A common format used for faculty development is to hold workshops at national conferences or “one of” meetings. Often faculty come to the event, absorb information and return home. Anecdotally speaking, some hang onto what they learned many do not. This paper experimented with bringing young faculty into a one-time workshop then personal follow up with the attendees. The objective was to keep the workshop materials fresh in their minds. The development materials were selected to be useful for the workload expectation of faculty at predominately-undergraduate institutions.
Faculty expectations covered in the Development workshop included, teaching, evaluating students, handling accreditation, student advising, undergraduate research experiences, student discipline and curriculum development. Often a new faculty member must do all these things from the moment they step on campus. This diverse set of expectations can be overwhelming. Often because the number of faculty at an Undergraduate university is correspondingly small, it is difficult for new faculty to find mentors and adequate training.
This paper describes the results of an NSF funded project that provided a faculty development event with follow up by the PI afterward. The follow up activity intended to keep the workshop materials fresh and offer individual assistance. The development program included evidence based best practice components. These components touched all aspects of the faculty member’s job. Participants were surveyed to identify what aspect of their work was most important to them. For example, some participants felt the need to learn to create new courses, others wanted to learn to write educational proposals. Once they identified their priority, they were asked to commit to follow through and deliver a product. The project started with an intensive, face-to-face workshop covering the various roles of faculty at Undergraduate universities. After the face-to-face, the participants who committed to delivering product were nagged during a 12 month period after the training.
By addressing faculty expectations, the project intended to show that new faculty could become effective quickly. Since many minority-serving institutions are Undergraduate universities, this project intended to increase the effectiveness of faculty at minority-serving institutions by helping develop faculty.
This work was supported by the NSF through grant number 1647496.
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