Developing and Evaluating Teacher Effectiveness at Colorado State University
An international conversation around an increased focus on high-quality teaching at R1 institutions has been gaining momentum for several years. A recent shift in the conversation, focused on identifying fair and valid measures to evaluate effective teaching, continues to grow. On the one hand, individual departments and colleges look to...
The Role of Academic Leaders as Instructional Supervisors
When presenting at conferences, I often start by saying I have been in a classroom for 65 years. Of course, that includes my own time as a student starting at age five. Although I have not been a “student” in the formal sense for many years, I continue to learn...
Five Tips for Making Tenure
This article first appeared in Academic Leader on June 27, 2016. © Magna Publications. All rights reserved. While the words “tenure track” make it sound like there’s a smooth set of rails that will take you from hiring through to a position on the permanent tenured faculty, “tenure obstacle course” might in fact...
Conversations about Course Ratings: Encouraging Faculty to Make Changes
Talking with faculty about end-of-course ratings is generally a high-stakes conversation where merit raises, promotions, or permanent contracts are on the line or at least hovering in the background of the exchange. Most chairs, program coordinators, or division heads would like to use the conversation for more formative purposes—to engage...
Five Tips for Making Tenure
While the words “tenure track” make it sound like there’s a smooth set of rails that will take you from hiring through to a position on the permanent tenured faculty, “tenure obstacle course” might in fact be a better description.
Developing a New Faculty-Evaluation System
At Georgia College & State University, each academic unit was tasked in 2011 with developing a new faculty-evaluation system. We were instructed to create an instrument that had both qualitative and quantitative components. It took a year of discussion, compromise, and eventual consensus, but we finally moved forward with a...
