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The Teaching Professor, Volume 14, Number 4
The Teaching Professor, Volume 15, Number 3
The New Faculty Member : Supporting and Fostering Professional Development

For the first time in decades, most American campuses are in the midst of hiring large groups of new faculty. As competition for the most qualified candidates increases, institutions must work harder than ever to attract and retain the best and most diverse prospects. This often requires investing considerable resources in recruitment and hiring--and makes it imperative that new hires are not lost to competitors or to unhappy or unproductive beginnings. In this book, Robert Boice offers a range of proven support strategies designed to help new faculty thrive--from campuswide programs for nurturing newcomers to projects that help them to help themselves. Boice identifies the major challenges facing most new faculty--teaching, scholarly writing, and simply fitting in as colleagues--and provides tested solutions for helping them cope. He outlines a structured mentoring program to build collegiality through social support networks. And he presents specific techniques for helping new faculty find time, fluency, and balance as writers, including advice on dealing with editorial evaluations or rejections. The author also details a variety of self-help projects, including exercise and mood management groups run largely by new faculty, as well as faculty handbooks and newsletters. And perhaps most important, he tells how to gain the crucial support of department chairs, deans, and other administrators, secure funds to get programs off the ground, and keep new programs manageable and successful. (From the Publisher)

There appears to be a significant gap between faculty expectations for incoming college students and these same students perceptions of their abilities. Incoming college students are not very confident of their critical thinking abilities, yet faculty expect students to enter college already being able to critically evaluate information and to reach conclusions based on a critical analysis of the data. The current study challenges the preconception that critical thinking cannot be taught and delineates a model for critical thinking that can be employed regardless of one’s discipline. Outcome data strongly suggests critical thinking can lead to both proximal and distal increases in student success.

Short essay acknowledging the critique of PowerPoint, but arguing for its more effective use.

A handout from BYU's Faculty Center, based on the work of L. Dee Fink, provides a series of detailed questions to guide you through the construction of a course, organized in categories such as: where are you? where do you want to go? how would you know if the students got there? how can you help them get there? what are the students going to do? etc.

Grant Coaching

The Wabash Center understands our grants program as a part of our overall teaching and learning mission. We are interested in not only awarding grants to excellent proposals, but also in enabling faculty members to develop and hone their skills as grant writers. Therefore we offer grant coaching for all faculty interested in submitting a Wabash Center Project Grant proposal.

Sarah Farmer, Ph.D.
Associate Director, Wabash Center
farmers@wabash.edu