Faculty Development Committee
Minnesota State University, Mankato
Feb. 5, 2002
(Unapproved Minutes)
The Faculty Development Committee met at 3:15 p.m. Feb. 5, 2002, in 138 Nelson
Hall.
Present were Jane Baird (COB); Lynne Weber (Library); Chris Veltsos (CSET);
Marshel Rossow (A&H), and special guest Richard Schiming, the university’s
former faculty development coordinator.
There was no old business.
The committee discussed two pieces of new business: (1) the annual tenure/promotion
workshop and (2) the unfilled position of faculty development coordinator.
Tenure/promotion workshop: The committee agreed faculty should have a role
in the workshop, as has been customary, including selecting faculty presenters. Rossow
will work with Academic Affairs to make arrangements.
Faculty development coordinator: The FA Executive Committee has asked the
Faculty Development Committee to consider ways to facilitate development
activities on campus.
Dr. Schiming offered a brief review of the coordinator’s position, which
he held from 1995 to July 2001. He said the reassigned time attached to the
position was reduced from 44 percent in 1995 to only one course reassigned
time each semester in 2001. He also noted the loss of dedicated space for
a coordinator’s office. Dr. Schiming said MSU, Mankato is the only state
university campus without a person in the coordinator’s position. St. Cloud
State, he said, has had a coordinator with 50 percent reassigned time, office
space, a secretary and additional help from two grad assistants and work
study students. (St. Cloud is, of course, the MnSCU school that is most similar
to MSU, Mankato.) Schiming said many of the MnSCU two-year colleges also
have a faculty member serving as a development coordinator and dedicated
office and meeting space for faculty development activities.
Dr. Schiming said one course of reassigned time per semester is adequate
only for the coordinator to serve as a liaison between MSU, Mankato’s faculty
and MnSCU’s Center for Teaching and Learning or the Collaboration for the
Advancement of College Teaching & Learning. He said additional reassigned
time is needed so the coordinator could pursuesuch activities as maintaining
a faculty-development Web site; conducting local programs such as workshops
on teaching, writing and assessment; assisting/advising individual faculty
(especially newer faculty) with Article 22 requirements and PDP plans; creating/maintaining
a local development newsletter, an informational bulletin board, and a resource
site with books, periodicals, successful P/T documents, etc.; and maintaining
contact with development coordinators on other MnSCU campuses to be sure
MSU,M faculty have full and fair access to development opportunities and
innovations.
In discussing Dr. Schiming’s observations, the committee acknowledged that
such campus resources as Academic Affairs and Instructional Technologies
have worked to make certain development opportunities available. However,
Academic Affairs has myriad other obligations and understandably cannot offer
the breadth, depth and timeliness of
service a dedicated coordinator could provide. Instructional Technologies
can provide expert opportunities in the technology area of development but
cannot be expected to offer non-technical help in such areas as teaching
methods, course development, course and program assessment, teaching-portfolio
development, PDPs, resource coordination, etc.
The committee feels the lack of a development coordinator to act as a “clearinghouse”
for development activities and to aggressively promote those activities has
meant that some faculty are missing out on opportunities that are important
to their careers. The committee also concludes that a coordinator with only
one course of reassigned time might be facing an exercise in frustration
-- needing to do a much bigger job, if it is to be done right, than time
would allow.
The committee is aware of the university’s budget concerns. Nevertheless,
the committee feels that well-planned,
well-publicized, well-coordinated and well-presented development opportunities
can be money-savers by making individual faculty and entire departments more
effective and more efficient in their jobs -- an important consideration
in days of shrinking resources.
The committee recommends that the university place high priority on formal
faculty-development efforts. Specifically, the committee urges that the institution
establish a half-reassigned-time position for a faculty development coordinator;
that it aggressively seek qualified applicants for that position; that it
provide dedicated office space for the coordinator’s work and for easy faculty
access to development materials and information; and that it provide adequate
resources (e.g., telephone, computer hookup, reasonable mileage money) for
the coordinator to maintain regular contact with MnSCU, other campuses’ coordinators
and other development resources.
The meeting adjourned at 3:58 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Marshel Rossow, FDC chair