The Department Chair's Role in Developing New Faculty into Teachers and Scholars

by Benisimon, Estela Mara; Ward, Kelly; Sanders, Karla; Plater, William M.

• ISBN13: 9781882982332
• ISBN10: 1882982339
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-05-15
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass

Summary

With the ranks of new incoming faculty likely to swell in coming years, hiring new tenure-track instructors and seeing them through to tenure is a department chair's responsibility that carries significant departmental and institutional consequences. The Department Chair's Role in Developing New Faculty into Teachers and Scholars is designed to help chairs with the three critical stages of new faculty socialization:Recruitment and Hiring, including organizing the search, negotiating the job offer, providing information, fielding professional/institutional questions, and planning an effective orientation Developing Faculty in the First Year, including orienting new faculty to teaching, addressing service concerns, developing full-year orientation programs, and creating mentoring relationships Evaluating New Faculty Performance by demystifying the promotion and tenure process, developing productive researchers and effective teachers, monitoring service obligations, and explaining evaluation proceduresThe authors offer concrete advice and activities; model real-life situations; and provide examples of letters, checklists, and orientations that can be adapted to individual contexts. This book provides the tools chairs need to adapt habit and intuition into effective management practices. The authors' advice will help new faculty succeed in their goals of teaching, research, and service and their new institutions, while ensuring department chairs achieve the mission and objective of their own units and the campus and college as a whole.

Author Biography

ESTELA MARA BENSIMON is the associate dean of faculty at the University of Southern California’s Rossier School of Education and codirector of the USC Center for the Urban Education, an interdisciplinary research center focusing on urban education issues in Los Angeles. She is also coprincipal investigator of the Project on Faculty Evaluation and compensation and professor in the division of Education Policy and Administration. Prior to joining USC, she was the principal investigator on a five-year study on organizational changes for the National Center on Postsecondary Teaching Learning, and Assessment. Her current research and teaching focus on faculty compensation, academic leadership, organizational change, and urban colleges and universities. Her publications have appeared in Change, Review of Higher Education, Journal of Higher Education, Liberal Education, and Harvard Education Review. She is the coauthor of Redesigning, Collegiate Leadership: Teams and Teamwork in Higher Education (with Anna Neumann) and Promotion and Tenure: Community and Socialization in Academic.

KELLY WARD has been an assistant professor of higher education at Oklahoma State University since fall 1999. Prior to that, she was on the faculty at the University of Montana where she was also the director of faculty development for the integration of service learning throughout the higher education system in Montana. Her areas of scholarly interest are junior faculty development, the service role of faculty, and the integration of service into the curriculum.

KARLA SANDERS is the director of the Center for Academic Excellence at Buena Vista University in Storm Lake, Iowa. She is responsible for the university-wide assessment efforts, meeting the needs of students with disabilities, managing the tutoring and study skills center, and coordinating the learning community program. Her PhD is in English from The Pennsylvania State University where she was the editor/conference coordinator for the National Center on Postsecondary Teaching, Learning, and Assessment.

Table of Contents

About the Authors	v
Foreword	xii
Preface	xvi
Part I. Managing the Recruitment and Selection of New Faculty	1	(48)
Introduction
Organizing the Search for a New Faculty Member	4	(19)
The Chair's Role in Managing the Search Process
The Search Committee
The Position Announcement
The Screening Process
Preparing for the Candidate's Interview
Key Factors for a Successful Interview
Checklists
Candidate's Disqualification
Sample Protocol for Telephone References
What to Avoid During the Interview
Negotiating the Job Offer	23	(6)
The Job Offer
Sample Letter of Appointment and Introduction
Providing Information Before Arrival: What's Useful for Relocation	29	(5)
Finding a Place to Live
Family Issues
Checklist
Family/Relocation Information
Providing Information Before Arrival: Teaching, Research, and Service	34	(15)
Teaching
Research
Service
Checklists
What the New Faculty member Will Need to Know Before Arriving on Campus
Providing Teaching Information
Helping to Establish a Research Agenda
Orienting New Faulty to Service Activities
New Hire Preparation
Part II. Developing New Faculty in the First Year	49	(60)
Introduction
Addressing Professional/Institutional Questions	53	(9)
Critical Professional/Institutional Questions to Be Answered
Formal Versus Informal Orientations
Legal Issues
Checklist
Institutional Orientations
Planning an Effective Departmental Orientation	62	(14)
Critical Questions to Be Answered by the Department
Formal Departmental Orientation
Informal Orientation
Checklist
Departmental Orientations
Orienting New Faculty to Teaching	76	(8)
Critical Questions Concerning Teaching
Teaching Mentors
Faculty Development Services
Checklist
Teaching Orientations
Addressing Service and Campus Community Concerns	84	(7)
Critical Questions about Service and the Campus Community
Time Management
Checklists
Time Management
Do's and Don'ts for Orientation Activities
Full-Year Orientation Programs	91	(18)
Teaching-Focused Workshops
Helping Newcomers Become Good Teachers
Research-Focused Support
Helping Newcomers Become Productive Researchers
The First Year
Checklists
Topics to Include in Year-Long Orientation Programs
Sample Format for Year-Long Departmental Orientation
Part III. Developing Faculty Beyond the First Year	109	(88)
Introduction
Creating Mentoring Relationships and Fostering Collegiality	113	(25)
Establishing Mentoring Relationships
The Annual Plan
Sample Annual Plan for the First Year
The Mentoring Relationship
Fostering Collegiality
Helping to Foster Collegiality for Newcomers
Impediments to Collegiality
Strategies to Foster Collegiality
Women and Collegiality
Collegiality in Predominantly Male Departments
Racial and Ethnic Minorities and Collegiality
Checklists
Enabling Mentoring Behavior
Disabling Mentoring Behavior
Establishing a Mentoring Program
Assessing Levels of Collegiality
Fostering Collegiality
Demystifying the Promotion and Tenure Process	138	(10)
Mechanisms for Success
Helping New Faculty Learn the Ropes: What Faculty Need to Know
A Word About Stress
Checklists
Helping with Stress Management
Eliminating Promotion and Tenure Confusion
Developing Productive Researchers	148	(9)
Finding a Balance
Steps to helping Faculty Establish and Maintain a Research Agenda
Checklist
Establishing a Research Agenda
Developing Effective Teachers	157	(19)
What Is Effective Teaching?
Preparing Faculty for Their Ongoing Roles as Teachers
Helping Faculty Improve as Teachers
Facilitating Interpersonal Engagement around Academic Work
How to Incorporate Cooperative Learning
Teaching Problems Frequently Encountered by Junior Faculty
Addressing Problems in the Classroom
Common Practices of Good Teachers
Portfolios
Teaching Seminars
Faculty as Advisors
Checklist
Advising (for faculty members)
Monitoring Service Obligations	176	(6)
Guiding Service Choices
Checklist
Monitoring Service Obligations
Explaining Evaluation Procedures	182	(15)
Preparing for the Mid-Probationary Review
The Promotion and Tenure Dossier
The External Review Process
How to Identify Appropriate External Reviewers
The Chair's Letter for Tenure and Promotion
The Final Evaluation: Preparation and Politics
Checklist
Providing Continuous Support for Evaluation
Sample Mid-Probationary Review
Promotion and Tenure (to be completed by the candidate's chair)
Bibliography	197	(9)
Index	206