Education Commons^™

Searching For Meaning On College Campuses: Creating Programs To Nurture The Spirit, Donna M. Qualters, Beverly Dolinsky, Michael Woodnick

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Discussing spirituality on a secular college campus can be risky. Yet faculty and students have expressed a need to explore meaning in their lives and work. This chapter describes one university’s year-long efforts to develop a social web of activities around spirituality and meaning in community members’ lives. We describe the process of determining needs and the resulting programs. But more important, we share lessons learned, including advice on creating the climate for spiritually oriented programming to gain acceptance and be viewed as an enhancement to campus life.

Reported Long–Term Value And Effects Of Teaching Center Consultations, Wayne Jacobson, Donald H. Wulff, Stacy Grooters, Phillip M. Edwards, Karen Freisem

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

We regularly ask clients for feedback on their recent consultations with Center for Instructional Development and Research (CIDR) staff, but in the past we have not systematically assessed our longer-term contributions to the teaching of our clients. We recently surveyed faculty and teaching assistants who consulted with CIDR one to five years ago and found that many former clients highly valued CIDR’s contribution to the development of their teaching. However, some of the most highly valued benefits they identified were not limited to what they did each day in class. This chapter identifies benefits of consulting with a teaching center …

Acknowledgments, Volume 27 (2009), Linda B. Nilson

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Acknowledgments for volume 27 (2009) of To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development, by Linda B. Nilson of Clemson University.

Ten Ways To Use A Relational Database At A Faculty Development Center, A. Jane Birch, Tara Gray

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Providing quality support to faculty requires attention to administrative details and event logistics. As professionals, we must also assess the impact of our work and be prepared to report to those who will judge its worth and allocate resources. To do this we need current, accurate data that are easy to access and easy to use. We also need a simple way to manage faculty development activities and evaluate the outcomes. The best technology for achieving these goals is a relational database. This chapter describes ten ways a relational database can be used to support faculty developers in their various …

Lessons Learned From Developing A Learning–Focused Classroom Observation Form: Learning-Focused Observation Form, Steven K. Jones, Kenneth S. Sagendorf, D. Brent Morris, David Stockburger, Evelyn T. Patterson

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

At the United States Air Force Academy, we are attempting to go through a cultural transformation, making an overt shift toward a more learning-focused paradigm. In this chapter, we describe the nature of this transformation, as well as why we have chosen to move in this direction. We also describe one specific initiative we have undertaken: the development of a new learning-focused classroom observation form. We conclude by sharing a baker’s dozen lessons we have learned about classroom observation, effective teaching, and faculty development in general as a result of having developed this form.

Learning–Centered Evaluation Of Teaching, Trav D. Johnson

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Over the past decade, institutions of higher education have placed increased emphasis on promoting student learning. This emphasis has influenced thinking about teaching, course design, and faculty development, but it has had little effect on the evaluation of teaching. In other words, the evaluation of teaching remains focused on instruction (that is, teacher performance and course characteristics) rather than on student learning. Learning-centered evaluation of teaching provides a viable way to emphasize student learning in the evaluation process. This approach uses principles of program evaluation and emphasizes learning goals, learning activities, learning assessments, and learning outcomes in the evaluation of …

Experiential Lessons In The Practice Of Faculty Development, Ed Neal, Iola Peed-Neal

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

The practice of faculty development, as distinct from its theoretical and empirical principles, must largely be learned experientially, through an often painful process of trial and error. In this chapter, we offer some of the lessons we have learned in our combined total of sixty-four years as faculty developers, in hopes that others might benefit from our experience.

Defeating The Developer's Dilemma: An Online Tool For Individual Consultations, Michele Dipietro, Susan A. Ambrose, Michael Bridges, Anne Fay, Marsha C. Lovett, Mari Kamala Norman

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

This chapter introduces an online consultation tool that helps resolve the tension that developers often experience in consultations between offering quick fixes and providing in-depth but time-consuming conceptual understanding. The tool that the Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence has developed provides instructors with concrete teaching strategies to address common teaching problems, while also educating them about the pedagogical principles informing those strategies. The tool can be used to enhance traditional face-to-face consultations or, by itself, to reach a wider faculty audience, including adjunct and off site faculty.

Maturation Of Organizational Development In Higher Education, Gail F. Latta

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Organizational development (OD) is fundamentally about increasing institutional capacity for change. Organizational culture is a pivotal variable mediating the success of institutional change initiatives. Faculty and OD professionals are poised to address the need for increased understanding of organizational culture and change in higher education institutions. This chapter presents a conceptual guide to theories of change and cultural analysis that inform OD practice. Distinctions between content and process theories of change, as well as normative and idiomatic approaches to cultural analysis, are reviewed with respect to their utility for facilitating change in the academy. Implications for the maturation of OD …

Promoting The Scholarship Of Teaching And Learning At Community Colleges: Insights From Two Learning Communities, Stanford T. Goto, Andrei Cerqueira Davis

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) is a powerful vehicle for professional development. Faculty make their teaching public as they investigate phenomena in their classes. This process encourages sustained discussions of teaching. In conducting SoTL, community college faculty face substantial hurdles: heavy workloads, few institutional supports, no employment rewards, perceived irrelevance, and weak peer networks. Can these challenges be overcome within existing institutional structures? This chapter explores this question by examining how SoTL is pursued in two learning communities. Evidence from these institutional case studies suggests that SoTL programs are viable in community colleges, despite major challenges.

Establishing External, Blind Peer Review Of Scholarship Of Teaching And Learning Within The Disciplines, Cheryl A. Stevens, Erik Rosegard

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Colleges and universities face growing pressure to reward multiple forms of scholarship in order to align their missions with faculty roles and rewards. This chapter proposes that disciplinary societies develop templates, processes, and criteria for external, blind peer review of the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) in order to provide a reliable and valid way to judge the quality of faculty SoTL work. Although SoTL requires support from faculty development programs and other interdisciplinary SoTL forums, it will continue to be viewed as evidence of teaching excellence rather than scholarship until discipline-based external, blind peer-review processes are established.

Preparing Advocates For Faculty Development: Expanding The Meaning Of “Growing Our Own”, Deborah S. Meizlish, Mary C. Wright

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Discussions about preparing newcomers for faculty development focus almost exclusively on the staffing needs of teaching centers. Unfortunately, this emphasis significantly narrows what it means to prepare people for the field. Instead, we suggest that successful preparation has two elements: preparation of talented individuals for formal positions in the field and preparation of knowledgeable advocates or allies. As evidence, we present results from a survey of our center’s graduate teaching consultants, documenting how their work shaped their future connections to faculty development. Our results challenge centers to consider how their programming can “grow” both professionals in and advocates for faculty …

Leadership For Learning: A New Faculty Development Model, Jane V. Nelson, Audrey M. Kleinsasser

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

The authors provide examples of a model that develops faculty leaders for learning in all institutions that prize research. The examples come from seven university-wide initiatives, which were sponsored by the institutions faculty development center. The initiatives spanned a nearly ten-year period. Based on four conceptual groundings—scholarship of teaching and learning principles, educational renewal, the production of social capital through soft projects, and horizontal structures—the model has the power to transform faculty into leaders. Elements of the model include a call to participate, a diverse cohort of participants, commitment to providing resources, conference center planners, and peer review and assessment. …

University Of Nebraska- Lincoln: Fact Book 2008-2009

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Administration: Papers, Publications, and Presentations

Fact Book Table of Contents

General Information

UNL Core Values ................................. 4

Role and Mission Statement ................................................................. 5

Institutional & Professional Accreditations ............................................................. 8

UNL Organizational Chart .................................................................. 10

Student Credit Hours

SCH by College and Student Level, Fall & Spring Semesters, 5 Year Trend ....................... 11

SCH by College and Student Level, Fall Semester, 5 Year Trend ......................................... 12

SCH by College and Student Level, Spring Semester, 5 Year Trend .................................... 13

Summer Sessions Student Credit Hours .................................................. 14

Retention, Degrees and Majors

Student Retention & Graduation Rate Analysis ............................................. 15

Total Degrees Conferred by UNL Fiscal Year, 10 …

Attracting College Men To Sexual Violence Prevention: A Multiple Case Study Of Male Peer Educators, Janice M. Deeds

Department of Educational Administration: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The prevalence rate for sexual assault of U.S. college women has stayed around 13% since 1982 despite the efforts colleges and universities have made to create effective prevention programs. Campus violence prevention programs have changed in focus and approach as research has provided a broader understanding of sexual violence and the important roles men can play in its prevention.

Peer education is currently the most commonly used method of teaching sexual violence prevention information to college students, but unless college men become involved as sexual violence prevention peer educators, campus programs will not be able to effectively reach other male …