Documenting Your Teaching for Promotion and Tenure

1. Documenting Your Teaching for Promotion and Tenure Karl A. Smith Civil Engineering - University of Minnesota ksmith@umn.edu http://www.ce.umn.edu/~smith University of Minnesota Early Career Teaching Program: Pursuing Excellence in Multicultural Education March 2006

2. Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate Ernest L. Boyer • The Scholarship of Discovery, research that increases the storehouse of new knowledge within the disciplines; • The Scholarship of Integration, including efforts by faculty to explore the connectedness of knowledge within and across disciplines, and thereby bring new insights to original research; • The Scholarship of Application, which leads faculty to explore how knowledge can be applied to consequential problems in service to the community and society; and • The Scholarship of Teaching, which views teaching not as a routine task, but as perhaps the highest form of scholarly enterprise, involving the constant interplay of teaching and learning.

3. The Basic Features of Scholarly and Professional Work • The activity requires a high level of discipline- related expertise. • The activity breaks new ground, is innovative. • The activity can be replicated or elaborated. • The work and its results can be documented. • The work and its results can be peer-reviewed. • The activity has significance or impact. Adapted from: Diamond R. & Adam, B. 1993. Recognizing faculty work: Reward systems for the year 2000. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

4. Basic Features of Professional and Scholarly Work • It requires a high level of discipline-related expertise • It is conducted in a scholarly manner with clear goals, adequate preparation, and appropriate methodology • The work and its results are appropriately and effectively documented and disseminated. This reporting should include a reflective critique that addresses the significance of the work, the process that was used, and what was learned. • It has significance beyond the individual context. • It breaks new ground or is innovative. • It can be replicated or elaborated on. • The work both process and product or result is reviewed and judged to be meritorious and significant by a panel of ones peers. Bob Diamond  (2002)

5. What Resources are Available? • Early Career Colleagues • Early Career Resource Teachers • Center for Teaching and Learning Services • Department Chair/Head • Senior Colleagues • Professional Organizations - Disciplinary • Books

6. New Professor Handbooks • Davidson, Cliff I. & Ambrose, Susan A. 1994. The new professor’s handbook: A guide to teaching and research in engineering and science. Bolton: Anker. • Reis, Richard M. 1997. Tomorrow’s professor: Preparing for academic careers in science and engineering. New York: IEEE.

7. New Professor Handbooks • Wankat, Phillip C. 2002. The effective, efficient professor: Teaching, scholarship and service. Boston: Allyn and Bacon

8. Promotion and Tenure Guides • Diamond, Robert M. 2004. Preparing for promotion and tenure review: A faculty guide, 2nd Ed. Bolton: Anker • Diamond, Robert M. 2002. Serving on promotion and tenure committees: A faculty guide, 2nd Ed. Bolton: Anker.

9. Principles of Good Practice: Supporting Early-Career Faculty • Mary Deane Sorcinelli • Improving Tenure Process • Good practice communicates expectations for performance • 2. Good practice gives feedback on progress • 3. Good practice enhances collegial review processes • 4. Good practice creates flexible timelines for tenure • Encouraging Collegial Relations • Good practice encourages mentoring by senior faculty • Good practice extends mentoring and feedback to graduate students who aspire to be faculty members • Good practice recognizes the department chair as a career sponsor • Easing Stresses of Time and Balance • Good practice supports teaching, particularly at the undergraduate level • Good practice supports scholarly development • Good practice fosters a balance between professional and personal life

10. Paradise Lost: How the Academy Converts Enthusiastic Recruits into Early-Career Doubters • Cathy A. Trower, Ann E. Austin & Mary Deane Sorcinelli • AAHE Bulletin, May 2001 • What We Can Do? • Provide consistency, clarity, and communication of reasonable performance expectations (throughout graduate school and the probationary years). • Ensure formal orientation, mentoring, and feedback. • Offer flexibility and choice, and help scholars understand various career tracks (Ideally, we need to legitimize those tracks outside of the tenure system). • Afford support for ongoing self-reflection and dialogue with colleagues about the kind of work and life we want to have.

11. Heeding New Voices: Academic Careers for a New Generation • R. Eugene Rice, Mary Deane Sorcinelli and • Ann E. Austin. AAHE Inquiry #7, 2000 • Three core, consistent, and interwoven concerns on the minds of early-career faculty: • Lack of a comprehensible tenure system • Lack of community • Lack of an integrated life

12. Additional References • Boyer, Ernest L. 1990. Scholarship reconsidered: Priorities for the professoriate. Princeton, NJ: The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. • Diamond, R., “The Mission-Driven Faculty Reward System,” in R.M. Diamond, Ed., Field Guide to Academic Leadership, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2002 • Diamond R. & Adam, B. 1993. Recognizing faculty work: Reward systems for the year 2000. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. • Shulman, Lee S. 1999. Taking learning seriously. Change, 31 (4), 11-17. • Smith, Karl A. 2000. Guidance for new faculty (and students). Journal of Engineering Education, 89 (1), 3-6. • Wankat, P.C., Felder, R.M., Smith, K.A. and Oreovicz, F. 2001. The scholarship of teaching and learning in engineering. In Huber, M.T & Morreale, S. (Eds.), Disciplinary styles in the scholarship of teaching and learning: A conversation. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.