Teaching
Excellence
in teaching includes the following key features:
- sufficient
planning, organization, and preparation;
- mastery of, and
enthusiasm for, one’s subject matter;
- a willingness to
provide students with regular feedback and encouragement
- stimulation of
student interest in the subject;
- the capacity to
foster both students’ critical thinking skills and their ability to learn
independently;
- a commitment to
remaining current in pedagogy and discipline-specific knowledge;
- the creation of an
environment conducive to learning, one that includes concern and respect for
students as individuals and members of a learning community. A faculty member will be approachable and
available to students both in and out of the classroom;
- finally, a modeling of the lifelong
learning that we hope to inspire in our students.
Assessment
of Teaching
The
following items will be provided as a means of assessing excellence in
teaching:
- evaluative
summaries of classroom visits by chairs and, if relevant, other colleagues;
- course evaluations
by students including at least the most recent section of each course taught
since the last evaluation. If the number
of distinct courses to be evaluated exceeds 7, then the faculty member and Area
Chair confer and select a representative sample of 7 course evaluations;
- course syllabi for
evaluated courses;
- sample copies of examinations or other assignments used in evaluated courses
- where applicable, summaries of independent
studies and experiential learning projects.
In addition,
candidates may submit letters written by on- or off-campus peers that address the
candidates’ intellectual ability, the quality of their syllabi and other course
materials, and their pedagogical skills.
Advising
As emphasized in
the previous section on Faculty Duties
and Responsibilities, academic advising of students is a natural and
important extension of the teaching role of Hendrix faculty. Effective academic advising exerts a powerful
positive influence on student learning and development. Given its import within the broader academic
aims of the College, excellence in academic advising is an important component
of the faculty evaluation process at Hendrix.
Academic advising
is viewed as a cooperative educational working relationship between advisor and
advisee, grounded in mutual respect and the common goal of student growth and
success—in its fullest sense—at Hendrix.
The advisor/advisee relationship respects the autonomy and intellect of
the advisee, yet sees advisors as a central academic resource and mentor for
their advisees. As such, advisors are
expected to provide advisees with appropriate academic information and guidance
and to play a positive, supportive, proactive role in facilitating the
processes of adjustment, learning, and intellectual and personal development
requisite to successful college-level work.
All faculty
members are expected to advise students, beginning as early as their second
year at Hendrix. Faculty advising is
done on an individualized basis, usually face-to-face, but also via e-mail,
campus mail, and telephone. All faculty
members participate, as requested, on the Council of New Student Advisors
(CNSA). In addition, faculty members are
expected to assume a relatively equal share of major advisees in their
departments.
Assessment
of Advising
The
means of evaluation of excellence and effectiveness in academic advising
include the following:
- colleague and
department chair evaluations of advising effectiveness, as appropriate;
- participation in
advisor development activities, appropriate to experience and ongoing
development of effectiveness;
- student evaluations of faculty advisor
effectiveness.
The process,
including the creation of evaluation
forms used for the purpose of evaluating advising, is designed by the Executive Director of Advising and
Student Success and reviewed by the Committee on Faculty. Students have the opportunity each year to
evaluate their advisors and the advising process. The inclusion of copies of advising
student evaluations in the faculty members’ evaluation dossier for the year preceding
the evaluation is required.
Mentoring
As noted in the preceding Faculty Duties and Responsibilities section, faculty may find
opportunities to mentor individual students. Indeed, some of the most important
faculty/student relationships that produce vital development of students occur
outside of the formalized academic advising process. Faculty often forge bonds with non-advisee
students who are departmental majors or who have their departmental homes
elsewhere on campus. Sometimes these
mentoring relationships are extensions of academic work; sometimes they extend from
the faculty and student’s engagement in formal community development
activities; sometimes they result from more haphazard interactions that often
occur in a relatively small community.
Whatever their origins, mentoring relationships are appreciated by both
faculty and students and are an important part of student development at
Hendrix.
Assessment
of Mentoring
If distinctive mentoring relationships have developed during the time
since the last evaluation, the
means of evaluation of excellence in mentoring may include the following:
- overviews of the nature, scope, and number
of such mentoring relationships since the faculty members last evaluation,
presented in his/her written materials.
- at the discretion of the faculty member,
student letters overviewing the nature and extent of the mentoring
relationships and the manner that the interactions have contributed to the
students’ ongoing development.
-
colleague and department chair
letters recognizing the faculty member’s outreach to students through informal
mentoring.