and course delivery from the first day of class. A useful guide to have all new faculty...
Effective Transitioning to College Teaching: Part 1
In recent years, there has been more attention given to the reality that most PhD programs do not prepare future faculty for college teaching. Even when college teaching is addressed, it is frequently in the context of sharing insights in teaching subject matter from innovators in the various disciplines. So...
Rise of the Transfer Student
Transfer students were second-class citizens. Although they always had a place at regional public institutions, many private colleges and universities largely ignored them. Admissions offices were built to work with freshmen, and transfer students were messy. They brought credits that were viewed as inferior and that did not fit into...
Outreach to Students from Underserved Communities
For a large number of teenagers, the possibility of earning a college degree still seems out of reach due to lack of adequate financial resources, guidance, and support. Each year, according to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, 34.1 percent of high school graduates fail to enroll in college....
Planning Priorities for Leaving the Chair Position: Part 2
A second strategy would be to negotiate with the dean for a package of support that would allow the chair time and resources to do some personal “reinvention” immediately following chair service. Included might be released time from partial or full faculty obligations (perhaps an in-house sabbatical) for a semester...
Planning Priorities for Leaving the Chair Position: Part 1
Although not often in mind at the outset of life as an academic department chair, the time will come for all academic department chairs to exit their administrative roles. What prompts the departure’s timing can be as simple as the expiration of the term limit at institutions where there is...
Establishing a Quality Faculty Mentoring Program
Teaching at the collegiate level is a wonderful yet complex career. We hire people and expect them to teach effectively, publish frequently, serve as effective committee members, and maybe even serve as successful administrators. How many new hires on your campus arrive fully prepared and competent to fill that job...
Closing the Skills Expectations–Performance Gap
A Google search for “college graduate employment readiness” produces over 2.5 million hits. Unfortunately, the top results have titles such as, “Study Finds Big Gap between Student and Employer Perceptions” (Inside Higher Ed); “Why Are So Many College Students Failing to Gain Job Skills before Graduation?” (Washington Post); and “2015...
