Connections—November 2008
Connections is a publication of the Hubbard Center for Faculty Development. The purpose of this newsletter is to facilitate the exchanging and sharing of information that promotes the personal and professional growth of faculty.
Articles in this issue:
- Departmental Cultures: A Home Away from Home
- Building Community Through Mentoring
- YouTube for Instruction
- Office of Off-Campus Community Relations: Resources for Students and Faculty
Departmental Cultures:
A Home Away from Home
Peter W. Petschauer, Professor Emeritus
Spring 2008
All of us working in an academic department know that we “live” in a setting that is different from the others. Faculty members associated with the Department of English or Department of Philosophy know that their workplace is somehow different from that of the Department of Biology or Art. However, most faculty members do not explicitly think about the differences or similarities of these groups unless they converse with members of other departments. Systematic investigations of such differences and similarities are sparse, despite the fact that faculty members spend almost as much time at these homes-away-from-home as they do at home.
My own first conscious experience with the unique way of a department’s being, or its “culture,” came one evening in the fall of 1968. The chair of the department and a colleague (who later became chair) yelled at each other in front of a blackboard. Their issue—the curriculum—totally escaped my comprehension. Never having experienced anything similar in my graduate department, I felt ashamed and wanted to hide. Looking back, I realize that curricula matter intensely to most faculty members, and during my next 38 years in the department it remained one of the most contested issues. Through its curriculum a department is linked to the wider discipline and responds through it to the university’s needs. Thus, members of any given department reflect not only the national trends in the discipline’s curriculum, but also their own past and the needs of the institution.
Each academic department has a specific way of being, a specific culture. This culture is maintained by the men and women who work in it, its institutional placement and physical location, and the specialization of which it is a part. While each institution of higher education has its own culture, departments also have their own histories, ways of treating its members, unique approaches to their students, ceremonies, relationships to their institution and location, interpretations about teaching, research/creative activity and service, and interactions with departments around them.
All of these ways are expressed in common languages. Such languages are similar to dialects of different mountain valleys and are carried and altered by department chairs and unofficial leaders of departments. A department may speak highly of its past accomplishments; another may regularly depreciate its past. A department may enjoy a collegial culture in which each person honors the work of others; or its members may “be at each others’ throats” on a regular basis. A department may have developed a conversation and work pattern in which students are the focus of everyone’s efforts; or it may have developed an approach in which it is perfectly acceptable to close the office door “because I cannot get any work done with the constant interruptions by students.” Departments may value ceremonies to celebrate excellent teaching or highlight the best of its efforts; or they may argue that ceremonies are nothing but “a waste of time.” A department may emphasize the better aspects of its placement in the institutional hierarchy and the appropriateness of its rooms; or it may complain constantly about the building’s flaws to which it “has been banished.” A department may laud its members who engage in service to the department, the institution, and their specialization; or it may see these activities as nothing more than a distraction from “important” work, like research. Finally, a department may consider its neighbors in the same building, or in a similar field, partners in the common effort to educate students or implement a common creative project; or it may devalue the efforts of colleagues in other departments and say that “they really don’t know what they are doing.”
For institutional leaders (i.e., department chairs, deans, provosts, chancellors), understanding the powerful aspects of departmental cultures is critical to both their own and the institution’s success. Departments with negative cultures consume inordinate amounts of unproductive time and effort. Some departments remain in this unfortunate situation for generations of scholars. Each generation of scholars seems to teach the next the language for maintaining a miserable environment. Rather than providing what might be the ideal home-away-from-home, one to which faculty would like to return every day, they generate an unproductive setting that harms them, their students, their specialization, and their institution.
Pertinent Reading
Lee, J. J (2004). Comparing institutional relationships with academic separtments: A study of five academic fields. Research in Higher Education, 45, 603-24.
Quinlan, K. M., & Åkerlind, G. S. (2000). Factors affecting departmental peer collaboration for faculty development: Two cases in context. Higher Education, 40, 23-52.
Building Community Through Mentoring
Developing and fostering a mentoring culture is critical to the success of new faculty as they begin their academic careers at a new institution. In a recent article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, new tenure track faculty surveyed by the Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education group, stated that formal and informal mentoring was very important to their success in academia.
What Do New Faculty Want from a Mentor?
It depends. If it is an inexperienced faculty member, he or she may want someone to help them “see the big picture” in terms of the arc of their academic careers. They may seek advice on professional development—how to carve out time for research when one has a full teaching load, how to secure grants to fund one’s research, how to establish contacts within the profession for the purpose of publication and presentations at professional meetings.
Some new faculty come to academia with significant professional experience but very little education in how to teach in higher education. They may need advice on the basics—constructing a syllabus, incorporating active learning strategies in their classroom, and determining fair and reliable methods for assessment and evaluation. Many new faculty are overwhelmed with the service opportunities and responsibilities that may come with their positions. A mentor can help them sort out priorities as they relate to their personal goals and the expectations of their department, college, university, and profession.
Of course, not all new faculty are new to academia. Some come to the university with considerable experience in higher education. What can the mentor provide for them?
Each university and college has its own culture and experience. New faculty members will want to learn about that part of their new surroundings so that they can begin to ascertain how they might best fit in and contribute to their new institution. Many have a strong professional track record and considerable experience in the classroom and in various aspects of university or college service. In that case, the mentor serves as a colleague who can act as a “sounding board” for the new faculty member on issues of mutual concern. There is a strong sense of collegiality that informs this relationship.
Mentoring Is Complex
It is also challenging, and vital part of being a professor who serves his or her community and discipline. Mentoring is a thread that continues throughout the professional life of those engaged in higher education. It is fundamentally a relationship based on mutual interest and respect. Some mentoring relationships are goal oriented and last for a limited period of time. Others develop from either formal or informal arrangements and change or evolve over time.
According to W. Brad Johnson in his book, On Being a Mentor: A Guide for Higher Education Faculty, the most successful mentoring relationships are reciprocal and mutually beneficial. They provide a trusting place in which the mentor and the protégé can identify problems and possibilities. Honest and open communication is essential. Each has a role to play and the success or failure of that particular mentoring relationship is often determined by mutually held expectations and commitments.
Working through this process is an important part of being a professor. It provides the individual professor not only a sense of satisfaction in terms of the particular protégée with whom he or she may be engaged, but it also contributes to building a strong sense of community with one’s colleagues, administrators and students—all of whom are vitally committed to fostering the best in themselves and others in terms of the higher education enterprise.
Best Practices: In the Field and On Campus
The next issue of Connections will contain an article sharing with you some of the various ways in which your colleagues here at Appalachian attempt to realize their ideal for how a mentoring relationship can begin and how it can develop over time.
YouTube has become incredibly popular among students as a way to find music, TV shows, videos, and many other forms of entertainment. Due to this popularity, many professors are starting to integrate YouTube into the classroom in various ways ranging from fully documented lectures to supplemental examples to course concepts. Here are some useful examples of how YouTube can be used in the classroom.
Difficult Concepts
Video or screen capture technology, like Camtasia, can be used to better explain difficult concepts. Edward Berger from the University of Virginia uses a screen capture and voice recording program to show how to solve a problem for his mechanical engineering class. The result is a video that shows the professor working out the problem, step by step, and talking through it as he goes. Mr. Berger has found that most of his students tune into these videos and find them helpful to review before tests.
Supplemental Information
Many professors incorporate YouTube into their classroom by providing supplemental material to course concepts. Many videos can be found on classic psychology experiments, scientific experiments, political debates, biographies of artists, and many other discipline specific concepts. Further, it is incredibly easy and quick to bring up these videos to help supplement course material.
For example, when teaching Introduction to Psychology, faculty often teach BF Skinner’s reinforcement studies. Instead of reserving this video from the library, faculty can just bring up the YouTube video and not only see the original experiment, but hear explanations of the experiment directly from BF Skinner himself. Here is a link to the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AepqpTtKbwo&NR=1
Lectures
Many universities, both large and small, have official university channels on the YouTube website. The University of California at Berkley began the trend, but it has spread to many others including Vanderbilt, the University of Southern California, Purdue, Duke, and the University of Michigan, just to name a few. These universities are using their sites in various ways. Berkley for example, goes as far as offering full lectures for large courses like anatomy, physics, and chemistry. However other universities, like Duke, use the website to present current research, provide admissions videos, campus news, and activities. To see these examples, visit the following websites:
http://www.youtube.com/ucberkeley
http://www.youtube.com/dukeuniversitynews
http://www.youtube.com/purdueuniversity
You Tube at Appalachian
In teaching her art courses at Appalachian, Dr. Janet Montgomery has found YouTube to be useful as a supplemental resource to explain course concepts. In her Asian art history course, YouTube has been useful in explaining the complex concept of Asian culture’s connection of all art forms instead of the traditional Western culture’s separation of art forms like art, dance, and music. In order to clarify, Dr. Montgomery provides links to specific YouTube videos using Moodle and encourages students to visit the website after the concept has been explained in class. She likes the ability to go straight to the source; it seems to increase the clarity of these concepts. Here is an example of an Indian Raga music which is connected with the Indian art form of Ragamala: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QuDEx3_Ygo&feature=PlayList&p=0AC849C4ED40E83A&index0
Dr. Montgomery has also incorporated YouTube when teaching basic drawing to non-art majors, such as pre-service elementary teachers. For example, after the concept of drawing a hand using the contour method has been introduced, students can link on AsULearn to several instructional websites, including YouTube videos of contour drawing of hands. They can view the video multiple times, and stop at certain points for clarification. Further, she has found this useful for students who miss class because the student can review the websites, watch the YouTube video, attempt the drawing, and then come to her with questions if needed. Here is an example of a video of contour drawing of a hand.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYK87yUISh8
It should be noted that it is important that teachers view videos start to finish, making sure that the information is correct.
Sources:
Young, J.R. (2008). YouTube professors: scholars as online video stars. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 54(20), A19.
Young, J.R. (2008). Film school: To spice up course work, professors make their own videos. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 54(34), A13.
BF Skinner on reinforcement-general psychology (August 21, 2007). YouTube. Retrieved October 21, 2008, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AepqpTtKbwo&NR=1.
UC Berkeley (May 2, 2006). Berkeley University of California. Retrieved May 28, 2008, from http://www.youtube.com/ucberkeley.
Duke University (October 19, 2006). Duke University News. Retrieved May 28, 2008, from http://www.youtube.com/dukeuniversitynews.
Purdue University (September 20, 2006). Purdue University. Retrieved May 28, 2008, from http://www.youtube.com/purdueuniversity.
Playlist: RAGAs (2008). YouTube. Retrieved October 21, 2008, from http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=0AC849C4ED40E83A.
Drawing a contour hand 2 (June 30, 2007). You Tube. Retrieved October 21, 2008, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYK87yUISh8.
J. Montgomery, personal communication, October 6, 2008.
Office of Off-Campus Community Relations:
Resources for Students and Faculty
The Office of Off-Campus Community Relations, headed by Kendal McDevitt, is involved in a multitude of concerns surrounding off-campus students. The office does not just work with off-campus students and their concerns, it also connects with local landlords, educates on health and wellness, helps transfer students to feel welcome, maintains online housing forums, works with local recycling programs, and functions as a mediator between students and the surrounding community. Recently, the Office of Off-Campus Community Relations became concerned with the alarming connection between off-campus student conduct and their on-campus conduct. The Office of Student Conduct found that alcohol and drug-related offenses often times lead to violent crime, and more shockingly, 43% of off-campus student offenders had committed those crimes on-campus as well. Luckily, with McDevitt’s experience as a prevention specialist and a community organizer—both with Appalachian and in the Town of Boone as a substance abuse counselor—the office has someone capable and effective to alleviate this situation.
Addressing High Risk Behavior
In January of this year, McDevitt, with the Office of Student Conduct and the local police department, began allotting more resources to the off-campus conduct initiative in an attempt to halt these high-risk behaviors. Every weekday morning, McDevitt receives the police log of offenders from the night or weekend before. She goes through and circles all of the students who attend Appalachian and have committed an alcohol or other drug offense, received DWI’s, committed assault, or committed a felony. Those who are first-time offenders receive a Letter of Concern, which explains the health and safety program, expresses that Appalachian cares about the welfare of all its students, and provides educational material on the effects of alcohol and marijuana on the brain. Those students on the list who have committed an alcohol or drug offense more than once are referred to the Office of Student Conduct.
Many students originally balked at this initiative, even though it affects less than 2% of the student population. They were concerned that it infringed upon their right to keep a social life separate from the functions of the University, and that it turned Appalachian into a “Big Brother.” McDevitt invited concerned students to meet with her, and ultimately they were reassured that this program was for their personal health and safety, as well as the community’s. Through meeting with Ms. McDevitt or by receiving a Letter of Concern, students come away with an understanding that there are many consequences of one’s personal life that could hinder their career. Since January 2008 when this initiative began, initial figures show that there has been a decrease in repeat offenses. Not only does this help out students both on and off campus, but it also assuages the tension between off-campus students and the neighborhoods in which they reside.
Fostering Good Citizenship
Another aspect to the initiative to promote off-campus student health and safety is the annual Meet and Greet. This event takes place each September and the goal is to let off-campus students know that they are still a part of the Appalachian family, to create awareness of town ordinances, and to educate students on what it means to be a good citizen. This year, volunteer students went to 1,596 off-campus apartments and houses in the Town of Boone to drop off Welcome Bags, and to speak with those students who wished to talk. The Welcome Bags (contents shown in photo) contain educational documents, a variety of tokens such as a magnet with emergency numbers, First Aid Kit Information, flashlight whistles, and a Downtown Restaurant/Park Walking Guide. Students were asked to complete an online survey regarding the Meet and Greet with the chance to win a free iPod. The responses to the survey were extremely positive with many students reporting that the bags were helpful, especially the emergency magnet.
Resources for Faculty
Housing Forums – for posting a unit that you may have for rent or sale, or if you are looking to rent or purchase.
Laws and Ordinances – links to a variety of laws in Boone, Watauga, and Appalachian that may affect students living in your neighborhood.
Safety and Security – links to police and sheriff’s departments, and Appalachian’s Emergency website.
Recycling – information on new recycling opportunities and links to multiple recycling agencies.
If you have any questions or concerns regarding off-campus students and community relations, contact Kendal McDevitt at ext. 8284 or mcdevittkb@appstate.edu. She is located in the Plemmons Student Union, Room 305.
The Hubbard Center electronically publishes our newsletter, Connections, three times each semester. Please contact Kathy Isaacs, editor, with any comments or questions.
