This was the case at LaGuardia Community College. “Once we started peeling back the layers, we found it was all about faculty needing more information, knowledge, confidence, and support about how to engage students. They weren’t against doing advisement, and I’m sure that’s the case in most institutions,” says Bernard Polnariev, executive associate to the dean of academic affairs at LaGuardia Community College.

More than course selection
Polnariev and his colleague Mitchell Levy, executive director of LaGuardia Community College’s Center for Counseling, Advising & Academic Support, have implemented a faculty development program—the Art of Advisement Faculty Development Workshop Series—that goes beyond the informational elements that comprise most advising preparation programs. This program, which won the NASPA 2011 Student Affairs Partnering with Academic Affairs (SAPAA) Promising Practices award, consists of three parts. In addition to the informational elements (course selection, institutional policies), this program includes conceptual (student development theory) and relational (building rapport) elements.

One of the challenges of implementing such a program is reframing the institution’s culture.

“Advisement must be seen as an institutional priority, therefore training, preparation, and support really must be built in to the institution. It can’t be a stand-alone one-hour workshop. It really has to be part of the culture. Advising is not just something you do. It’s something that you offer and continually assess, evaluate, and learn from. Rather than looking at advisement as a solitary function, we need to be aware that this is something that impacts the whole college. It will ultimately impact retention and graduation rates, which is what we’re all striving for. At the heart of what we’re talking about is tapping into the faculty’s desire to help students and making it comfortable for faculty to engage in this process,” Levy says.

Build on teaching skills
Part of getting faculty involved in advising entails relating what they do as teachers to the role of advisor. “There are a lot of parallels between teaching and advisement,” Polnariev says. “As we work with faculty, we illustrate that their roles as teachers and how they go about working with students are really extensions of developmental advising. The skills they need to be effective teachers are really quite similar to the skills needed for effective developmental advisement.”

Understanding different learning preferences, for example, is a skill that serves teaching and advising. “Being in a community college setting where there’s so much diversity, one has to be open to different approaches to reaching different students in the classroom or in advising,” Levy says.

Benefits of faculty participation
The benefits of faculty participation are twofold: institutions can increase their advising staff to accommodate a growing (and increasingly diverse) student body, and faculty offer content expertise that can be very helpful to students as they progress.

“With more and more students coming to college, we’re all doing more with less, and faculty are an untapped resource of additional [advising] staff. Beyond that, the faculty are experts in their fields. A business major really wants to be engaged with a business faculty member. We’re talking about developmental advisement, not just ‘Which course do I take?’ but ‘How do I prepare to major in that field?’ ‘How do I prepare for an internship?’ ‘How do I prepare to transfer to a bachelor’s degree in that major?’ We want the students to be engaged with those faculty who serve as connectors within their fields.

Understand the students’ perspective
An important part of preparing faculty for developmental advising is giving them the opportunity to explore their values and the values of their students. In a values-sorting activity, faculty are asked to identify their values and goals for education, and what they think the students’ primary reasons are for attending college. They then compare their thinking to what the students actually think. (To date, 2,000 students have participated in this activity.) Often, the students’ ideas about the value of a college education and the reasons for attending are quite different from those of faculty. “If there are disconnects in our values versus students’ values, what are the implications of those disconnects, and how might that be impeding our students’ success?” Levy asks.

Excerpted from Encouraging Faculty Participation in Academic Advising Academic Leader, 28.4 (2012): 3,6.

1. Is the strength of an institution’s “culture of teaching” or policy support for teaching and learning reflected in faculty members’ pedagogical practices?
2. Are “cultures of teaching” more prevalent at institutions with “learner centered” policies?
3. Do the relationships between institutional policies, faculty cultures, and teaching practices differ across institutional types?

Those questions were addressed in a recent study. Definitions of key terms help in understanding the findings. A “teaching culture” involves a “shared commitment to teaching excellence and meaningful assessment of teaching.” (p. 809) The larger goal of this inquiry was to determine whether institutional policies can be used to create cultures for teaching on a campus and then whether those cultures might encourage faculty to use effective pedagogical practices. To that end, they considered 18 different policies supportive of teaching and learning experiences for first-year students. For example, are senior faculty (associate and full professors) required to teach first-year seminars? Do senior faculty teach other first-year courses? Beyond student ratings, does the institution assess the effectiveness of first-year courses? Are learning community opportunities offered to first-year students?

As for effective pedagogical practices, researchers considered two in the study: whether teachers provided first-year students with opportunities to learn about people with different background characteristics or different attitudes and values, and the extent of informal interaction faculty had with students outside of class. Study results are based on data collected from 5,612 faculty members (at all ranks) at 45 different institutions.

The researchers conclude the following about findings related to the first question: “Scant evidence suggests that institutional policies in support of teaching and learning are directly related to faculty members’ teaching practices.” (p. 819) Were “cultures for teaching” more prevalent at institutions with learning-centered polices? “There appears no clear pattern indicating a relationship between institutional policy and faculty perceptions.” (p. 819) Rather familiar institutional characteristics, such as the Carnegie classification of institutional type and institutional size, explained more than 80 percent of the variance in institutional cultures of teaching and learning. As for whether relationships between policies, cultures, and teaching practices differed across institutional types, the answer was yes, particularly between doctoral-granting universities and other types of institutions in the sample.

Here’s the overall conclusion: “Perhaps the most salient and consistent finding from this analysis is that institutional-level policies have no more than a trivial relationship, either directly or indirectly through their influence on faculty culture, with the teaching practices employed by an institution’s faculty. Instead, traditional institutional descriptors, including size, selectivity, and control—but especially Carnegie classification, are consistent predictors of both faculty practices and culture.” (p. 822)

It is important to note that this research looked at a sample of policies supportive of teaching and learning, and it considered two (out of many) characteristics of effective teaching. Even so, the results give some indication of how difficult it is to change institutional cultures. Policy changes supportive of teaching and learning face the strong headwinds of tradition and faculty autonomy.

Reference: Cox, B. E., McIntosh, K. L., Reason, R. D., and Terenzini, P. T. (2011). A culture of teaching: Policy, perception, and practice in higher education. Research in Higher Education, 52 (8), 808-829.

Reprinted from The Teaching Professor, 26.3(2012): 2.

In recent years, Eastern Connecticut State University has made efforts to address this issue by creating a data-driven approach to a longstanding priority of the university: helping low-income, minority, and first-generation students succeed.

Incorporating this goal into the strategic plan has kept this issue in the forefront. Title III grants and participation in the Nellie Mae Education Foundation’s Project Compass, a five-year initiative to improve retention and graduation rates, have provided the funding and accountability to make this effort possible and continue the momentum.

The first step in the Project Compass project was to identify the various sources of data. “Student affairs and housing are always collecting data. The library collects usage data. We have data on who gets tutoring. Everyone’s collecting some data. At the same time, all universities have to provide external reports on retention rates, not only for all students but also broken down by ethnic groups.

Then there are evaluation surveys that freshmen and seniors fill out—satisfaction surveys and engagement surveys. All this data are there, but we wanted to know: Who’s at risk of leaving in the first year? Who’s at risk for leaving after the second year? Can we use the information on the students coming in and develop a model that will predict who’s more likely to leave? And that’s what we did,” says Carmen Cid, dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at Eastern Connecticut State University.

Understanding the student population
Although it’s important to understand effective practices from peer institutions, each institution has a unique culture that needs to be understood in order to help students succeed. At the outset, “most people really couldn’t characterize our student population. We might have had some sense of gender distribution, maybe a little bit about ethnicity, but not a whole lot. So part of it was plodding along, trying to ask very simple questions about our students and adding that to our dataset,” Martin says.

Before this initiative, there was no first-generation or high school GPA data being collected, so the admissions form was modified.

The university uses a logistic regression model to predict which students will be at risk for withdrawal. This model uses high school GPA, engagement, and other factors to group each student into one of five levels of risk for withdrawal. In addition, project participants collected qualitative data through focus groups to determine some of the reasons why students were staying or leaving. “Numbers are very important, but you have to do student focus groups,” Cid says.

For example, analysis of quantitative data showed that transfer students do particularly well in some majors, which makes them a key target population to recruit. Understanding why they succeed is a different matter. Cid and her colleagues were able to get at this important information by asking transfer students from each of the university’s feeder schools who have succeeded about their experience at the university and what was helpful for them.

“You have to work this from various angles. You really have to develop a student success network. You have to know who needs extra help, given what you know from these data. Half the people who leave the first year are not necessarily academically deficient. They’re leaving to transfer to other places, perhaps a community college because it’s cheaper or closer to home. Or they actually improved their calculus skills, and they’re going to another university that has an engineering program. These are things you find out, but the main thing is that you have to have various people looking at the data together and talking about it,” Cid says.

One way this dialogue has been facilitated has been through the community of practice created as part of Project Compass. Funding was contingent on regular meetings of this group of people from across the university to generate a work plan and share accomplishments. “It’s kind of like having an academic coach. [Project Compass] also provided professional development to us twice a year,” Cid says.

Martin adds: “While in some respects it was difficult, one of the things that did happen was that lots of people from different parts of the university got to grapple with the raw data as it was coming forward and really participated in the analysis. Through that process ,they got a chance to really identify what the group thought was important as well as what the researchers thought was important.”

Faculty involvement
Faculty involvement in this initiative is essential, and there have been two things that have motivated faculty to participate: the desire to better serve the students and the potential to engage in activities that employ their skills (and could potentially produce publishable research).

Faculty can serve as experts in analyzing data. There are many talented people at any university with skills who might think of this as a really nice research project. So you engage the faculty as problem solvers—psychologists, sociologists, and mathematicians—who are interested in helping students.

Funding and release time might encourage some faculty members to get involved. Others are motivated by their sense of obligation to their students.

“We know that people are leaving, but when we see how they leave our own majors, it asks us to really reconsider what we’re doing individually with relatively small groups of people that we have relationships with. I said to faculty, ‘This is not just about data. It’s not just about our admission process. It’s not just about student affairs and residence life making life OK for students. It’s about you. You have to have some ownership of not just the academic success but the persistence of students and their timely graduation.’ That, I think, is beginning to be a big cultural shift for people. And it’s not fully accepted by every faculty member. But I think that sense that we have to be responsible for this really came from the data,” Martin says.

Another way to engage faculty in the issue of student success has been through an online course for faculty. The goal is to get faculty to understand the issues involved with low-income, first-generation, and minority students. “We’re reading the research about this and having lots of online discussion about pedagogy and good practices,” Martin says.

Excerpted from Data-Driven Student Success, Academic Leader, 28.1 (2012): 4.

Hire right
“It begins with recruiting great people who are able to work with others,” Sorofman says. “If you get the right people who are happy working together and are collegial, everything else will fall into place.”

Although it may be difficult to explain to your supervisor, sometimes it makes sense to select a solid academic who will fit with the culture and contribute to the team over the superstar who is more focused on individual advancement.

“When we recruit we definitely have a couple of meals with the candidates. There’s a lot of informal conversation, and we watch to see how this person is interacting with the people he or she is most likely to interact with,” Sorofman says.

Establish common goals/vision
Housing four disciplines with a mix of tenure-track and clinical-track faculty, it might appear to some that the department of pharmacy practice and science would lack a common vision or set of goals.

Sorofman makes it a point to talk about vision and goals and revisit/revise them when appropriate. “Our faculty have gotten together and said, ‘This is what we expect of us as appropriate.’ That builds a team. For instance, what kind of team are we? We’re a team that does exceptional education at the professional level. We teach in the doctorate of pharmacy program, and that gives us a common interest. We all have postgraduate teaching. So that brings us together as a team. A lot of faculty who teach in the PhD program also provide expertise in the residency program, which is a clinical postgraduate program. That brings us together as a team to say we are exceptional educators. The other thing that brings us together as a team is asking, ‘Are we as a department changing science and practice?’ Although we work in smaller units, we tend to see that everybody is trying to do something to make an impact. We don’t expect giant impacts. We expect small impacts. But we’re all working together to improve health care. I think that’s one common thought we all have,” Sorofman says.

Encourage cooperative work
Although not a formal departmental policy, Sorofman tells faculty that he expects them to spend at least 25 percent of their time in their scholarly activity working with someone else in the department. This goes for senior colleagues as well. “They’re not just giving [junior colleagues] work to do—that never works. I expect them to be colleagues and help them by being an investigator on a new faculty member’s project or to bring the new faculty member in and let him or her see how they would run a project,” Sorofman says.

Having diverse disciplines within a single department helps foster interdisciplinary work. “I believe that the excitement happens at the margins. When two systems come together, the excitement—the dynamics—are at the margins where they connect,” Sorofman says.

This excitement carries into the classroom as well. “My background is social behavior. I’m going to be teaching a course with an economist on theory. What’s great is when I teach theory and he’ll say, ‘Well, this is how this theory works from a economics perspective,’ and I’ll say, ‘It doesn’t work that way. It works this way,’ and we’ll go back and forth in class. The students see that,” Sorofman says.

Measure success.
Sorofman makes it a point to measure the success of the departmental team. One way to measure success is by asking faculty about their job satisfaction. “I ask, ‘How is your career going?’ If they’re having a great career, then we’re doing something right. And I think most of my faculty would say that they’re having a great career.”

Other standard measures complete the picture: number of publications; grant funding; number of graduate students and residents; and graduate student, resident, and faculty awards.

Align individual and department goals
Managing autonomous individuals often requires “administrative judo,” which Sorofman defines as subtly redirecting colleagues (when necessary) to help align their goals with those of the department. For example, a faculty member was excited about working on a certain grant that had little to do with health care. Rather than discourage this faculty member by saying, “You can’t do that grant; It’s got nothing to do with pharmacy,” Sorofman gently pointed the faculty member in a more relevant direction by simply asking, “How can you make this about health care?”

Another faculty member wanted to do a certain kind of teaching that was interesting but not in alignment with the goals of the department. Rather than rejecting it out of hand, Sorofman asked, “How does it fit with the department’s vision?” The faculty member considered the question and redesigned the course to fit the department’s vision. The result was a relevant course and a faculty member who still got to apply new and exciting teaching techniques with the support and encouragement of the department chair.

“How do you bring individuals into the team and get them engaged? The answer is what my mentors have told me all along: You find what motivates people—what they love—and you make them responsible for that.”

Excerpted from “Encouraging Departmental Teams” Academic Leader, 27.10 (2011): 3,5.

In a 5-4 ruling, the Court found that the First Amendment does not prevent employees from being disciplined for expressions they make “pursuant to their professional duties” and that “public employees are not speaking as citizens when they are speaking to fulfill a responsibility of their job.” Although faculty at state institutions are public employees, the Court declined to say if its decision would apply to speech related to scholarship or teaching, leaving that for lower courts. Since then, a number of cases nationwide have been decided based on Garcetti—some in favor of faculty, some against, said Deborah Gonzales, founder of Law2sm, a legal consulting firm.

During the recent online seminar Academic Freedom and Free Speech: What You Need to Know, Gonzales and Rob Jenkins, an associate professor at Georgia Perimeter College, outlined a number of these lower court rulings related to the First Amendment rights of faculty and offered suggestions on how faculty and administrators can protect themselves.

“I think it’s very important for faculty and administrators to understand Garcetti, to understand these cases that are out there, and how they’re being applied, and that they’re also aware of some of the consequences and ramifications,” said Gonzales.

Gonzales and Jenkins also provided a long list of academic freedom do’s and don’ts for faculty members and administrators. We’re including some of them here:

For Faculty Members:
Don’t assume that you can write or say whatever you want in a public forum and that you will be protected by the First Amendment.

Do understand the courts’ rulings, in Garcetti v. Ceballos and subsequent cases, regarding First Amendment protection for public and private employees.

Don’t assume you can say whatever you want to in your classroom and that you’ll be protected by academic freedom.

Do familiarize yourself with your institution’s statement on academic freedom and policy manual, as well as with your professional organization’s guidelines for the proper exercise of academic freedom.

Don’t be intimidated into silence by the Garcetti ruling.

Do have the courage to stand up for what you believe in a civil, professional, and appropriate manner.

For Administrators
Don’t ignore the potential impact of Garcetti on your faculty and your institution.

Do familiarize yourself with the relevant rulings and their possible ramifications.

Don’t assume that your faculty members are familiar with Garcetti and its impact on them.

Do make sure that faculty members know about the rulings and understand how to protect themselves both in and out of the classroom.

Don’t assume that Garcetti won’t affect your institution.

Do take steps to protect your institution and its faculty, staff, and administrators through training, policy revisions where necessary, and other appropriate steps.

“The point that we’re really trying to get across here more than anything else is that the federal government isn’t going to protect the right of faculty members to speak out,” said Jenkins. “For so long, we’ve relied on the government, and we’ve assumed that we’d be protected by free speech, or we’ve mistakenly thought that academic freedom was, you know, somehow written in stone. The Garcetti ruling makes it abundantly clear that that’s not the case. The government isn’t going to take care of it for us. We have to take care of it ourselves. In general, I believe that higher education should encourage speech not squelch it. I think that should be one of the underlying principles behind our approach to academic freedom in this post-Garcetti environment.“

Robert Cipriano, Ed.D., professor and department chair at Southern Connecticut State University, has conducted research and written extensively on the topic of collegiality for more than 10 years and in his consulting work has heard the horror stories.

“When I got into higher education back in 1972, I had the expectation that collegiality and civility permeated the climate of institutions of higher education,” Cipriano said. “I’ve since come to realize that this is not, by any stretch of the imagination, what is reality.”

In the recent online seminar Fostering a Collegial Environment: Guidelines for the Department Chair, Cipriano outlined what collegiality is and what it is not, what the U.S. courts have said about “lack of collegiality” as a basis for personnel decisions (even the firing of a full-time, tenured faculty member), and proactive strategies for facilitating a collegial, civil and respectful environment.

According to Cipriano, the number one thing a department chair can do to promote a collegial workplace can be summed up in three words: “invest in people.” This can be operationalized, he said, by doing the following:

• Help people achieve their goals.
• Develop a genuine interest in every faculty member.
• Treat people with respect and dignity—always.
• Remember that relationships built on trust and fed by personal integrity are the foundation.
• Recognize that poor behavior by others does not require you to respond in kind (but you do need to respond).
• Model characteristics you wish the faculty and staff to exhibit.
• Acknowledge that leadership is more a function of people’s relationships than the position.
• Recognize people publicly for their achievements.

Yet even with all these efforts, department chairs can find themselves with a vitriolic faculty member. In the case of promotion and tenure decisions, Cipriano said the courts have consistently concluded that collegiality, even when not specified as a separate evaluation criterion, is a relevant consideration in assessing teaching, research, and service.

“The most valuable assets in a university are its people and the intellectual capital they possess and the culture they create,” Cipriano said. “There will be conflict. Conflict is normal and conflict can be positive, but it should not be personal and it should not be disrespectful.”

“The term ‘high impact’ [in regard to practices] comes from George Kuh’s work with NSSE [National Survey of Student Engagement]. They are particularly beneficial for students in terms of academic and personal growth, career development, and a wide range of desired learning outcomes. There’s something unique about these practices. They seem to have a greater impact than what we’re used to,” Swaner says. “They tend to be very intense, not simply students walking into a lecture hall and hearing a lecture but students [being required] to learn on multiple levels. They’re creating new knowledge, implementing it in real-life settings, and reflecting on the implications for themselves and the community.”

Of these practices, service-learning and learning communities are the most common and have the largest empirical base of knowledge about them. All these practices cross-disciplinary boundaries, and participation is usually voluntary. Students who participate in these learning opportunities do so only once or twice in their college careers. “I believe [these practices] are beginning to move from the periphery a little closer to the heart of the academic mission. Still, I would characterize them as innovative practices and not the norm,” Swaner says.

Identifying high-impact practices that fit the institution’s mission
Based on her research of several institutions across the United States that have successfully implemented these high-impact learning practices, Swaner recommends that departments and institutions conduct research, join networks that have expertise in these practices, and conduct a needs assessment. “Get a sense of the benefits of these practices, what it actually means to engage students in their learning, the kind of outcomes you’re looking for, and then do a needs assessment of your own institution. What would be realistic?”

Another critical component is involving a broad array of stakeholders. A cross-constituency group should include people from academic affairs, student affairs, and community members (in the case of service-learning). “If you have as many stakeholders as you can at the table, I think it will enrich the planning process. It will also generate buy-in for this concept,” Swaner says.

This collaboration typically involves several representatives from academic affairs, several from student affairs, and a few key faculty members. In the case of service-learning, there would be two or three organization representatives who would be really engaged in this. The committee discusses questions such as “What is our mission? What are the learning outcomes we want to see from our students? What types of activities do we have going on? How can we build in more of these high-impact practices?”

“Once you start asking those questions, you start identifying resources and opportunities and challenges, and it’s that collaborative process that leads to a lot of answers. The committee or a working group will start to write grant proposals or start to look for resources and then that body of people also starts to attend conferences and network with other colleges and universities. It’s really critical to assemble that cross-constituency team or else you end up with faculty doing these things in isolation. You have student affairs people doing things in isolation, which is tremendous and impactful on students but not as successful as it could be for the entire institution.”

Support: Top down, bottom up, inside, and out
Support from key players on and off campus is also essential. “Institutions are under a lot of financial stress. At the same time, they’re trying to do a lot of innovative things, so I think it’s critical, particularly for an academic leader to really look beyond his or her own resources. Look to the institution. Is there a teaching and learning initiative? Are there institutional grants available? Are there outside grants to take a look at? If you want to do something that’s innovative and less costly, then you’re really going to have to look beyond your own means and pull in different people and different resources to make it happen,” Swaner says, adding that successful high-impact initiatives have support from the academic vice president or president.

Although support from top administrators is essential to making high-impact practices succeed, the practices cannot be imposed on a department or individual faculty members. “On the campuses I visited, initiation of these practices tended to be a hybrid of bottom up and top down. So you find interest at the academic administrative level and you find interest at the individual faculty member level, and then there’s sort of a meeting in the middle, asking, ‘What will it take to accomplish this?’ What I found is that institutions where it’s more of a grassroots effort and it’s just the faculty, it sometimes is not as successful,” Swaner says.

Because of the additional work involved in preparing and executing these learning experiences, faculty would benefit from release time from courses or other responsibilities and special consideration in the tenure and promotion process. “[High-impact practices] may be valued in some fields and on some campuses and not in others. On campuses where you have that administrative support and the administrators say, ‘We want to see our students engage in these types of experiences, then you will see them allocating the resources and allocating the priorities that enable faculty to better participate in them.”

The student experience
For the general student population, there are many positive effects, such as improvement in retention, persistence to degree, and postgraduation attainment. The effects of high-impact practices on underserved students is generally positive as well; however, there has not been much research on how these practices affect this population, Swaner says, adding that there are often barriers that can inhibit underserved students’ participation. For example, socioeconomically disadvantaged students often need to work and might not have the time to participate in a service-learning opportunity that requires a commitment of 20 hours a week.

Swaner found that service-learning in particular poses other challenges as well. Some students from underserved populations might find themselves working on a project that serves members of their own communities, which means that educators need to provide an orientation and philosophy of the program that is sensitive to the needs and experiences of these students. (For example, is the program philanthropic, communitarian, or empowering?)

Students respond positively to high-impact practices, Swaner says, but they do pose additional challenges. “Students find them to be worthwhile and connected to their lives. These experiences help give them direction and skills for career choice. Obviously this is not the only goal, but it is a goal of students. One negative piece about it, and this speaks to the intensity of these experiences, is that students report that [high-impact practices] are a tremendous amount of work, that it’s eating up a lot of their time and energy and effort,” Swaner says.

In addition, the intensity of these high-impact practices can make other learning experiences disappointing. “It almost makes the rest of their college experience difficult for them because it sets the bar so high in terms of what their engagement should be, and then if they don’t have another high-impact experience, they express disappointment that they weren’t able to continue that type of intense learning experience. That’s one of the main reasons [to think] about ways to integrate it across curriculum, across departments.”

Assessment
Assessment is an important part of understanding the effects of high-impact practices. “Once you get all those folks around the table, you kind of have to develop a common language for your institution. Student affairs folks may talk about learning in one way, and faculty members may talk about it in another way. But they start to craft a common language and begin to understand what each other is saying. For example, what does it mean for a student to develop critical thinking? That might mean different things to different people. In terms of assessment and evaluation, colleges and universities that are at the beginning of this process are in a good place because they have that opportunity to build in assessment and evaluation as they start these programs,” Swaner says.

Swaner suggests tapping into the following resources to assess these practices: the institutional research office and faculty members with educational research experience. “Departments should really be looking to partner with institutional research offices because that is sort of the clearinghouse of data. Those folks are very knowledgeable about how to do research related to their students in the programs that exist. There are some schools that are already participating in NSSE, and there are other surveys as well. There may be data there, so partnering with the IR office is key,” Swaner says.

If your campus has a school of education, there are likely a substantial number of faculty who have experience with educational research and are looking to do meaningful projects. “Pulling those folks into a cross-constituency team can really make a difference in terms of what you’re able to evaluate and whether you’re able to tell if you’re effective or not. They can also help you tie your findings to the larger picture.”

Reprinted from “Implementing High-Impact Learning” Academic Leader, 27.11 (2011): 7-8.

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Universities are one of the last bastions where people can share divergent ideas and thoughts. In fact, both shared governance and academic freedom are endemic to sharing knowledge – with students as well as with colleagues and peers. Collegiality does not impinge on the freedom of faculty members to make their views known.

What we strive for in the academy is a healthy and respected sharing of ideas and concepts where people feel free to express their divergent and oftentimes conflicting views. In fact, many historians consider this concept to be one of the hallmarks of higher education. We most certainly do not want affable Babbitts mimicking everything that a senior faculty member subscribes to or thinks. What we do want is dissent – more specifically, positive dissent. One of the dominant characteristics of higher education in that professors have opportunities to express their ideas openly and unafraid of castigation in the form of petty reprisals of a personal nature. Discussions may be passionate. Discussions may become heated. But, discussions should never become mean, nasty, or vindictive. Professionals may disagree, express their thoughts ardently, but never vindictively or personally.

Facilitating a culture of collegiality can be the synergistic agent of good relationships among members of a department – which all too often is severely missing. The clarion call can be agree to disagree with being disagreeable! It is clear that constructive arguments over ideas – but not personal arguments over ideas—drive greater performance and creativity. It is important for the department chair as well as other faculty members in the department to deal with and, as stridently and quickly as necessary, address the malefactors on the staff.

Contagion from uncivil and venomous faculty members can create significant short-term and long-term threats to the department. They become a ubiquitous presence that stifles the culture and productivity in a department. However, when people engage in disagreements over ideas in an atmosphere of mutual trust and respect, they develop stronger ideas and perform better. The end product is often superior to one person working alone in isolation. Working on a solution to a problem in an environment built on trust, reverence, and civility can awaken people from their self-afflicted torpor and enable them to contribute a meaningful resolution to a quandary.

Robert E. Cipriano is professor emeritus in the Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies at Southern Connecticut State University. His latest book Facilitating a Collegial Department in Higher Education: Strategies For Success was published by Jossey-Bass in 2011. Contact him at: ciprianor1@southernct.edu

Eastern Washington University’s bullying policy is relatively new. In 2009 the institution formed a taskforce that included administrators, classified staff, faculty, staff from the equal employment office, and the human resources director.

The taskforce looked at many definitions of bullying and eventually decided on the following:
“Bullying is behavior that is:

• Intentional;
• targeted at an individual or group;
• repeated;
• hostile or offensive; and,
• creates an intimidating and/or threatening environment which produces a risk of psychological and/or physical harm.

“Bullying behavior may take many forms, including, but not limited to, physical, verbal, or written acts or behaviors. It may also manifest as excluding behavior such as ignoring or dismissing individuals or groups.

“Hostile behaviors include, but are not limited to, behaviors that are harmful or damaging to an individual and/or property. Behaviors that are intimidating, threatening, disruptive, humiliating, sarcastic, or vicious may also constitute hostile behavior.

“Offensive behaviors may include, but are not limited to, inappropriate behaviors such as abusive language, derogatory remarks, insults, or epithets. Other offensive behaviors may include the use of condescending, humiliating, or vulgar language, swearing, shouting or use of unsuitable language, use of obscene gestures, or mocking.”

When there are no policies in place that address these behaviors, those who feel that they are victims of bullying are uncomfortable addressing it. In addition, those on the tenure track may be more hesitant to speak up when there’s a problem.

“When you look at all the peer-reviewed literature in this country and others, what they’re finding is that when management is perceived as not addressing these kinds of issues, there’s an ethical ambivalence that sets in, and the ethical ambivalence isn’t just coming from the person who feels he or she has been targeted. They think the management is ambivalent and isn’t behaving ethically,” Milton says.

Allowing bullying behavior to occur can have some serious consequences, including lower productivity, increased turnover, lower morale, and increased use of sick time. “If you look at the literature on the cost of not addressing bullying in the workplace, you actually end up spending much more money when you don’t address it because you’re looking at a loss of talent. Every time you have turnover, you’re recruiting and spending a lot of money on the whole recruitment process. If you have someone who ends up having medical issues as a result of bullying going unaddressed you’re going to have absenteeism, and disability costs,” Milton says.

Milton provides training to faculty, staff, and administrators on preventing bullying. She sees this as a necessary step to educate people about what is acceptable behavior in the workplace. She recommends a training approach that is not just a top-down requirement but also a shared responsibility “because in order to change you have to create an environment that doesn’t tolerate bullying. Behavior will not change in an environment that supports it, ever. It’s only when the environment says we’re not going to tolerate it that an individual who is a bully will realize that either they have to change their behavior or they have to leave, rather than always having the target feel that they have to leave because there is no redress for being bullied. That’s one of the key things that if you look at all the lit in the field of psych you’ll find that behavior modification doesn’t occur unless the environment changes,” Milton says.

Having a bullying policy in place will reduce ethical ambiguity and give supervisors guidance on how to address these behaviors. Eastern Washington University has a clearly defined investigative process so that there is transparency and everybody knows what is going to happen and when. When a bullying complaint is filed, the investigative process requires that the accused be informed that an investigation will take place. Then the fact-finding process begins. This can include interviewing witnesses, scrutinizing emails, and looking at other sources of relevant information.

An important part of the investigative process is establishing clear protocols for reporting instances of bullying. In cases where a person feels targeted by his or her supervisor, there needs to be an alternate person to report this behavior to. To address this issue, the university has created a flow chart to guide bullying victims to the right person to file a complaint. “We spelled out all these things for people so that nobody was blindsided or said that they didn’t know what the process is. It’s a two-way street. It provides protections for the person being accused, and it provides protections for the person who feels that they’re a target,” Milton says.

In the event that bullying behavior has been substantiated, there are some progressive disciplinary measures that can occur. It could be that the perpetrator is required to go to counseling or attend training on how to communicate more effectively. “Some people aren’t even aware that they’re coming across as bullies. … There are a lot of different scenarios, and each one is going to be handled differently as far as the disciplinary part,” Milton says.

Having policies and procedures in place reduces ambiguity and gives leaders a way to address bullying. “When there aren’t any policies in place, I think it makes it very difficult for somebody in a management position to really be able to deal with [bullying] effectively. Administrators have said to me, ‘I was aware that there was bullying, but I didn’t know how to go about dealing with it, so I just kind of let it go.’ It was eye opening for me to hear that over and over. They were aware there was a problem, but they didn’t know how to deal with it. Having a policy and procedure in place is really important for administrators to grapple with it,” Milton says.

EWU’s bullying policy is available at cfweb.ewu.edu/policy/PolicyFiles/EWU_901_04.pdf.

Excerpted from Preventing Bullying in the Academic Workplace, Academic Leader, 27.5 (2011): 2,3.

“I’ve been studying the faculty career and university administration and thinking about how a network perspective can help us think about the formal and informal relationships in professional settings and how resources are exchanged, tenure decisions are made, funds are allocated, and all these different formal things that happen in higher education that, like everywhere else, often happen through informal relationships and exchanges,” Pifer says.

The study
The study combined online social network surveys and qualitative interviews to explore faculty members’ perceptions and behaviors within the context of their departments. The online survey asked tenured and tenure-track faculty in two departments (a business department and a social behavioral sciences department at the same institution) to indicate which colleagues they interacted with in the department for the following purposes: teaching, research, and service activities; departmental policies and politics; institutional policies and politics; disciplinary policies and politics; and general support and friendship. She then interviewed each participant about their individual experiences with networks within the department.

Findings
Pifer found that the departments had much in common. Both were very well regarded in their disciplines and had a “highly competitive but highly supportive culture.” She also found that the faculty in these departments were highly engaged in forming positive relationships within their departments. “Faculty members are really interacting a lot with colleagues in their local department from day to day and over the course of their careers, and for all of those different types of relationship and functions that I was asking people to think about, they indicated that by and large they were highly involved in relationships with their fellow faculty members for collaborative purposes. That was often driven by their own career goals. That’s one thing that jumped out at me right away—there are lots of positive side effects of these relationships,” Pifer says. “By and large people were very deliberate about career success, research productivity, earning tenure, being effective administrators within their departments, and exchanging resources through those ties.”

Pifer found that senior faculty were aware of the benefits they gained from interactions with colleagues and were deliberate about being supportive of junior colleagues by providing resources, which Pifer defines broadly as to include things such as funding, advice, support, friendship, collaboration, teaching feedback, and access to people in other networks. Senior faculty in the study continued to rely on each other throughout their careers. “We like what we do because there are always opportunities for growth, development, and change. As we find ourselves in the role of assistant dean, director of a research center, or serving as department chair, we rely on our colleagues to help us understand those roles,” Pifer says.

Networks provide a means for formal and informal exchange of resources. For example, a formal exchange might be a classroom evaluation of teaching. Informal exchanges can include things such as a supportive friendship. “I had people say things such as, ‘She and I are really good friends, and that’s been meaningful to me because last semester I had a really rough day in the classroom. She took me out, we had a glass of wine, and she gave me some really good advice, and that really helped me pull through.’ In general, we’re thinking about any career-related resources that help faculty members understand their jobs, to be successful and satisfied in their work, but specifically it’s all these incidental tasks that are exchanged through these friendships, through these collegial relationships.”

While study participants had a clear understanding of their relationships within the department, they were uncomfortable thinking about those relationships in terms of “strategic networking.” “Faculty members are very bright, very capable people,” Pifer says. They are pretty methodical about the way they get things done and manage their careers and their lives. I would show them a roster of their colleagues or a map of their network and they would instantly say things like, ‘He has access to a lot of grant money, but I don’t want to have to be his underling. We’re friendly, but I don’t want to collaborate with him.’ Or ‘Oh, that reminds me, I need to take her out to lunch. She’s the chair of the tenure committee, and I haven’t introduced myself to her yet.’

“Most people were very comfortable conceptualizing their relationships in this way, but they were much less comfortable articulating that strategic behavior, self-serving behavior, networking behavior. I think that makes sense when we stop to think about it because I think we still like to think of higher education faculty as very independent and motivated, where we’re all supportive, bright people capable of earning success based on merit alone. I don’t think that’s an accurate perception of the faculty career today. Yes, of course, that matters, but what also matters is the access that people have to the opportunities and resources through their relationships.”

Pifer found that relationships within departmental networks are complex and are often based on professional similarities such as methodological preferences or research interests or on personal similarities such as gender, marital status, race, or sexual orientation.

“I did see that faculty are reaching out to people who think they are similar to themselves, but I also found that that’s a very complex process that includes professional similarities as well as personal similarities. One of the next big questions is, is there potential that somebody is being unintentionally left out, and if so what do we think about that? What does that mean for equity? What does that mean for career success? Where do we go from there?”

An important consideration is whether everyone within a department has access to a network that can help them in their careers. For example, if there is a lot of networking going on in the locker room in a small department with six men and one woman, what is that woman not being granted access to because of her gender? By considering a networks perspective, departments can begin to understand who may be excluded and why.

“One of the key findings was that departmental culture is sort of the collective communication of the norms, behaviors, and relationships that are common and expected within the department. I also found that the role of the department chair is crucial in both departments. Participants were very satisfied with the department chair in both departments. The chairs were very articulate and intentional about making sure that the faculty members got the resources they needed. I found that when these chairs created a culture of support where expectations were clearly communicated and resources were clearly provided, that seemed to be enough. It was something [the faculty] internalized, and without much prompting from me they would say quite frequently, ‘You know, I really have to thank the department chair for his leadership in this.’ Every person in the network contributes to the culture and the outcomes of that network, but formal leaders and informal leaders absolutely have significant influence on what that looks like,” Pifer says.

Implications
Networks are complex, constantly changing, and cannot be manipulated to suit the vision of an academic leader. However, Pifer recommends that academic leaders and faculty try to understand their networks and address inequities if they exist. “Ask people to think about it. You can formalize it as much or as little as you like. You can go so far as to bring somebody in and do an external assessment, or you can say to the faculty, ‘Before our next faculty meeting I want you all to take a look at our website or a roster of our colleagues and think seriously about your relationships with them according to these three, four, or five purposes.’ Ask faculty members to think about their own needs and their own contributions to others’ career development.

“Using this as a conceptual tool to help people understand that their relationships can be mapped out, we can think about them logically and systematically and we can identify any potential problem,” Pifer says. This is a difficult analysis for a chair to conduct individually through observation, because the complexity of these relationships is not always apparent. Encouraging faculty to map their own networks or guiding a discussion to determine whether some faculty do not have access to resources. Another approach is to at look things such as office allocation, teaching loads, and research productivity to look for factors that might indirectly indicate faculty members’ access to departmental resources.

“Physical space matters. When departments are organized in ways where people have reasons to interact with each other frequently and informally, that can do a lot to support the development of informal relationships that can lead to formal career outcomes,” Pifer says.

As with anything involving highly independent faculty members, a top-down approach to changing behavior is unlikely to succeed, Pifer says. “If you walk into a room full of people, let alone academics, and say, ‘Good news! I’m going to perfect your interpersonal behavior,’ you’re going to be run out of town. So the conclusion is not that we can or even should change behavior, but that we want to understand the difference between preference and personality and unintended inequity or unfair differentiation and access to resources.”

For more on this research see http://etda.libraries.psu.edu/theses/approved/WorldWideIndex/ETD-4994/index.html.

Reprinted from Understand Networks within Academic Departments Academic Leader, 27.5 (2011): 1, 7.

Re-evaluate the idea of the university
Perhaps the most fundamental reason why teaching and research are viewed as competing rather than interrelated activities—and a key cause of why it’s so difficult to reunite these processes in faculty load assignments and evaluation systems—is that colleges and universities themselves are structured as though instruction and scholarship were utterly distinct enterprises.

Examine the mission statement of almost any institution of higher education, and you’ll discover that teaching and research are listed as important but not necessarily related functions of the organization. In other words, relatively few mission statements present learning as a goal achieved through independent inquiry and research; even fewer describe discovery, integration, and application as results actively sought through teaching. Once again, the focus is on the activity rather than the result, and that perspective shapes everything that is familiar about the modern university.

• Departments are organized around disciplinary methods (activities) rather than important questions being asked or issues being explored (results).
• Individual courses are defined by “seat time” and contact hours (activities) rather than competencies gained and knowledge developed (results).
• Degrees are granted largely by the number of credits earned (activities) rather than the amount of growth achieved or improvement attained (results).

That same emphasis on the processes of teaching, research, and service rather than the outcomes of learning, innovation, and academic citizenship that we saw fragmenting faculty roles in Part 1 of this series ultimately fragments the university itself. In order to promote research while enhancing instruction, not even as separate yet complementary activities but as a single, integrated approach to fulfilling its mission, it’s necessary to reevaluate the entire idea of what a university is today, what value it adds to society, and what purposes it is trying to serve.

That re-evaluation is unlikely to be successful if institutions merely attempt to adapt their long-standing emphasis on teaching, research, and service to the evolving needs of a new century. It’s important at the university level, too, to define its mission and to determine its structure, not by all the effort that people are putting in, but by all the benefits that stakeholders are taking out.

Young institutions tend to define themselves on the SAT and GRE scores of their incoming students, the number of Nobel laureates and Guggenheim fellows they hire, and the international reputations of the administrative team. Truly world-class institutions tend to be defined in terms of the placement rates of their graduates, the number of Nobel laureates and Guggenheim fellows they produce, and the international contributions of the administrative team. See Salmi (2009). Cutting-edge research can seem to be a distraction from highly effective teaching as long as the institution is structured in such a way that academic affairs are administered in one unit, research in another. That distraction begins to disappear (and those competing administrative units become less necessary) once the institutional focus is on innovation rather than on all the different ways in which innovation might possibly be achieved.

Don Chu has described the tendency of faculty members to view departments as “closed systems” where professors provide the labor and where students and academic disciplines reap the results. See Chu (2006) 3–6. More accurately, Chu says, an academic department should be regarded as an “open system” in which both the stakeholders and beneficiaries are numerous: faculty members, students, alumni, parents of current students, accrediting agencies, legislatures, the local community, the individual disciplines, the higher education community, prospective employers of graduates, nongovernment organizations, funding agencies, and so on. In the 21st century, that same sort of approach needs to be applied to the institution as a whole.

Re-evaluating the idea of the university will mean approaching it not as a closed system in which professors teach and conduct research, but as an open, organic network that includes a vast system of constituents and stakeholders. It’s the same mind-set that both defines faculty load as, for example, 50 percent teaching, 40 percent research, and 10 percent service, and student achievement as 120 credit hours earned in 50-minute classes conducted over 15-week semesters. It is rapidly becoming accepted that there are alternative models for describing how students learn. It should be equally clear that alternative models also exist for describing how universities and university systems produce benefits for society.

Six strategies for promoting research while advancing instruction
In what is perhaps the most comprehensive approach to promoting research while advancing instruction to date, Alan Jenkins, Mick Healey, and Roger Zetter described six effective strategies that institutions can adopt in order to make timely progress in attaining this goal.

1. Work through individual disciplines to develop a clearer understanding of how teaching and research intersect in their own practices and methods.
2. Review areas where current culture seems to inhibit the cross-fertilization between teaching and research, and revise policies where appropriate. Assessment data, student surveys, organizational audits, and comprehensive program reviews can all provide helpful information in this regard.
3. Develop an institution-wide set of curricular goals for promoting research among all students, even at the undergraduate level.
4. Modify staffing policies so that future hires are likely to support the full integration of teaching and research.
5. Revise strategic planning goals and categories so that teaching objectives and research objectives better support one another.
6. Incorporate a fully integrated approach toward teaching and research into institutional culture. For instance, incorporate assessment of research knowledge into curricular assessment, encourage research clusters to become teaching teams, and give research wide visibility to students at all levels of the institution. Jenkins, Healey, and Zetter (2007) 52–61.

In other words, by shifting the mission of the university from “educating students and conducting research” to “educating students through conducting research,” institutions do a great deal more than merely create better synergy between two essential functions of the modern university; they also go a long way toward reintegrating their fractured identities. As the university of the 21st century ceases to define itself as the place where teaching, research, and service occur as quasi-independent activities and begins to define itself as the place where innovative learning promotes more engaged citizenship, more fundamental changes will be possible throughout higher education. We may even find ourselves wondering why we ever thought it necessary to speak about teaching and research as though they were unrelated and competing endeavors.

References
Chu, D. (2006). The Department Chair Primer: Leading and Managing Academic Departments. Bolton, Mass.: Anker.

Jenkins, A., Zetter, R., and Healey, M. J. (2007). Linking Teaching and Research in Disciplines and Departments. Heslington: Higher Educational Academy. Retrieved October 2, 2010, from www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/York/documents/LinkingTeachingAndResearch_April07.pdf.

Salmi, J. (2009). The Challenges of Establishing World-Class Universities. Washington, D.C.: The World Bank.

Jeffrey L. Buller is dean of the Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College at Florida Atlantic University. He is the author of Academic Leadership Day by Day: Small Steps That Lead to Great Success (2011) and other books on higher education administration, all of which are published by Jossey-Bass.

Reprinted from Academic Leader, 27.3 (2011): 3,7.

Reconsider the merit pay system
In Part 1, we examined several reasons why it’s important for universities to look at faculty work not in terms of the actions that are taken but rather in terms of the benefits that result. Of course, it’s one thing to say that changing how we view faculty roles can help promote research while advancing teaching; it’s another thing entirely to bring about such a massive change.

The problem is that the division of faculty duties into teaching, research, and service is not merely a matter of semantics; that same division also drives the faculty evaluation systems at most colleges and universities. For instance, if we examine the way in which merit increases are assigned in many systems, faculty members receive a larger raise if they score “excellent” or “outstanding” (or earn enough points on a rating scale that places them in these upper categories) in all three areas. There are two drawbacks to this process.

First, as I mentioned in an earlier article, most merit increase pools in higher education are so small that they prove to be disincentives at every level of performance. See Buller (2009) 7–8. In other words, if faculty members who reached a certain level of performance were ever assigned annual increases of 10 percent or more, merit pay systems might well be effective. But in many cases, merit increase pools are only 1 percent or 2 percent, leaving the effectiveness of this entire strategy in doubt. The most highly ranked among the faculty say things like, “All this extra work, and all I get is another 1 percent? I’m not going to try as hard next year.” Faculty members who receive a standard increase say, “All this hard work, and all I get is the average raise? I’m not going to try as hard next year.” And faculty members who end up low in the ratings say, “All the work that I’ve done, and they dock me 1 percent? I’m not going to try as hard next year.” As a result, morale decreases, the amount of effort plummets, and a system that was intended to encourage a higher quality of work in actuality has the opposite effect.

The second problem with merit pay systems based on teaching, research, and service is that, by examining activities instead of results, they don’t reinforce the behaviors they’re intended to reward. A common administrative complaint is, “We keep rewarding excellence in teaching and research, yet we’re not seeing the increase in grant activity, publication of refereed research, recognition through national teaching awards, or development of innovative pedagogy that we had anticipated.” What the system has done is reward participation in a process that people hope will lead to certain results, when it would be far more effective to reward the results themselves. There are three major ways to avoid this problem:

• Targeted merit plans are the most direct method of making sure that the rewards a system is providing are directly tied to the results that the institution regards as particularly desirable. In these systems, the raises that most faculty members receive are distributed as across-the-board adjustments or cost-of-living increases. Merit increases are assigned only for promotion and for the achievement of specific, clearly identified goals. For instance, a faculty member might receive a merit increase (either as a permanent addition to the base or as a bonus to be paid out over a specific number of years) if he or she has written a successful grant proposal that was funded over a certain amount by an external agency, published a book of research with an established university press, been honored with a national or international award for teaching, and so on. These merit increases, though not common, are large enough to be a genuine incentive to a truly motivated faculty member. The university thus achieves the goal it has identified as important, and faculty members are rewarded for their successes, not merely their efforts.
• Post-tenure review systems can provide an opportunity for institutions to offer incentives for continued achievements, even in the later stages of a faculty member’s career. Today, post-tenure review at many institutions is regarded by professors as an unpopular and unproductive hurdle: an inconvenience at best, a threat to their livelihood at worst. But if more colleges and universities incorporated positive rewards for those faculty members who were doing exemplary work into a process largely known for its sanctions against those who were no longer productive, the entire activity could become far more beneficial both for the individual and the institution. Rewards for highly productive faculty members might include additional sabbatical time, bonuses or long-term salary increases, access to additional graduate assistantships, enhanced research or travel money, public recognition, or other benefits that would be regarded as particularly meaningful by each individual faculty member.
• Distinguished professorships carry the concept of enhanced post-tenure review even further and combine an extremely high level of public recognition with increased compensation. The difficulty many institutions face is that, with only a few ranks available for faculty promotion, relatively limited incentives exist for encouraging continued achievement once someone reaches the level of full professor. But by adding additional ranks above the level of professor—such as distinguished professor, eminent professor, or endowed chair—colleges and universities can reward those faculty members whose accomplishments continue to increase throughout their careers. Moreover, rather than continuing to encourage a false opposition between instruction and scholarship by the use of such titles as Distinguished Teaching Fellow or Eminent Research Scholar, these “super professorships” have the potential to promote research while advancing instruction through the designation that Bob Smith, the provost at Texas Tech, calls “the integrated scholar”: eminent faculty members who teach via their research and thereby serve both their communities and disciplines simultaneously.

Of course, the most comprehensive way to reintegrate teaching and research (as well as service) is to reevaluate the very idea of what a university is in the 21st century, and we’ll consider that approach in Part 3 [next week].

References:
Buller, J.L. (June 2009). The pros and cons of merit pay. Academic Leader. 25.6, 7–8.

Smith, B. (February, 2002). The integrated scholar: Have you seen one lately? All Things Academic. 3.1, 147–153. Retrieved September 16, 2010, from http://libinfo.uark.edu/ata/cumulation/content.pdf.

Jeffrey L. Buller is dean of the Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College at Florida Atlantic University. He is the author of Academic Leadership Day by Day: Small Steps That Lead to Great Success (2011) and other books on higher education administration, all of which are published by Jossey-Bass.

Reprinted from Academic Leader, 27.2 (2011): 3,7.

At many schools, the answers to these questions have consisted of little more than modest adjustments in existing practices—for instance, modifying the formulas used in setting faculty loads, rewriting tenure and promotion procedures so that they include a “teaching track” and a “research track” (each with different criteria), or sponsoring workshops on the scholarship of teaching—when in most cases a more revolutionary approach is required. Colleges and universities have changed significantly over the past few decades, and the time has come to redesign entirely the now outdated “academic triad,” rethink the whole concept of how merit pay is allocated, and reexamine the very mission of higher education. Only through such a radical strategy can institutions hope to promote research while still advancing instruction.

Redesign the three-legged stool
The standard division of faculty labor into three categories of activity—teaching, research, and service—is so common that most academics regard it as fundamental to the very way in which higher education works. To be sure, Ernest Boyer broadened the definition of what scholarship is with the publication of Scholarship Reconsidered, ideas that were then developed by Charles Glassick and others in Scholarship Assessed. See Boyer (1990) and Glassick, Huber, and Maeroff (1997). In much the same way, the notion of what teaching means at a college or university and where at the institution it occurs was explored by several student affairs associations in the two volumes of Learning Reconsidered. See Keeling (2004) and Keeling (2006). But, as helpful as these discussions were, it now seems time for Scholarship Reconsidered and Learning Reconsidered to be, well, reconsidered.

The fact is that broadening the definition of scholarship and recognizing that important learning takes place all throughout the university, while important first steps, simply don’t go far enough in helping institutions address what faculty members actually do in their work today.

Accreditation agencies have long abandoned self-studies that merely catalogue “inputs” and activities—the number of volumes in the library, the amount of research funding allocated per faculty member, student-faculty ratios, and so on—in favor of assessing “outcomes” and results—post-program competency versus pre-program competency, placement rates in careers or graduate programs, the impact factor of publications, and the like.

So, the question is: If it makes sense to shift from inputs and activities to outcomes and results when we consider what students do, why are we still using such an ineffective approach when we examine what faculty members do? If we replace the old academic triad of teaching, research, and service, with a new triad based on the effects of those activities—learning, innovation, and academic citizenship—our false dichotomy between instruction and scholarship vanishes. Here’s why.

• Learning at the postsecondary level includes not only the knowledge and skills that students gain from their formal course work but also the discoveries they make through their independent research, the personal development that occurs through their service learning and other forms of civic engagement, the growth in their leadership and teamwork skills that results from extracurricular activities, the expanded perspectives from activities such as internships and study-abroad opportunities, and a host of other benefits. In a parallel manner, faculty members continue their own learning in a lifelong process that includes expansion of their pedagogical expertise, new discoveries in their disciplines, the pursuit of new certifications, and the like. In other words, the revolution begun by Robert Barr and John Tagg (1995) has changed the way we look at what students do at a college or university, so why do we still insist on looking at teaching, research, and service as separate activities, rather than evaluating the learning that results from all three?
• Innovation may be observed when faculty members discover and apply new knowledge, develop or perform creative works, and engage in entrepreneurial activities either in their discipline or in service to the institution. In addition, innovation may be regarded as including educational improvements that lead to enhanced student learning, original ways of serving their community or profession, and programmatic advances that make a college or university more distinctive. In this way, innovation, like learning, is not itself an activity that faculty members engage in, but is instead a desirable result of such activities as teaching, research, creative pursuits, and service.
• Academic citizenship is demonstrated through the service that faculty members perform on various types of committees, in their professional organizations, through their uncompensated civic engagement, and through other professional efforts that benefit the community. But it also is reflected in the degree of collegiality and professionalism with which they interact with one another and all constituents of their institution. Furthermore, it is manifested in excellent teaching when faculty members go above and beyond their contractual obligations to act as mentors to their students, and in superior research when they participate in collaborative efforts, scholarship networks, and multi-institutional academic partnerships. See Buller (2010) 289-298.

In other words, once we shift our focus from looking at faculty responsibilities in terms of what people contribute and consider instead the benefits that result, the seemingly antagonistic relationship between teaching and research in reduced. The next steps are then to make this new framework operational in our evaluation and merit pay systems and to use it to guide our institutional approaches to mission, vision, and strategic planning. Those approaches will be explored [Thursday] in Part 2.

References
Barr, R. B. & Tagg, J. (1995). From teaching to learning: A new paradigm for undergraduate education. Change. 27(6), 12-55.

Boyer E. L. (1990). Scholarship reconsidered: Priorities of the professoriate. Princeton, NJ: The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

Buller, J. L. (2010). The essential college professor: A practical guide to an academic career. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Glassick, C. E., Huber, M. T., & Maeroff, G. I. (1997). Scholarship assessed: Evaluation of the professoriate. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Keeling, R.P. (ed.) 2004. Learning reconsidered 1: A campus-wide focus on the student experience. Washington, DC: National Association of Student Personnel Administrators and American College Personnel Association.

Keeling, R.P. (ed.) 2006. Learning reconsidered 2: A practical guide to implementing a campus-wide focus on the student experience. Washington, DC: National Association of Student Personnel Administrators and American College Personnel Association.

Jeffrey L. Buller is dean of the Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College at Florida Atlantic University. He is the author of Academic Leadership Day by Day: Small Steps That Lead to Great Success (2011) and other books on higher education administration, all of which are published by Jossey-Bass.

Reprinted from Academic Leader, 27.1 (2011): 3,7.

• the window of opportunity that suggests it’s easier for new administrators to make significant changes early in their positions, when the community’s excitement is at its highest and people most expect innovations to occur; and
• the notion that “you shouldn’t start to rearrange the furniture until you understand the décor,” which suggests that academic leaders are better off waiting until their learning curve is a little less steep before they start implementing significant changes.

Certainly, most administrators would agree that there’s a desirable midpoint between trying to change everything in the first year or two of a position and refusing to alter anything until after several years have passed. The trick, of course, is identifying precisely where that midpoint lies and understanding the factors that tend to make each administrative challenge unique.

If you’re about to embark on a new administrative assignment, the following factors are worth keeping in mind as you consider how extensively to begin rearranging the academic furniture in the programs under your supervision.

• What were you hired to do? If you were brought to your position specifically to be a change agent, or if it is clear that the areas you will lead are likely to face an imminent disaster on their present course, then significant change as quickly as possible is probably in order. By waiting to see the lay of the land, you may inadvertently be sending a message to the supervisor or board that hired you that you’re not prepared to make the extensive changes you appeared to sanction during the interview process. Make it clear that you regard making mistakes as less problematic than taking no action whatsoever, and be aggressive in pursuing a plan of rapid change. But if you were hired primarily to build on an area’s past successes, then trying to change too much too soon is likely to send precisely the wrong message to both your supervisor(s) and your employees. By not waiting to understand all the issues involved in your programs’ strengths, you may end up making changes that inadvertently undermine the very factors that allowed the institution to succeed in the past.
• Were you hired into the institution from the outside? If your new position involves becoming a chair of a department where you’ve long served as a faculty member, provost of an institution where you’ve worked for five or more years as dean, or something similar, it is probably best for you to proceed with changes that you believe to be necessary in a relatively short time frame. You’ve already had an opportunity to identify the major issues, the causes of the various problems you’re trying to solve, and the most important stakeholders who need to be consulted as your proposals are put into place. But if you’re hired into a new institution from the outside, you will need to be far more circumspect about implementing changes quickly. No matter how similar your new institution is to your former college or university, it is likely to be far more different than you initially believe. Even if some of the challenges are similar, the school’s history and the principal players involved in the decisions that are made will probably be quite different. You will need time to determine whose perspective and advice you can really trust.
• Where are the alliances that you’ll need in order to succeed? One of the great contributions that Lee Bolman and Terry Deal have made to the understanding of how organizations work is their analysis that there’s only so much we can learn from the policy manuals, organizational charts, and committee minutes of the programs we supervise. In addition to the structural frame of each organization, Bolman and Deal also talk about the importance of the political frame: alliances, coalitions, partnerships, and conflicts. In other words, sometimes people in any organization support or oppose an idea at least as much because of the person in favor of it as because of the idea’s inherent merits. In every situation, it’s important to ask: Who are the most important constituents for this initiative to move forward? If you are entering your position with their support already in place, then you can begin rearranging the academic furniture rather quickly. If you need time to build alliances or to understand the political relationships of the various players in your program, it’s preferable to proceed slowly.

In this way, there’s no one single answer for chancellors, provosts, deans, and chairs who are wondering how quickly to implement changes after they start a new position. But by considering the three questions outlined above, you’ll develop a better understanding of just how quickly you should begin to press your agenda for major initiatives.

References: Bolman, L.G. & Deal, T.E. (2003). Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice, and Leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Dr. Jeffrey L. Buller is dean of the Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College at Florida Atlantic University. His latest book is Academic Leadership Day by Day: Small Steps That Lead to Great Success (Jossey-Bass, 2011).

Excerpted from “Rearranging the Academic Furniture.” Academic Leader, 26.8 (2010): 3, 8.

Q: Handling complaints might be something that is new to some administrators. How can they prepare for it?

Gunsalus: The first preparation is to know and be comfortable with yourself and why you’ve gone into this line of work. How do you fit in the institution? What are you hoping to achieve through this service? Because if you don’t know why you are doing it or how you feel about what you can contribute, when the problems arise, it’s much harder to get through them comfortably and intact. That happens through introspection and conversation with those selecting you for the position.

The second is the conceptual skill of understanding that there will be complaints, and however much it seems personal and however much somebody claims it is a personal thing, you have to see the complaints as simply part of the role. It’s important not to overpersonalize the situation, even if somebody says, “You are the worst thing that ever happened to this department.” It’s going to feel personal because it’s going to be framed personally, but it’s about the decisions you are making in pursuing the role that you have accepted. That’s an intellectual process, because it’s never going to feel good. You simply have to understand that it’s part of the role to make decisions and that there are going to be complaints.

A third way to prepare is to become familiar with what resources are available, because dealing with complaints is not an individual sport—it’s a team sport. So you need to know the resource people who can help you figure out the proper procedure to apply to each complaint, because you handle a complaint about access to parking with a different process than you handle a sexual harassment complaint, which requires a different process than does a research misconduct allegation, which requires a different process than does failure to promote or a racial/sexual discrimination complaint or a complaint of capricious grading. You have know who to ask to help you navigate the policies so you know the proper process to follow.

Q: In your book you mention the need to hear at least two sides of an issue. What about those instances where you feel pressure to make a decision but you don’t feel you have the time to get the full story?

Gunsalus: The first thing I would say is, “Let’s get a grip,” because there are a lot of situations in which people will come to you and say, “This is an emergency.” They may feel very stressed and demand an immediate resolution, but there are few situations that are true emergencies. A true emergency is when someone’s safety is at risk. If you need to do something without full process, it needs to be clearly stipulated that it’s an interim step while the process unfolds.

Here’s an example. If there is an allegation of research misconduct that involves data fabrication, the first thing you do is get proper advice and support. There are times when the proper procedure is going to involve securing data so that an investigation can be done. Very few people have to do this, and they usually don’t have to do this by themselves. There is typically support from the research integrity officer or the university counsel, but they may have to be a part of the process that restricts access to the laboratory and the primary original data until copies can be made so the work in the lab can continue while the investigation uses the primary data. That’s a short-term process. If you have living organisms, there has to be care for that while the process in going on. Etc. If you don’t have time to hear at least two sides of a story, you are not going to be able to make a sound decision.

Q: What advice do you have for documenting complaints?

Gunsalus: When you take notes, there are things that belong in there and things that do not belong there. You should record only factual elements. You should never record what you think, because it is hard enough if it comes to a legal process to defend what you did. The last thing you ever want to do is to record your thoughts so you have to defend those as well.

For more on this topic, you might be interested in a seminar Gunsalus led titled “Basic Guidelines for Handling Complaints.” Learn More »

Reprinted from “How to Handle Complaints.” Academic Leader, 26.5 (2010): 6.

Groupthink occurs when superficial concord and agreement are prized even more than candor. At times, members of the faculty, staff, or administration censor themselves in public settings out of a desire to fit it. After all, it can be extremely uncomfortable to be the only person in the room advocating a specific point of view, especially if you’re untenured or serving at the pleasure of the president or provost. Conformity of opinion also develops when people rush to end a discussion in order to tend to seemingly more-pressing duties, don’t feel invested in the issue under consideration, or believe that their views won’t be considered seriously even if they offer them. Groupthink can emerge at any level of a college or university—from the most routine subcommittee to the most senior advisory council of the president or chancellor. What, then, can we do to avoid this problem … without lapsing into the destructive uncollegiality that groupthink often masks?

Play devil’s advocate
People who are in charge of a committee or academic unit can unintentionally encourage groupthink by acting in such a way that causes them to be seen as advocates for a specific approach rather than as impartial arbiters of all possible approaches. Once an academic leader is viewed as promoting a given approach, others (particularly those who believe that their tenure or continued livelihood depends on this administrator) may be less likely to propose alternative solutions. They may feel threatened or believe that further discussion is pointless, since the person in charge seems to have already made up his or her mind.

You can prevent this situation from happening by developing a culture in your unit where alternative opinions are always explored before decisions are made. Assign yourself the role of devil’s advocate and refrain from exploring one idea without offering a clear alternative in as objective a manner as possible. Provide positive reinforcement to those who challenge your views, and be willing to accept criticism graciously. Naturally, you don’t want to prolong discussions just for the sake of a good debate, but try not to allow the group to lapse into consensus too hastily either.

Permit anonymous reactions
Regardless of the efforts you make to encourage free-flowing and nonthreatening discussion of issues, there will always be those who don’t feel comfortable objecting to the ideas of others in public, even though they may have many important perspectives to share. To take full advantage of everyone’s insight, it can be useful to provide a venue where people can state their views anonymously. Many course management systems, such as Blackboard, permit users to post comments anonymously on discussion boards.

If you’re chairing the meeting, begin by presenting all the suggestions from the discussion board in an unbiased manner, and then facilitate a discussion of these ideas. Encourage those who seem more diffident, and rein in those who try to “steamroll” their opponents. Insist that the issues themselves, not the personalities of the people who are in favor of them, be addressed.

Break into subgroups
Perhaps the most effective way of avoiding groupthink is to prevent the group itself from coalescing, at least initially. Particularly when the issue under consideration is significant or controversial, it can be helpful to break the entire body into several subgroups, each of which is charged with making independent recommendations. Use of breakout groups allows for a level of “prediscussion” that almost always enriches the quality of the entire committee’s discussion.

Include outsiders whenever possible
Another means of introducing new ideas into the group is to include new members from time to time. A representative of another department or committee will frequently bring different perspectives to the table, since he or she works in an area where the personalities, politics, and academic methods are different. The presence of outsiders can be important, because we’re sometimes so close to our own problems that we’re unable to see them in any way we haven’t already considered.

Follow decision making with rebuilding
Finally, since avoiding groupthink necessarily involves preventing consensus from emerging too soon, it’s necessary to reestablish consensus after a decision has been made. Once final agreement has been reached or the vote has been taken, reinforcing the collegiality of the working relationship becomes extremely important. Each member of the group can be asked to name the three greatest advantages that will result from the approach being taken, outline his or her preferred role in making the strategy successful, or describe how best to promote the idea to someone who might remain skeptical about it. All these approaches help members of the group move from spotting possible flaws in the plan to seeing themselves as supporters of a group decision. The result is that people will be less likely to undermine the result after the meeting or to lapse into incivility because their suggestions were not taken.

Excerpted from “Avoiding Groupthink.” Academic Leader, 26.5 (2010): 1-8.

Dr. Jeffrey L. Buller is dean of the Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College at Florida Atlantic University. His latest book is Academic Leadership Day by Day: Small Steps That Lead to Great Success (Jossey-Bass, 2011).

Fairfield University in Connecticut now has a dean of academic engagement to help lead its efforts in using what have been identified as “high-impact practices”—the engaged learning approaches that boost student success, according to research.

Dr. Elizabeth Boquet, who had been associate dean of Fairfield’s College of Arts and Sciences, began in the new position in July 2009. Three factors led to the new job’s creation, she says: the arrival of a new president, strategic planning to aid the president’s transition, and self-study for accreditation.

“What we came to realize through the process of self-study … is that we had a number of areas—curricular in nature and academic in nature, but not necessarily happening in the classroom—that hadn’t had a lot of development,” says Boquet.

To further acknowledge the out-of-classroom component of engaged learning, Boquet’s position was created as a paired position with one in student affairs, the dean of student development, held by Dr. Deborah Cady Melzer.

“The idea is that we collaborate substantially to integrate living and learning on campus and to break down the divisional barriers,” Boquet says. “I report through academic affairs, and she reports through student affairs, but we’ve been crossing over a lot.”

One of the most exciting things about the paired deanships is that they make collaboration between academic affairs and student affairs a permanent part of the university structure, Boquet says. It’s helpful to have not only the working relationship between the two divisions, but also the administration’s support for that relationship, she says.

In addition, the paired deanships help Fairfield fulfill its mission to educate the whole person, she says. “We’re a Jesuit institution and we’re really trying to highlight conversations around community—around intentional, deliberate decision making—and so we’re happy about the way the positions came together.”

Goals

In the next few years, Boquet’s and Melzer’s major goals are to

• educate the community about high-impact educational practices and ensure that all Fairfield students have access to those practices

“We have faculty, staff, and students who are already involved in a lot of these [high-impact] practices, so if you looked at our institutional profile, you would say, ‘Well, they’re doing pretty good,’” Boquet says. “But the questions we haven’t been asking are questions about who’s not able to access these opportunities right now and what the factors are that are affecting access.”

Students in certain majors, for instance, might have difficulty fitting study abroad into their disciplines’ course sequences, Boquet says.

“So we’re looking at educating faculty to have conversations much, much earlier with students about their academic planning choices, and I think that corresponds a lot to a much more intentional approach to retention and to students’ experiences over the course of their academic careers.”

• help faculty develop their advising skills

“We’re focusing on an advising-as-teaching model so that faculty begin to see advising as linked to the other ways that they think about themselves as teachers, and as linked to the ways that students see themselves as developing socially, intellectually, and ethically,” Boquet says.

• continue to develop residential learning communities

Although Fairfield already offers residential learning experiences, the objective is to have more systematic oversight of them and to link them more intentionally to high-impact educational practices.

• coordinate peer-learning opportunities

“That’s going to include everything from developing a peer advising system so that we begin to use peer leaders in our academic advising to bringing together our various peer teaching areas,” which include student-athlete tutoring and math center tutoring, Boquet says.

Excerpted from “New Deanship Recognizes the Importance of Student Engagement.”Academic Leader, 26.2 (2010): 6.

In the recent video seminar, Recruiting a Racially Diverse, Culturally Competent Faculty, Vernon Wall and Kathy Obear, both founding faculty members of the Social Justice Training Institute, offered numerous strategies to help achieve this important goal at your institution. According to Wall and Obear, the search process is very important, but it’s just one part of a comprehensive approach that involves many different components of the overall campus climate. Their recommendations included:

• Partnering with the local community
• Building a pipeline of potential candidates
• Investing in each new hire
• Providing professional development and mentorship
• Focusing on collegiality
• Increasing the transparency of the tenure process, and
• Collecting metrics on current and past search processes

Wall and Obear admitted that there are some significant challenges to overcome in improving recruitment, which range from the percentage of people of color in certain academic disciplines to your school’s geographic location. They are strong advocates of formal mentoring with an organized structure of supportive relationships. They pointed out, however, that potential new hires will not just be concerned about whether they will have the support they need to succeed in their professional positions. They will also need to know that their families will find welcoming relationships and services in the surrounding community in order to thrive.

Your first chance to connect with potential faculty can be your website, which must accurately represent your current institutional commitment to these important issues. According to Obear, prospective candidates must see a picture that demonstrates how you are “intentionally creating a community environment that is supportive of people of color and their families.”

The presenters also recommended auditing and assessing your search and selection data over the last five to ten years in order to identify best practices and uncover areas of weakness in your hiring processes. This information needs to be shared across departments and divisions in order to coordinate efforts. They noted that it is particularly helpful to determine which past hires have been most successful, in terms of retention and promotion, and then to try to build on the lessons of those positive outcomes.

Kent Crookston, PhD, who has served as an academic administrator for 20 years, shared his thoughts with Academic Leader on how to become a better, more confident decision maker.

Q: How open should a leader be about decisions he or she makes individually?
Crookston: This has to be considered on a case-by-case basis; some decisions with individuals must remain confidential. In principle, however, decisions should be as transparent as possible. It is important to consider whether there are others who will be impacted by the decision, and if so their input should usually be sought.

It is wise for academic leaders to consult with their superior on any sensitive decisions, and also to involve legal counsel and human resources whenever in doubt. If a decision leads into uncharted territory, one must consider whether a precedent will be inferred and what the impact of that will be.

A key is to have in place policies and procedures upon which individual decisions will be made so that favoritism, partiality, discrimination, prejudice, etc. are minimized.

Q: What process do you recommend for making good collective decisions?
Crookston: There’s not a quick answer, nor is it a quick process. Depending on the importance of the decision, it may be necessary to spend months. It is usually helpful to discuss and agree at the outset how the decision will be made, especially who will make it. Equally important is the clarification of a handful of values and priorities of the unit (three to five) that must be honored by the decision. Input should be solicited from all stakeholders and should be processed and resubmitted for input, perhaps several times.

Procedures are available for assuring that the selected option will be best for the unit, not for just one individual or faction. If you are the decision maker, your own humility is essential. One way to maximize groupwide benefit is to assemble the group once the most viable options have been identified. Begin by limiting the discussion to only the pros of option A. The group is thus unified in its dialogue, which continues until all option A pros and related discussion are exhausted. The group can then move to the pros of option B, then to the cons of A, the cons of B, etc.

The facilitator ([who] should not be the decision maker) needs to watch body language and engage those who withdraw or shut down. Before settling on an option, it may be desirable to break the group up so that individuals can retreat to solitude and reflect on what has been said–away from overbearing or charismatic personalities. Then, when they’re ready, participants can submit their thoughtful individual input.

AL: How do you minimize second-guessing of decisions? How much second-guessing is too much?
Crookston: Yogi Berra said, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” I heard Norman Schwarzkopf say that there are only two things you need to know about leadership: “First, when placed in command, take charge. Second, do the right thing.” In light of these two quotes, we might ask: Which is the right thing? Or which is the right fork to take? Schwarzkopf continued his two statements by pointing out that any unit worth leading will contain people who will tell you when you’re making a mistake. Listen to them, and make corrections as necessary.

Yogi Berra apparently also said that once you’ve traveled down a selected fork you will be able to see around the bend, and if it’s all wrong you can usually turn back and go the other way. The key is to not stall in a state of indecision, and [to] be watchful and willing to self-correct. If your three to five values are clear, you will be able to make adjustments that zero in on them. Pilots say their airplane is off course 99 percent of the time, but by making continual adjustments they arrive at their destination spot on.

AL: What can a leader learn from a bad decision?
Crookston: In his 2008 book, The Truth About Making Smart Decisions, Robert Gunther writes: “To make better decisions, make more mistakes.” He says that one good mistake can teach us more than all the successful decisions combined, and tells us to allow others to make mistakes as well. My son’s second-grade teacher would stop the class when one of the students made a mistake, and together they would all see what they could learn from the mistake of that one student. One day our son came home and excitedly said, “Mom, guess what. I made two mistakes today.” He then told her what the class had all learned from them. Gunther also advises us to learn from our close calls.

For more on decision-making, see Three Keys to Effective Decision-making for Academic Leaders, a seminar presented by Crookston in March 2010. Learn more »

In an interview with Academic Leader, Debi Moon, assistant vice president of educational affair at Georgia Perimeter College, and Rob Jenkins, associate professor of English and director of The Writers Institute at Georgia Perimeter College, discussed some common mistakes administrators make regarding promotion and tenure and ways to avoid them.

“I think the most common mistake administrators make is not giving clear standards to faculty of what’s expected and not backing that up with evaluations that give faculty guidance on how they can achieve promotion and tenure,” Moon says.

Mixed messages
One issue among academic leaders is that often they come up through the faculty ranks and have developed close relationships with colleagues and often view themselves as advocates for these colleagues rather than administrators. “You have to draw the line. You represent the university when you’re an administrator. As much as you want to be a friend to your colleagues, there has to be a line,” Moon says.

As an academic leader, it’s important that you watch what you communicate to faculty members when it comes to promotion and tenure. When communicating with colleagues, one’s instinct may be to be reassuring, but this can backfire. Casual reassuring comments to faculty members such as, “You’re on the right track” or “Tenure is not going to be a problem for you” can lead to lawsuits when the faculty members’ expectations of earning promotion or tenure are not realized, Moon says.

Instead of these types of comments, academic leaders should “give a clear path for their faculty to go down in order to get promoted or get tenure,” Moon says.

‘Grade inflation’
Another issue is being overly generous in formal faculty evaluations. As with student grading, there seems to be a trend toward inflated evaluations, Jenkins says. This type of grade inflation can lead to faculty members who perform marginally appearing to have met requirements in formal evaluations. “It’s hard to deny tenure or promotion when you’ve been telling the faculty member that he or she has been meeting expectations all this time.”

Ambiguous policies
When dealing with individual faculty members, specific situations, if not clearly articulated in tenure and promotion policies, can open the door to legal problems. For example, what do you do when a faculty member submits his tenure portfolio, which notes that he is waiting to hear back from a publisher about whether his manuscript has been accepted? Can his tenure committee delay action until the publisher decides on his manuscript?

What about when a person who is not on the tenure committee comes forward with information that she believes should be considered in the committee’s decision?

Lacking clear guidelines on such situations, administrators sometimes decide these issues on a case-by-case basis, which also can be risky. These and other situations should be addressed in the tenure policies, and any policy changes must be communicated to the faculty.

Actually, the institution should do more than inform faculty about policy changes. It also should provide training to ensure that faculty are clear about tenure and promotion policies.

Reprinted from Avoiding Tenure and Promotion Controversies, Academic Leader, 25.12 (2009): 2,7.