Two concerns are often raised when department chairs attempt to address breaches of collegiality through the faculty evaluation process. The first is whether they’re permitted to do so at…
Archives
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…
Continue Reading
Promoting Research While Advancing Instruction, Part 2
February 16, 2012 Jeffrey Buller PhD.
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…
Continue Reading
Promoting Research while Advancing Instruction, Part 1
February 14, 2012 Jeffrey Buller PhD.
It’s an issue many colleges and universities are facing today: How do you expand research capacity while still preserving an institution’s traditional emphasis on effective teaching? How is it…
Continue Reading
Rearranging the Academic Furniture: When is the Best Time to Implement Change?
August 23, 2011 Jeffrey Buller PhD.
At the start of a new position, it’s natural to wonder how many new initiatives you should get under way quickly and which are better left for the future.…
Continue Reading
Avoiding the ‘Perception Problem’ When Evaluating Faculty and Staff
June 14, 2011 Jeffrey Buller PhD.
Whose problem is it when there is a perception that the performance of a faculty or staff member has not been satisfactory? Consider the following scenario. A chairperson is…
Continue Reading
With the spate of books and articles that deal with the issue of incivility in higher education, it’s easy to conclude that destructive disharmony is the single biggest problem…
Continue Reading
College professors have long bemoaned the fact that they view the product or outcome of higher education differently from their students. Ask a professor what the goal of a…
Continue Reading
We tend to think of interviews as processes that select suitable candidates for different jobs. But in many ways the purpose of interviews is to reject unsuitable candidates. After…
Continue Reading
When Internal Candidates Apply for a Position
October 21, 2010 Jeffrey Buller PhD.
Any process that involves the hiring of a new member of the faculty or staff has to be taken very seriously. Yet when a search involves an incumbent (i.e.,…