University Senate Faculty Development Subcommittee
2013-2014 Final Report
Committee Chair: Pam Hayward
Committee Members: Rhonda Armstrong, Bonnie Dadig, Paul York, Michael Dowell, Ranjitha Krishna,
Allison Hunter, Beth Pendergraft, Jjudi Wilson, Stephanie Wright, Andy Hauger, Darra Balance, Ralph
Gillies, Laura Mulloy
The subcommittee met six times during the 2013-2014 academic year and also communicated
throughout the academic year via email. Below are updates from each of these meetings.
September 12, 2013
Faculty Development Subcommittee
September 12, 2013
Meeting
The Faculty Development Subcommittee met Thursday, September 12. The group learned more about
the status of the instructor/course evaluations as they were last vetted by Institutional Effectiveness. A
copy of the latest version was sent to the FDS and will be reviewed at the FDS’s October 10 meeting.
Members of the FDS agreed to find out what faculty awards are given out at each of the different
colleges. This way the FDS will have a master list of all faculty awards. The FDS’s goal is to propose
additional, campuswide awards for faculty.
October 10, 2013
University Senate Faculty Development Subcommittee
Minutes of October 10, 2013 Meeting
Updates Included
Present: Darra Balance, Pam Hayward, Allison Hunter, Deborah Richardson
NOTE: Updates/actions occurred since the October 10 meeting. These will be noted.
Instructor Evaluation Questions
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The committee discussed the ongoing charge our committee has had to develop several instructor
evaluation questions that could be used across all instructional situations. The committee expressed
frustration with this charge as several versions of questions have been bandied about by various
committees, including ours, to no avail. Many on our committee are not convinced of the need for these
overarching questions. Two decisions were made: 1) Have Pam Hayward check with Wendy Turner,
Senate Immediate Past President, who helped issue the charge to find clarity on why the charge was
issued, and 2) Due to the fact these questions are tied to tenure/promotion look into moving our recent
version of the questions to the Senate Promotion and Tenure Committee.
Update: Word got to our committee that we could not move the charge for these questions to
the P&T subcommittee. Deborah Richardson and Pam Hayward met with Carol Rychly, VPAA,
last week to air the committee’s concerns about the questions and the various versions that
have been developed. Carol stressed that such a list of questions should be developed. The
three of them worked together and came up with a new list, which was inspired by the previous
versions of questions developed. They are in the Appendix to these minutes. Please review and
let Pam Hayward know by the end of this week if you approve. If these are approved by our
committee, Carol Rychly said we can then move them to the Provost’s Operational
Management Group.
Awards
Pam Hayward reported to the group that information on all campus faculty awards had been gathered
from each college thanks to efforts of the committee. She will collate the list.
Deborah explained that the USG has awards for outstanding teaching, online teaching, SoTL, and
possibly other accomplishments. We should look into making sure GRU faculty are nominated for these
statewide awards.
Update: Deborah has been asked by Carol Rychly, VPAA, to develop a system to nominate GRU faculty
for the USG’s Regents Award. Deborah will forward information on what is needed to our committee for
our upcoming meeting.
Those present brainstormed areas where more faculty awards could be developed: at the college level,
at various levels of teaching, for faculty who teach general education/core courses,
graduate/undergraduate teaching, recognition for librarians, mentoring, etc.
Update: Laura Mulloy, committee member and Senate President, contacted Pam Hayward recently to
see if our committee could come up with campuswide award ideas for the Senate to give out. Our
committee will discuss this at our next meeting.
Mentoring/Training
Our committee has discussed developing mentoring training in the past. Deborah Richardson, interim
director of the Office of Faculty Development and Teaching Excellence, reported to the committee that
OFTDE will be focusing on developing mentoring and training. Our committee is encouraged to offer
examples of ways we can encourage the individual colleges to focus on mentoring. Should our
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committee come up with a statement to be sent to the colleges underlining the importance of
mentoring?
Deborah Richardson also noted that OFDTE will be involved with faculty orientation and onboarding
with Human Resources.
She also asked if our committee could bring ideas for career development workshops for the entire
campus to our next Faculty Development Subcommittee meeting. She said this would be helpful to
OFDTE as it prepares for the upcoming year.
Upcoming Meetings
Our next meeting was set for the Health Sciences Campus at 4:30 p.m., Thursday, Nov. 7. Darra Balance
said a Greenblatt Library meeting room would be convenient for those attending from our committee.
Pam Hayward will send a Doodle poll after the November meeting to see if the committee members can
find a better time to meet as the current day/time is not working for all committee members.
Allison Hunter will be attending a meeting electronically. She will report back to our committee to let us
know if meeting electronically would be a good path for our committee to take starting in 2014.
Appendix
Proposed questions to be included on all instructor evaluations. These would not replace questions
developed by colleges, programs, etc. Information in brackets is for information only and would not be
included on the evaluation form.
Likert Scale Items
1. The instructor clearly conveyed course expectations. [This question focuses on learning outcomes.]
2. The instructor helped me better understand the subject matter. [This question focuses on a value
statement.]
3. The instructor treated students with respect. [This question focuses on a value statement.]
4. The instructor provided meaningful learning experiences. [This question focuses on pedagogy.]
5. The instructor was interested that students learned. [This question focuses on a value statement.]
November 7, 2013
Minutes
University Senate Faculty Development Subcommittee
November 7, 2013
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Minutes from the October 10, 2013, meeting were approved.
It was decided the original list of course evaluation questions be sent on to Dr. Carol Rychly.
The group developed ideas for increasing campuswide awards for faculty:
Regents Awards
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Online teaching
Scholarship of teaching and learning
Teaching excellence
It was proposed all nominations for these awards would use the same form. A simple, efficient, form will
need to be developed. People could be nominated by others or self-nominate.
The Office of Faculty Development and Teaching Excellence would collect and vet the completed
nomination forms.
Our subcommittee would come up with a selection committee.
The OFDTE would then take on the task of refining and promoting the chosen applications for
submission to the USG.
College and Senate Awards
The subcommittee would like to encourage deans to continue to offer and/or develop college faculty
awards (see list below). Pam send master list to deans?
The subcommittee would like to encourage the University Senate to develop university-wide awards.
Award ideas:
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Teaching
Research
Service
Overall (strong in 2 or 3 of the above categories)
Mentoring Undergraduate Students (does Andy Hauger have information for this idea?)
Mentoring Graduate/Professional Students (does Andy Hauger have information for this
idea?)
Mentoring Junior Faculty
Unsung Hero Award
It was decided the subcommittee would recommend to the University Senate that an overall (title of
award) be given this year. Laura will check with Susan Barcus to see how the funding for the previous
ASU overall teaching, service, and research awards are to be used in the future. Could some portion of
this funding be used for this overall award? At minimum, a plaque would be great. It could also be that
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the people who know the winner would be interviewed and the winner would be surprised with the
video presentation as well as the plaque at the spring University Senate assembly.
Future
Pam will have the list of all awards scanned into one document and then send to the subcommittee.
Allison will look into “Go to Meeting” software for virtual meetings.
Pam will send out a Doodle poll to find the best meeting times for the spring semester.
January 23, 2014
University Senate Faculty Development Subcommittee
Minutes of January 23, 2014, Meeting
Updates Included
Present: Rhonda Armstrong, Wendy Bollag, Pam Hayward, Beth Pendergraft, and Judi Wilson
1.
The subcommittee finalized the committee rotations Wendy Turner, senate past-president,
requested. This will allow for staggered terms in the future. See Appendix for these rotations.
2.
A subcommittee member reported that she has heard concerns expressed by a number of
faculty about the new Time Net reporting system that will limit off-campus leave for professional
development and leadership activity. It was recommended that Pam Hayward, subcommittee chair,
contact Laura Mulloy, senate president and faculty development subcommittee member, to find out if
the senate executive committee would be willing to charge our subcommittee with gathering more
information regarding these faculty concerns. It was reasoned that faculty leadership and development
concerns would fall within the parameters of this senate subcommittee. (Laura was alerted to this
concern via email January 27. Updates will follow as available.)
3.
The committee continued the discussion from our November meeting as how best to: 1)
promote faculty awards being presented in all colleges, 2) develop campuswide overall faculty awards
that can be presented at a senate assembly each year, and 3) support the Office of Faculty Development
and Teaching Excellence in nominating GRU candidates for USG awards.
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After much deliberation, the subcommittee members agreed to send a final version of
the letter Laura Mulloy drafted in November to all college deans to encourage each
college to develop a faculty awards procedure (if not in place already). Wendy Bollag
will send a copy of the Graduate College’s award categories and descriptions so they can
be sent as suggestions for colleges that do not have an awards system in place. (Wendy
has sent these.)
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Also after much deliberation, the subcommittee felt it was not realistic to develop a
quality overall awards procedure for the entire faculty for this academic year. The
subcommittee will continue to work on an overall awards system so that it is ready to go
for the 2014-2015 academic year. (According to Laura, the senate e-board will ask for
just the overall award and request our committee’s assistance in getting the word out.)
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The subcommittee wants to support the OFDTE’s desire to nominate GRU faculty for
USG awards for teaching, scholarship of teaching and learning, and online instruction.
However, subcommittee members felt there wasn’t an infrastructure in place for our
subcommittee to serve as the clearinghouse for these USG awards. The subcommittee
will offer to help the OFDTE get the word out about the awards. (Pam will get more
information from OFDTE at a OFDTE meeting January 31.)
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It was mentioned that if this subcommittee gets more involved with faculty recognition
over the years, the subcommittee may need to request the senate executive committee
appoint an awards selection sub-subcommittee from time to time.
4.
A date for the next subcommittee meeting has not yet been set. The February meeting date will
be sent to subcommittee members once it is available. (A date now has been set: Friday, Feb. 7, 10 a.m.,
AB211, Greenblatt Library, Health Sciences Campus.)
February 7, 2014
University Senate Faculty Development Subcommittee
Minutes of February 7, 2014, Meeting
Present: Ralph Gillies, Andy Hauger, and Pam Hayward
1. The subcommittee reviewed a proposed letter, drafted by Laura Mulloy, to deans encouraging them
to nominate an Outstanding Faculty Member of the Year. The committee made slight edits to the
document. There was a question as to whether there would be any monetary awards for the winners.
Pam will check with Laura on this. The letter will then be sent to deans via snail and email.
2. The subcommittee also discussed needing to find a way to get the word out about USG awards and
national awards.
3. It was proposed that at our next meeting, the subcommittee begin to talk more about long-term, big
picture initiatives related to faculty development that our committee could either support or develop.
Next subcommittee meeting: 2 p.m., Thursday, March 6, Skinner Room, Jaguar Student Activities
Center, Summerville Campus
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April 25, 2014
University Senate Faculty Development Subcommittee
Minutes of April 25, 2014, Meeting
Present: Andy Hauger, Pam Hayward, Deborah Richardson (interim director of the Office of Faculty
Development and Teaching Excellence)
Evaluations
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According to Carol Rychly, the five universal questions our committee sent forward to
the cabinet are now being pilot tested by one college this fall. Evaluations will be
conducted online beginning this fall.
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It was noted that there needs to be a wider range of teaching evaluation methods
besides only student end-of-semester evaluations. This is an item our subcommittee can
explore next academic year.
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Deborah said that one of the goals of the Office of Faculty Development and Teaching
Excellence next year is to develop a master plan to begin to train faculty to serve as
instructional peer reviewers.
Awards
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It was reported that our subcommittee’s work on helping the senate with the
outstanding faculty awards for the spring assembly was successful.
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Andy shared that the College of Science and Math develop an Outstanding Young
Faculty award this year and that could be a good model for other colleges.
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Deborah told the subcommittee that her office had received several nominations for the
various USG Teaching and SoTL awards. She has a group that is vetting applications. She
hopes next year this subcommittee can take a part in vetting applications. Those
present agreed that all the nominations that go forward should be acknowledged. It
may be that these nominees are lauded at the spring senate awards assembly.
Future Directions
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Ralph Gillies was unable to attend, but forwarded a future direction idea for the
committee. He mentioned that it is confusing to faculty to understand the differences
between the OFDTE, the CTL, the EII, and other college faculty development programs.
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The subcommittee hopes to work to make these distinctions less confusing in the
future.
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Mentoring of new faculty was noted as an important future direction. Deborah said the
OFDTE will start working on mentoring programs in the fall and hopes our
subcommittee and Laura Mulloy will be involved in the development of these programs.
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