Faculty Handbook 2019-2020

D.3.a. Student Development

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.

For library Faculty, teaching is interpreted in terms of their interactions with patrons of the library, especially those activities involving engagement of students about library literacy and research assistance.

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;
  • all student course feedback in the online system for all courses taught during the evaluation period, [During the transition period when Faculty evaluation cycles include courses taught prior to the implementation of the online system, Faculty should provide copies of the feedback from the most recent section for any course that was taught before the online system began.]
  • course syllabi for courses taught during the evaluation period;
  • sample copies of examinations or other assignments used in courses taught during the evaluation period;
  • where applicable, summaries of independent studies and experiential learning projects. 

In addition, Faculty are welcome to include the following optional items:

  • letters written by on- or off-campus peers that address intellectual ability, the quality of syllabi and other course materials, and pedagogical skills;
  • direct evidence of student learning, including but not limited to samples of student answers to exam questions, problem sets, or writing assignments;
  • reflective feedback collected during the course that was separate from the online system.

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 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 notebook 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.