Student Questioning and Multidimensional Literacy in the 21st Century

Schools of education increasingly are using contingent faculty members to instruct students. Contingent faculty members bring expertise and knowledge. However, because they often are less aware of university expectations, their instruction can magnify program weaknesses and overshadow strengths. To strengthen program infrastructure, the roles and expectations of contingent faculty members must be defined clearly and recognized by all school of education faculty members and university administrators.     

Creating and Implementing a Faculty Interest Group for Historically Underrepresented Faculty

This article describes the creation and implementation of a faculty interest group for historically underrepresented faculty at a large, urban community college in the Northeast. Faculty interest groups provide opportunities for faculty across disciplines to meet to explore common interests and share concerns and best practices. The faculty interest group described in this article was designed to explore and address the challenges faced by historically underrepresented faculty and facilitate the process of attaining reappointment, promotion, and tenure. Nationwide, nearly half of community college students come from populations that are also historically underrepresented, and community colleges are challenged to recruit and retain faculty that mirror the student body. Research demonstrates that historically underrepresented faculty members enrich the overall education of all students, and yet a significant number of those faculty members describe their college campuses as unwelcoming. Factors that make campuses unwelcoming for these faculty include, but are not limited to, the following: isolation and marginalization; salary disparities; microaggressions based on race, gender, and sexual identity; heightened visibility; and additional role demands. Community college administrators ought to be concerned with historically underrepresented faculty members’ satisfaction and persistence on campus because these faculty members are vital members of the academy. Faculty interest groups for historically underrepresented faculty may provide the support and professional development opportunities that will ensure their retention and success in academia.     

Unity and Diversity of Promotion Criteria in US Schools,Colleges and Departments of Education

As the mission for faculty members in schools, colleges and departments of education (SCDEs) becomes ever wider, and subgroups of faculty develop to handle different aspects of SCDE missions, how to equitably reward faculty members becomes a crucial issue. Analyses of data collected from 918 tenure-line faculty members in 25 SCDEs suggest that faculty members feel current promotion criteria to be inflexible and Procrustean, and desire to have a set of more diversified promotion criteria consistent with their levels and patterns of involvement in SCDE missions. A typology of promotion criteria, and some policy implications of this study, are discussed.     

‘She's not good with crying’: the effect of gender expectations on graduate students' assessments of their principal investigators

This paper explores how gender influences the way that faculty members are held accountable to gendered societal expectations related to scientists, faculty members, and leaders. In particular, women faculty members in the sciences, particularly those who lead large research groups, may be at a triple disadvantage: they must act in ways that contradict ideals of femininity in these multiple aspects of their professional lives. The data for this inductive, largely exploratory analysis come from a mixed-methods qualitative study of five chemistry research groups at a research-intensive US university. I find that gendered expectations do impact the way that men and women faculty are evaluated by their students, particularly the way that women faculty are judged.     

Self-Expression,Social Roles,and Faculty Members’ Attitudes towards Online Teaching

There is a widening gap between administrators’ and faculty members’ attitudes towards online education. This post-positivist grounded theory study explored features of the experiences that shaped sixteen faculty members’ attitudes towards online education. Two features are identified: (a) they strived to express subject matter of personal significance, and (b) they strived to take on various social roles. The degree to which these efforts were facilitated – or thwarted – shaped their attitudes towards online education. This analytical focus recognizes that online education changes not only how faculty members teach; it also introduces new activities that affect the meaning of teaching for faculty members.     

Dimensions of faculty members' sensitivity to job satisfaction items

Researchers have suggested that questionnaire item sensitivity may be a possible source of response bias in investigations using mail surveys. In conducting job satisfaction studies of faculty members in higher education, investigators have assumed that job satisfaction items are not highly sensitive to faculty members and do not vary in their degree of sensitivity. The purpose of the present research was to assess the degree of sensitivity of various job satisfaction items to faculty members and to identify dimensions of faculty members' sensitivity to these items. Results from a questionnaire returned from 354 faculty members at a large university showed that their sensitivity to job satisfaction items centered primarily in three areas: (1) concern with extrinsic job factors, (2) concern with department head actions, and (3) concern with promotion and salary. On the whole, item sensitivity appeared to be rather low. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

Simulation of institutional incentive plans for faculty early retirement using a behavioral model of retirement decision-making

This paper uses coefficient estimates from a model of retirement decision-making for faculty members in higher education institutions to simulate the impact of financial incentives for early retirement. The results suggest that plans can be designed to induce relatively large numbers of faculty members to retire prior to the mandatory retirement age. However, the costs of hiring replacements plus pension subsidies can be substantial, especially if the subsidies are directed toward faculty members with relatively low salaries. Hence, institutions wishing to provide open positions to hire new faculty may prefer different incentive plans than those whose goals do not require filling each position with a new faculty member.     

远程教育教师发展途径的成效分析

随着远程教育的快速发展,教师发展问题已经受到远程教育机构越来越多的重视。如何更好地促进远程教育教师的发展,即教师发展途径的问题,在理论和政策上已有诸多探讨,但这些探讨大多是从应然的角度对远程教育教师和教育机构提出的理想化要求,并没有切身关注教师的实际需求、期望和实效。以这一研究视角为切入点,通过调查某开放大学全体专职教师对教师发展途径实效的看法,结果发现：在我国远程教育系统目前主要存在的8种教师发展途径中,＂学历深造＂的认可度最高,＂自我反思＂是最具弹性和自主化的发展途径,＂同行交流与互助＂比＂专家指导＂具有更大的实效,＂校外培训＂比＂校本培训＂的实效更好,＂教研活动＂的实际帮助程度较低,＂竞赛和公开课＂的实效最低。为了促进远程教育教师持续而系统的发展,远程教育机构应积极探索新的远程教育教师发展系统,既要明确身份和定位,从制度和组织层面进行系统规划,又要为教师发展途径的选择提供弹性和灵活性,更要注重教师发展途径具体的实践性和情境性,以此来重构、重组和优化远程教育教师发展系统的可能空间。     

Faculty as Learners: Developing Thinking Communities

The shifting demographics of faculty ranks, expansion of faculty work, and the expectations of accountability and revenue production place new demands on today’s faculty. Collaborating with other faculty members is one option for easing workload demands and reinvigorating faculty members in the conduct of their teaching and research. In this article we discuss the importance of collaboration among faculty members in deriving new strategies for the classroom and approaches to research, and we provide suggestions for moving beyond short term collaborations and toward the creation of thinking communities that have the potential to re-energize faculty members and bring passion back to their work.     

General experiences + race + racism = Work lives of Black faculty in postsecondary science education

Existent research indicates that postsecondary Black faculty members, who are sorely underrepresented in the academy especially in STEM fields, assume essential roles; chief among these roles is diversifying higher education. Their recruitment and retention become more challenging in light of research findings on work life for postsecondary faculty. Research has shown that postsecondary faculty members in general have become increasingly stressed and job satisfaction has declined with dissatisfaction with endeavors and work overload cited as major stressors. In addition to the stresses managed by higher education faculty at large, Black faculty must navigate diversity-related challenges. Illuminating and understanding their experiences can be instrumental in lessening stress and job dissatisfaction, outcomes that facilitate recruitment and retention. This study featured the experiences and perceptions of Black faculty in science education. This study, framed by critical race theory, examines two questions: What characterizes the work life of some Black faculty members who teach, research, and serve in science education? How are race and racism present in the experiences of these postsecondary Black faculty members? A phenomenological approach to the study situates the experiences of the Black participants as valid phenomena worthy of investigation, illuminates their experiences, and seeks to retain the authenticity of their voices.     

Media utilization by faculty at the university of Qatar

Conclusions The findings of this study revealed that the science and education faculties of are more apt to use audiovisual media than the other faculty members. Transparencies, 16 mm films, and video programs are the most frequently used media. In general, the faculty believed that audiovisual media made significant contributions in the teaching/learning process. They also indicated some obstacles to the utilization of audiovisual media such as: lack of time to select and preview materials; the language of materials; and insufficient variety of materials to correlate with the curriculum. The majority of faculty members indicated that educational technology services are very adequate, while one third of the faculty did have problems particularly in the production of audiovisual materials. Almost half of the faculty members cannot operate one or more categories of audiovisual equipment.     

高校党员教职工先锋模范作用发挥路径初探

在高校,对于学生党员先锋模范作用发挥途径的研究比较重视与充分,学生党员的先锋模范作用也体现得相对较好。而对党员教职工先锋模范作用发挥的路径则研究得很少,体现得更不够,由此导致在工作指导上的顾此失彼。实际上,在高校,党员教职工先锋模范作用的发挥更重要,余地也更大。只要我们指导思想明确,工作得力,党员教职工完全可以作为学生党员的楷模。     

新时期加强高校教师人力资源开发的思考

高校间的竞争，其实就是教师人才的竞争。高校要提高自身的整体竞争力，就必须加大教师人力资源开发力度。要从战略高度出发，统一思想认识，做好高校教师人力资源开发规划；要根据高校实际情况，制定一整套包括选人、用人、育人和留人等政策和措施；要突出重点，围绕学校学科建设的需要，增强人才引进的针对性和有效性；要与时俱进建立与教师人力资源开发配套的机制。     

Factors relted to breadth of use in course management systems

A unique resource in course management systems (CMSs) is that they offer faculty members convenient access to a variety of integrated features. Some featurs allow faculty members to provide information to students, and others allow students to interact with each other or a computer. This diverse set of features can be used to help meet the variety of learning goals that are part of college classes. Currently, most CMS research has analyzed how and why individual CMS features are used, instead of analyzing how and why multiple features are used. The study described here reports how and why faculty members use multiple CMS features, in resident college classes. Results show that nearly half of faculty members use one feature or less. Those who use multiple features are significantly more likely to have experience with interactive technologies. Implications for using and encouraging the use of multiple CMS features are provided.     

How has Mexican faculty been trained? A national perspective and a case study

This article depicts how faculty members at Mexican higher education institutions have been prepared in order to assume their professional responsibilities. It relies on three elements: First, a secondary analysis of a national faculty survey composed of 3,861 faculty members from 65 institutions; second, 34 interviews conducted in eight higher education institutions; third, a primary analysis of an institution faculty survey in a public autonomous university. Results are presented regarding the following issues: first, the central traits of anticipatory or formative in-site faculty socialization; second, the changes in the highest degree faculty obtained at entry into academic life as compared to the obtained degree at the time of the survey; third, the formative time patterns during faculty’s higher education training, fourth, the conditions of study under which faculty members obtained their graduate degrees; and fifth, the academic inbreeding phenomenon.     

Pedagogical Signals of Faculty Approachability: Factors Shaping Faculty–Student Interaction Outside the Classroom

Decades of research demonstrate that college students benefit from positive interaction with faculty members, although that same evidence suggests that those interactions are far from common, particularly outside the classroom. Moreover, relatively little is known about which, when, how, and why faculty members choose to engage with students outside of the classroom. Guided by the theory that faculty members use in-class behaviors to signal their “psychosocial approachability” for out-of-class interaction with students (Wilson et al. in Sociology of Education 47(1):74–92, 1974; College professors and their impact on students, 1975), this study uses data from 2,845 faculty members on 45 campuses to identify the personal, institutional, and pedagogical factors that influence the frequency and type of interaction faculty members have with students outside of the classroom.     

21st Century Competencies for Doctoral Leadership Faculty

Graduate and post-graduate programs were initially developed by universities to increase discipline-specific mastery. Faculty members impact both the content and quality of such programs as they are responsible for making it relevant in the current climate while also addressing the changes envisaged for society tomorrow. Although studies exist regarding faculty competencies in various disciplines and for preparing future faculty members, there is a paucity of research specific to competencies necessary for faculty members who currently teach in doctoral leadership programs. This Delphi study explored 21st century competencies required in the next decade for faculty who currently teach in doctoral leadership programs in U.S. institutions.     

Pay,rank, and growing old with more of each

Factors which comprise the bases for salary increases and adjustments at major research universities have long been topics of conversation and supposition. Based on responses from over 12,000 faculty members, this paper reviews, by faculty rank, items which are likely to contribute to salary and suggests that faculty members can follow certain strategies which are more likely than others to bring a financial reward. Research procedures employed include linear models and multiple regression.     

University faculty attitudes and knowledge about learning disabilities

ABSTRACT

Adults with learning disabilities (LD) constitute one of the fastest growing populations of students attending institutions of higher education. Faculty members play an important role in the adjustment and success of these students. The current study investigated the perceptions towards LD of faculty members at a public university in Israel. Specifically, the study examined the level of contact, attitudes, knowledge, and training of faculty members with respect to students with LD. The results demonstrated that faculty members overall had a significant amount of contact with and held positive attitudes towards students with LD. However, it appeared that faculty members would benefit from information regarding the current definition of LD, related legislation about LD and other disabilities, and training and support services for LD. Implications for practice and further research are discussed.