Setting Expectations: The First Year Faculty Experience

There have been many successful programs designed for the student’s freshman year experience. What I am proposing is a “freshman” year experience for faculty. Faculty arrive at our institution and are immediately challenged by a wide array of demands and opportunities. They are naturally concerned about their performance in all three areas of teaching, research, and service. Although our Faculty and Administration Manual is explicit about what is expected of them in these performance areas when they are considered for tenure and promotion, we do not have any explicit guidelines to offer faculty for allocating their own time and energy during the beginning of their career here. This proposal seeks to address that issue by structuring the faculty first year experience to reflect a hierarchy among the three performance areas.

I propose that we structure the first year of our new faculty as follows. I recognize that a seasoned faculty member who joins us with several years of experience and perhaps even with tenure earned elsewhere may not need all of the following and certainly exceptions can and should be made. This program is designed for those faculty who have just been awarded the Ph.D. or terminal degree and for those with no more than one year of full-time teaching experience as a roster faculty member. It applies to roster faculty who are tenure track or senior instructor track. It does not apply normally to visiting faculty.

1. New faculty will be informed in writing by their School Dean that teaching is the highest performance priority for new faculty. Research is the second area of importance and service is third. Each new faculty member will be given a three course teaching load with two preparations for their first semester at the College. Each new faculty member will be assigned a faculty mentor outside his or her department.

The release from teaching a fourth course is specifically to allow the new faculty member to:

1. attend all faculty orientation activities;
2. attend workshops and presentations by the Center for Effectiveness in Teaching and Learning (CETL);
3. observe effective professors in their classes and discuss pedagogical issues with those and other colleagues;
4. devote time to the planning and design of courses for which the faculty member will be responsible;
5. develop a research agenda and proposal for the summer research project
6. learn about and begin to organize a teaching portfolio;
7. become familiar with advising materials for general education, departmental programs and college-wide programs (e.g., interdisciplinary minors)
2. The Chair of the Department and the new faculty member will formulate a faculty development plan (to include teaching, research and service components) and establish evaluation weightings (% teaching; % research; % service) for the first year. This plan should take into consideration the background of the faculty member. Normally the new faculty member will be instructed by the chair of the department to emphasize teaching over all other activities during the first year, but this will vary based on the individual faculty member’s experience and ongoing research activities.
3. New faculty normally will not be allowed to participate on committees at the College level. Their departmental service, other than working through the library liaison to strengthen library holdings in their area of expertise, should be limited as much as possible to participation in departmental meetings.
4. A summer research stipend of $2,500 will be awarded jointly by the department, Dean, and Provost to each new faculty member for six (6) weeks of work on a specific research project. New faculty may also apply to the College Research and Development Committee for additional research support. New faculty will not be scheduled for summer teaching during their first year at the College so that they can focus on their research.
5. The department chair will conduct the normal evaluation of the new faculty member in early June and the School Dean will interview the candidate after the chair’s evaluation to ascertain the progress he/ she is making with teaching and to discuss their research project.

It is the intent of this proposal that new faculty be given an unambiguous and consistent message by all those with responsibility for their workload and evaluation with regard to their allocation of time and energy in the performance areas of teaching, research, and service. By helping faculty establish priorities during their first year and providing them with research support during their first summer, it is hoped that they will adapt to our environment confidently and have a strong start on their development as teacher-scholars.

Prepared by: Sam Hines
April 13, 1999; Revised April 15, 1999; 2nd revision April 26; 3rd revision May 1, 1999. Implemented in Fall 1999