Patrick B. O’Sullivan, PhD
Director, Center for Teaching, Learning & Technology
Illinois State University
August 2009
You’ll see them wandering through campus buildings, halting frequently to check room numbers or asking passersby for directions. Their faces suggest excitement mixed with a bit of anxiety as the commitment they made so many months ago becomes tangibly real in the form of the people and places that make up ISU.
No, I’m not talking about new students – I’m talking about new faculty.
This year, as every year, the campus welcomes dozens of scholars to the ISU faculty community. This steady influx of new faces, new talents, new ideas and new perspectives contributes new energy to their departments and to the university community.
CTLT has the honor of hosting the annual New Faculty Orientation, always held the Monday of the week before classes begin. This year we welcomed about 60 new hires with a full-day program designed to get them off to a strong start.
While they’re learning technical information such as students’ privacy rights about their academic record and general information about the various campus-wide academic initiatives, they are also getting a feel for the campus culture. Our goal is to have them feel that ISU’s mission statement – “a commitment to fostering a small-college atmosphere with large-university opportunities” – applies not just to students but to faculty as well. We work hard to make sure that at the end the day these new hires view ISU as a warm and supportive community that cares about all dimensions of their success.
I wanted to highlight one aspect of ISU’s faculty culture that this year’s new hires heard regarding the relationship between research and teaching on this campus. A breakout session that I sat in on focused on research-related topics, where they heard veteran ISU faculty provide advice on how to be productive their first year and beyond. Of course, scholarship and creative work are how we establish our disciplinary status and are crucial to achieving tenure and promotion.
But the speakers also noted that ISU is distinctive from many other Research 1 universities in its emphasis on strong teaching. They heard that teaching quality receives more than lip service when it comes to annual evaluations as well as tenure and promotion decisions.
I was especially impressed that one of those voices noting the importance of teaching was that of Rod Custer, who oversees sponsored research on campus for the Provost’s Office. Rod, an active and productive scholar himself, would certainly be expected to promote active scholarly productivity to new faculty. So, it carries extra weight when he emphasizes to new faculty that teaching is core to our university’s mission and alerts them that even an outstanding research record is insufficient to earn tenure at ISU absent a record of strong teaching.
On the other hand, they also heard – from me – that CTLT is fully supportive of the campus priority on scholarship as core to the university’s mission. I tell new faculty that our efforts to encourage them to invest time strengthening their teaching should not undermine – and can enhance – their research productivity. How? One way is that when we become more efficient and more effective in our teaching, we are more likely to have time and energy for their research. Just as newer faculty who feel unprepared, ineffective, and frustrated in the classroom are likely to feel more stress and less enthused about their career, those who feel well prepared, effective and rewarded from their teaching are more likely to feel energized for the demands of creative scholarship.
One other glimpse of ISU’s faculty culture that complements Rod’s and my messages is provided by results of a faculty survey conducted last year by the University Assessment Office. When asked about how important teaching is to them personally, tenure-line respondents rated teaching at 9 (on a 10-point scale, with 10 = “highly important”), even slightly higher than the same question for research (8.5). Similarly, when asked what gives them a sense of professional accomplishment, the top for items were “Developing students’ critical thinking abilities” (9.3), “Developing students’ problem-solving abilities” (9.2), “Developing students’ lifelong learning abilities” (9.0) and “Using active learning strategies in teaching” (8.6). Also rated highly were several research productivity items mixed with other teaching-related items.
The message that I hope that this terrific cohort of new faculty took away from the day was that research productivity and teaching effectiveness are both valued at ISU, and that they will find support for both as they launch their careers. Of course, it’s worth remembering that it’s also true for those of us who have been here awhile.
So when you encounter new faculty this fall, take a moment to give them as warm a welcome as they had at Orientation. They will add their talents and enthusiasm to a faculty community and campus culture that cares deeply about teaching as well as scholarship.
