August, 2006

Academic Leader - August, 2006 - Full Issue PDF
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Study Identifies 5 Most Helpful Experiences for Moving from Faculty to Department Chair
Inadequate preparation, unrealistic expectations, and increased workload can be overwhelming for faculty members making the transition to department chair. Brenda Coppard, chair of occupational therapy at Creighton University, found this transition “just a little mind boggling” and decided to focus her research on it.

CFPD Mentor Program Provides Additional Support
Informal faculty mentoring relationships that are formed within departments can contribute significantly to new faculty member success, but it is unlikely that each new faculty member will find a mentor that suits his or her needs. The relationships that are formed often last for a short time due to the time demands on each person. Rather than leaving this important support to chance, higher education institutions need to create new faculty mentoring programs that provide the structure to encourage sustained mentoring, says Maryse Richards, director of the Center for Faculty Professional Development (CFPD) and psychology professor at Loyola University Chicago.

Manias, Pathologies, and Alternative Approaches to Assessment: A Response to Doubting Assessors
By Jo Allen, PhD
The recent article, “‘Assessmania’ and ‘Bureaupathology’ in Higher Education” by Thomas R. McDaniel (Academic Leader, June 2006) opens with “This is not a rant,” followed by a claim that he recognizes the importance of “assessment and … bureaucratic efficiencies.” In the remainder of the article, however, he seems to challenge that importance as he clusters three sets of questions about the reality of the need for assessment, the resources required, and the usefulness of the outcomes. In this article, I’d like to offer a response that moves beyond the standard defense of assessment toward offering a couple of insights on those “bureaucratic efficiencies.”

What Encourages Faculty to Include Diversity Materials in Their Courses?
Incorporating material that addresses diversity issues in classes has positive effects on a number of learning outcomes. The success of efforts to make curricula more diverse depends to a large degree on faculty willingness to incorporate these materials because control of the curriculum remains in faculty hands—both collectively, in terms of course and program approval processes, and individually, in terms of daily decisions about what to teach.

There’s More to Leadership than Motivation and Ability
A preliminary study of academic middle managers indicates that the performance of deans and division and department heads is affected by more than just their skills. In order to be effective, academic middle managers and their supervisors need to pay attention to other factors that affect performance.

Parting Shot: Student Evaluations of Instructors: A Good Thing?
By Thomas R. McDaniel, PhD
End-of-course evaluations are so much a part of our system and so routine an expectation by our students and faculty that I have seldom questioned their value or necessity. Indeed, one study of 600 liberal arts colleges found that the number of schools asking students to evaluate their instructors had escalated from 29 percent to 86 percent over the course of a decade. But I pause to reflect in this “Parting Shot”: Are they really (as Martha Stewart might ask) “a good thing?”