Leading campus OER initiatives through library–faculty collaboration

With the rising costs of tuition and textbooks, Open Educational Resources (OERs) are becoming increasingly important. The university library, in collaboration with faculty, is a natural leader of OER initiatives at institutions of higher education. Cleveland State University's Michael Schwartz Library embraced this leadership role by assisting a faculty member with developing an OER, which involved balancing the workload between librarians and the faculty member, determining successful modes of communication, taking advantage of graphic design skills, and more. The success of this initial collaboration has led the Library to expand its support of OER initiatives on campus.     

Faculty self-actualization: Factors affecting career success

This study determined the degree of relationship between four personal factors related to faculty growth and development, two environmental indices, and career success and satisfaction. Maslow's notion of self-actualization guided the construction of the personal indices of self-democraticness, support, tolerance, and trust; McGregor and Likert provided the theoretical bases for the environmental indices. The data came from the American Council on Education—Carnegie Commission national survey. Selecting only faculty at the rank of assistant professor and higher who were teaching in arts and science departments produced anN of 7,534. Trust was the only personal variable significantly and consistently related to success and satisfaction, but even it had low contingency coefficients. Control of the work environment was the best predictor of the outcome variables and produced CC=0.41 under certain conditions. While not a causal study, the findings nonetheless suggest that factors which can be more easily changed (environmental in contrast to personal) can positively affect faculty growth and development. Implications for administrators follow.     

Measuring the Quality of Faculty and Administrative Worklife: Implications for College and University Campuses

There seems to be a presumption that the quality of worklife on college and university campuses has declined for faculty and administrative staff. What is not known is how generally true this is perceived to be, to what extent the quality of worklife varies by campus, and for what reasons it varies. Most importantly, it is not clear what impact the quality of worklife of faculty and staff members has on their performance or retention. The following article reviews the recent empirical literature devoted to this topic and offers a framework that conceptualizes these studies in three groups: those that describe and explore differences in the quality of worklife, those that determine the impact of worklife on attitudes, and those that attempt to explain behavioral outcomes. The implications of this work for practice and policy on college and university campuses is discussed. The author argues that campus leaders who want to improve the performance and retention of faculty and administrative staff must identify and address the particular issues that matter to those employed on their campuses.     

高校高等教育工作的若干思考

以人为本，搞好高校教师思想教育工作，就是以教师为本，尊重教师的人格尊严、教师的根本利益、教师的理想追求，促进教师全面发展，发挥教师积极作用，实现教师人生价值。为此，要促进高校教师思想教育观念的突破与更新、思想教育核心内容的把握与拓展、思想教育运作的完善与创新、思想教育目标的反思与明确、思想教育机制的改革与强化。     

Student ratings and various instructional variables from a within-instructor perspective

The relationship between class size, instructional method, course level, reason for enrollment, and student ratings of instruction was assessed from a within-instructor perspective. Two hundred fifty-four pairs of courses taught by the same instructor were correspondingly identified and subjected to a stepwise multiple regression procedure. Only class size was found to be a significant predictor of ratings once individual differences between instructors were controlled, hence underlining the importance of (1) taking cognizance of the size of the course when using student ratings of instructors as a measure of teaching effectiveness, and (2) controlling for systematic variation due to instructor idiosyncracies in instructional research.     

Searching for Educational Technology Faculty

Since educational technology has become an integral component in teacher education programs, an analysis was conducted of educational technology positions listed in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Weekly job listings were coded from August, 2000 through July, 2001. Over this time period, 70 positions were advertised. Results found that the majority of the positions were tenure track and tended to be at nonresearch/doctoral granting institutions. These positions were typically for a generalist rather than a specialist.     

Faculty-exchange programs promoting change: motivations,experiences, and influence of participants in the Carnegie Mellon University-Portugal Faculty Exchange Program

The international mobility of faculty is increasing worldwide. Although studies have considered the experiences of academics abroad, less is known about faculty-exchange programs with policy objectives. This study helps to fill this gap by analyzing a nationwide structured faculty exchange program established by Carnegie Mellon University and Portuguese universities to bring change to Portuguese higher education. The findings are based on interviews with Portuguese program participants, whose motivation to participate and experiences with the program, in addition to the influence of their experience abroad on their home institution, were explored. We find that, although the alignment of individual motivations with institutional interests is important to such programs, the complex transposition of individual experiences to the institutional level may be impeded by cultural resistance as well as resource and organizational constraints. Our exploration of the features that determine the success or failure of these experiences provides insights for policymakers seeking to implement faculty-mobility programs in the future.     

Faculty Entrepreneurialism and the Challenge to Undergraduate Education at Research Universities

This study attempts to unravel the complex relationships between faculty entrepreneurialism and teaching. Specifically, this study (1) compares the extent of entrepreneurial activities (i.e., using funds for research and consulting activity) across disciplinary fields and levels of teaching commitment and (2) examines the relative effects of faculty entrepreneurialism on commitment to teaching. Using a national database of four-year college faculty, research findings demonstrate variations of teaching commitment with respect to disciplinary fields and forms of entrepreneurial activities. More important, this study reveals rather strong negative relationships between using funds for research and teaching commitment. Such findings have important implications for policy makers, administrative leaders, and university faculty as they seek to balance the institution's instructional mission in light of the increasing trend toward entrepreneurialism.     

Peer Networking as a Dynamic Approach to Supporting New Faculty

This article presents a dynamic method of supporting new faculty through a peer support group led by a facilitator. Group members participate in ongoing self-assessment, individualized goal setting, and activities that reflect the changing needs of the group. We explain the history and activities of the group and also the benefits for institutions considering developing a support mechanism for new faculty.     

A portrait of Canadian higher education

In his book,More Than an Academic Question, Cameron offers a framework within which to understand the relationship between universities and government. He presents a thorough summary of the development of universities across Canada, exploring both public policy and changes in the governance and management of universities. Focussing on the transformation of universities from post World War II to the 1980s, he discusses the evolution of direct federal involvement in the core funding of universities, the reforms within the internal governing structures of universities, and faculty unionization. Although he presents suggestions regarding a more deliberate selection of membership of university governing boards, on the whole Cameron does not offer resolutions to the issues he raises, but rather lays the foundation for discussion.