Whittlesey, V. (2004). The role of the chair in providing administrative support and development of faculty teaching. In W. Buskist, V. W. Hevern, B. K. Saville, & T. Zinn, (Eds.), Essays from e-xcellence in teaching, 2003 (pp. 1-4). Retrieved [insert date] from the Society for the Teaching of Psychology Web site: <http://teachpsych.org/resources/e-books/eit2003/eit2003.php> See copyright notice here.

The Role of the Chair in Providing Administrative
Support and Development of Faculty Teaching
Valerie Whittlesey
Kennesaw State University

(This essay and subsequent commentaries originally appeared as the monthly "E-xcellence in Teaching" e-column in the PsychTeacher Electronic Discussion List for January 2003.)

There is a national concern with the quality of teaching in higher education. Although most faculty graduate from research institutions where the priority is on research, the majority of positions that faculty assume are at teaching colleges and universities. Department chairs cannot rely on past strategies to prepare faculty for their faculty teaching roles. Typically, new faculty have not been provided with the formal or informal institutional structures to learn how to be good teachers. Chairs are increasingly realizing their role in developing faculty teaching and their need to be more intentional in developing "good" teachers.

Davis (1993) provided a working definition of effective teaching that is composed of four clusters of skills, strategies, and attitudes that promote students' academic achievement. The first cluster is organizing and explaining material in ways appropriate to students' abilities. The second cluster involves creating a classroom environment for learning. The third cluster involves helping students become autonomous, self-regulated learners. The fourth cluster involves faculty reflecting on and evaluating their teaching. As this definition makes clear, it takes time for faculty to develop into effective teachers.

Chairs can facilitate effective faculty teaching in various ways. In this article, I have identified two strategies that chairs can use, although these strategies are not independent and mutually exclusive; they reinforce each other. Also, these are not the only strategies that can be used by chairs to facilitate effective teaching in their Department.

Providing Opportunities to Develop Faculty Teaching

Many institutions have campus-wide centers that assist faculty in developing their teaching and that provide information on student learning. Many of these centers will provide workshops, resource materials, and conferences on topics related to teaching. Some of the topics covered may include, but are not limited to, course syllabus preparation, developing and refining a teaching philosophy, incorporating service learning into courses, incorporating technology into courses, incorporating diversity issues into courses, facilitating critical thinking in students, strategies for teaching large classes, developing instructional materials to facilitate student learning, and dealing with difficult students. Chairs should be aware of and play an active role in acquainting faculty with these campus-wide center activities.

If the institution does not have such a center, chairs can initiate and support teaching-related initiatives within the department. For example, workshops can be held over the course of a year as a series of brown bag lunches. Veteran teachers who are recognized for their teaching skills can be called on to cover many of the topics of interest noted earlier. Above all, these sessions have the benefit of stimulating discussion and the sharing of ideas about effective teaching and best practices.

Chairs should also take an active role in developing faculty to evaluate student learning and use this information to reflect continuously on and improve their teaching. On-campus teaching/learning centers and assessment centers may be available as a resource. However, chairs should compliment these resources by also implementing processes within the department for faculty. Chairs can set up a peer evaluation system in their departments in which faculty can sit in on each other's classes, review course syllabi, critique each other's notes, and review various forms of classroom evaluation methods related to gauging student understanding of the material (objective tests, essay tests, term papers, lab reports, oral presentations, student portfolios/journals, group project assignments, review of the day's lecture, etc.). The most benefit occurs when visits and reviews of faculty and their course and lecture material by peers are followed-up with written feedback to the professor reviewed. Not only can peers review faculty, chairs should set up processes that involve students providing feedback and reflection on the course and the instructor's teaching (midterm student evaluations, and final term student evaluations, etc). When methods of classroom assessment and evaluation are used, they are most beneficial when they are used for formative purposes. chairs should stress the formative nature of classroom assessment. Faculty should use this feedback in their self-evaluations of teaching.

Chairs can acquaint faculty and provide support and funding for faculty to attend and present at professional meetings designed to enhance effective teaching. There are national and regional Psychology teaching conferences that faculty can attend (National Institute for the Teaching of Psychology, Southeastern Conference on the Teaching of Psychology, Mid-Atlantic Conference on the Teaching of Psychology, etc.). Additionally, the American Psychological Association (APA) and the American Psychology Society (APS) have teaching-related sessions at their annual meetings. Many of the regional organizations of APA have paper and poster sessions related to teaching at their meetings. Some institutional teaching/learning centers sponsor teaching related conferences on their campuses. Additionally, the Society for the Teaching of Psychology's (STP) Office of Teaching Resources in Psychology (OTRP) <htto://teachpsych.org/otrp/index.php> provides information on the APA national, APA regional, and psychology teaching conference meetings. All of these meetings provide opportunities for faculty to return to their campuses or their classroom with teaching ideas as well as a sense of renewal.

Finally, chairs can either have available in the department or ensure that faculty have easy access to teaching resources, so that they can acquire a library of teaching-related books and articles. Examples of the resources that may be part of this library are the Change magazine, the Psychology Teacher Network newsletter, STP's two e-books on teaching (see http://teachpsych.org/), the Teaching of Psychology journal (ToP), Bill McKeachie's Teaching Tips: Strategies, Research, and Theory for College and University Teachers (2002), Ernest Boyer's Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate (1990), and Thomas Angelo and K. Patricia Cross's Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for College Teachers (1993).

Motivating Faculty to Develop Teaching Excellence

Chairs can create a culture of effective teachers by facilitating discussions about teaching, helping and providing opportunities to become effective teachers and supporting and rewarding effective teaching. Motivating excitement about teaching is an important component in creating a climate of effective teaching.

Some of the strategies that chairs can use to motivate faculty involve providing opportunities to engage in innovative and creative teaching experiences. Chairs can provide to faculty opportunities to teach new courses that are of special interest to them. Delving into a new course can be refreshing and invigorating. Chairs can provide opportunities to team teach a course with another faculty within the department or in another department at their institution. Elizabeth Hammer and Pete Giordano described a Human Sexuality course that they team taught (Hammer & Giordano, 2001). They noted that one advantage of team teaching this particular course was that it gave them and their students an opportunity to get a male and female instructor's perspective on sexuality. Chairs may arrange for interested faculty to teach at another institution or in another country for a semester. These experiences can allow faculty to think about their courses in different ways.

Chairs can motivate faculty by providing adequate teaching preparation time. Chairs can limit the number of course preparations that a faculty member has in one semester or over the course of a year. Another option is for a chair to provide release time to develop a new course or to make substantial revisions to an existing course.

Chairs can also motivate faculty by rewarding teaching excellence. Many institutions provide awards to faculty for teaching excellence. Chairs can additionally provide similar awards at the departmental level. Such awards may be based on the feedback of students and/or other faculty, and the winner of the award can be given visible recognition within the department.

Chairs can build a climate conducive to teaching excellence by assisting faculty in the department in making substantive connections with colleagues who are teaching in areas related to their expertise and/or interests. Chairs can provide sufficient professional and social activities inside and outside of the department to allow faculty to connect with one or several people to discuss problems, concerns, or ideas in the classroom. An example of this kind of activity is teaching circles (see Scharff, 2002). Teaching circles consist of a group of faculty who meet and talk about teaching and issues related to teaching. In addition to facilitating more effective teaching, teaching circles create a sense of community among faculty interested in teaching issues. Chairs can coordinate a teaching circle within the department. Another example of a professional/social activity is assigning mentors. Although chairs may assign faculty mentors in the department, chairs should allow flexibility for relationships to develop naturally.

Chairs play a major role in communicating with faculty concerning the tenure and promotion process. Most institutions have teaching, service, and scholarship expectations for faculty, but vary in the relative weight given to these expectations. Chairs should communicate early on to faculty regarding the relative importance of teaching at the institution within the context of institutional and departmental missions. Specifically, Chairs should indicate what the teaching expectations are and how faculty may demonstrate their teaching abilities in the department. Chairs should meet regularly with individual faculty to set teaching goals. This plan keeps both parties clear on what should be accomplished and apprises both on the individual faculty member's progress. An annual teaching review plan is a way to overcome ambiguities that may occur related to faculty teaching performance. The following is a sample annual teaching review plan.

Academic Year _________________________
Teaching Goals for ______________________(Faculty Member)
1. Teach expected load of three courses in the fall semester (Social Psychology, General Psychology, and Research Methods)
2. Teach expected load of three courses in the spring semester (Social Psychology, General Psychology, and Human Sexuality)
3. Conduct mid-semester and end of the semester student evaluation for all courses taught
4. Have at least one faculty member do an informal visit and evaluation of at least one lecture of one class
5. Update and refine one's teaching philosophy. This philosophy should address one's strengths and weaknesses in the classroom and propose strategies to address one's weaknesses.

Chairs should build into the tenure/promotion and annual review process ways to support and reward activities related to the scholarship of teaching. For example, a faculty member who annually coordinates the department's advisement efforts by providing advising training to new faculty, updating the department's advisement flyers, advising transfer and new students, reviewing the student academic and career advisement literature, and administering surveys to assess and refine the department's advisement efforts should be provided with release time for these efforts. These activities also should be recognized as a scholarship of teaching activity in the tenure/promotion and annual review process. Similarly, a faculty member who annually coordinates the department's assessment efforts by administering senior exit surveys and coordinating the administration of a national psychology test to graduating seniors, reviews the department assessment literature, and prepares reports analyzing the data from the administration of the assessment methods to students should be provided release time and recognized for these efforts.

Finally, none of the strategies mentioned in this article will be effective unless the chair practices what he/she preaches. In order for chairs to be successful in facilitating effective faculty teaching, faculty must see chairs actively engaged in the activities mentioned. Chairs can develop faculty teaching by setting an example themselves.

Barker, L.(2004). The chair's role in hiring good teachers. In W. Buskist, V. W. Hevern, B. K. Saville, & T. Zinn, (Eds.), Essays from e-xcellence in teaching, 2003 (pp. 4-7). Retrieved [insert date] from the Society for the Teaching of Psychology Web site: <http://teachpsych.org/resources/e-books/eit2003/eit2003.php>

The Chair's Role in Hiring Good Teachers
Lewis Barker
Auburn University

In her article "The Role of the Chair in Providing Administrative Support and Development of Faculty Teaching," Valerie Whittlesey challenges department chairs to acknowledge their responsibility for "developing good teachers." In my brief comments on her excellent article I plan to address some strategies that I have used. I'll restrict my remarks to seven strategies aimed at first evaluating, then promoting an awareness of teaching among job applicants. Why the emphasis on job applicants? I think the chair's primary job is to attract and retain an excellent faculty who take pride in both their teaching and research; hence, the chair's primary responsibility is to hire "good teachers" in the first place. Seven strategies for doing so follow:

1. The chair's role in "hiring good faculty" is to balance the relative strengths of a job candidate's research, teaching, collegiality, and so forth. Seldom do faculty agree on which qualities should be given more weight in offering a position to a job candidate, but in my experience the nod goes towards "competence in research" over "competence in the classroom." In part this practice may be due to the limited teaching experience a new PhD typically brings to the interview, making the candidate's attitudes towards teaching, and teaching ability, more difficult to predict. In part it may be due to the overriding demands of hiring to fill a particular specialty area within a graduate program. Realistically, it also may be that university promotion and tenure committees emphasize research productivity at the expense of classroom competence.

However, the chair can work to bring balance to the hiring process, in part by asking faculty to discuss the teaching as well as research prowess of job candidates. For example, the chair can insist that the faculty search committee reviewing CVs of job applicants pay attention to teaching experience, including the number of courses taught as a TA, and the number of courses taught independently. Are teaching evaluations included as part of the candidate's CV? If not, can they be made available? Do the candidate's letters of recommendation include comments on performance as a TA, or other teaching experience?

2. Having survived an initial screening for teaching as well as for research credentials, the process should continue during both telephone and on-site interviews of the candidate. In early conversations, the chair should address the candidate's teaching as well as research expectations; e.g., "Do you consider yourself to be a better teacher or researcher?" as well as "To achieve tenure in this department you are expected to be both a productive researcher and a good teacher. Not putting enough visible effort into either activity will make it difficult for faculty to recommend tenure."

3. Faculty should evaluate job candidates in one or more "job talks." Ideally, the candidate discusses his or her research program in one talk, and prepares a lecture for an Introduction to Psychology class in another. At both, faculty and graduate students can size up the applicant's classroom presence-her or his enthusiasm, speaking voice, eye contact, emotional tone, knowledge and organization of subject matter, knowledge of audience, and general ability to communicate. Notice that at least two of Davis's (1993) four clusters of "what makes a good teacher" can be sampled at a job talk: organizing and explaining material in ways appropriate to students' abilities and creating a classroom environment for learning. In addition, psychology students may fill out a teaching evaluation form for each candidate's job talk to be tallied and considered in faculty meetings at which candidates are compared and selected.

4. The chair (and other faculty) should ask candidates about the textbooks they have used in teaching. One may not be familiar with the text, but the candidate should be, even if it was assigned for the course (rather than individually selected). This question can open further discussion of the candidate's philosophy of teaching a particular course-or, alternatively, reveal that the candidate has no philosophy of teaching. Here we can pick up another of Davis's (1993) four clusters of "what makes a good teacher"-namely, faculty who reflect on and evaluate their teaching.

5. The chair (and other faculty) should ask candidates about the quality of the students being taught at their home institution, and their expectations of student quality at the university in which they might soon be teaching. This question may open for further discussion whether the candidate is aware that students have different abilities, and whether she or he is likely to adjust teaching accordingly. One way to do this is to ask if the level of textbook that was used (one that was likely selected by someone else) was appropriate for the students at the institution where the candidate taught. The question may elicit an understanding of levels of ability, or possibly an elitism that would adversely affect the willingness and ability to teach students in a large state school. Alternatively, the question may elicit a blank stare.

6. In answer to the inevitable applicant question "What does it take to get tenure in your department/university?" the chair should communicate expectations of professional development in both realms throughout an academic career-"good teaching" as well as research publications. In other words, in the same way that a CV grows with each publication, the CV should reflect growth as a teacher. This is a good time to direct applicants to guidelines in the faculty handbook (available on the Web at many institutions) for preparing a teaching portfolio.

7. What are the outcomes of such conversations between the applicant and the chair? First, the discussion sensitizes new faculty to the multidimensional nature of a professor's job; namely, that the applicant is expected to attend to and care about issues relating to students and to teaching as well as to research. In addition, such conversations provide the opportunity for immediate feedback on the applicant's classroom performance during the job talk. The chair can reiterate student and faculty expectations; query the candidate's perception of his or her performance--that is, ask the applicant to comment on his or her perception of the strengths and weaknesses of their presentation. Does the candidate express interest in becoming a better teacher? In addition, this tactic allows the chair to comment on resources that would be made available to help a professor become a better teacher. If candidates do not display such metacognitive skills they should not be hired.

In conclusion, good teachers bring enthusiasm to the classroom, an inquisitive and discerning mind, a knowledge and organization of subject matter, and a willingness to learn new classroom skills. When hiring new faculty, existing faculty and chairs should demand a balance of research and teaching abilities and interests.

Hobbs, S. H. (2004). The role of the chair: Enhancing college teaching through selection, matching, and replacement. In W. Buskist, V. W. Hevern, B. K. Saville, & T. Zinn, (Eds.), Essays from e-xcellence in teaching, 2003 (pp. 7-9). Retrieved [insert date] from the Society for the Teaching of Psychology Web site: <http://teachpsych.org/resources/e-books/eit2003/eit2003.php>

The Role of the Chair: Enhancing College Teaching
Through Selection, Matching, and Replacement
Stephen H. Hobbs
Augusta State University

Anyone who has served as a department chair is well aware of the many responsibilities that must be juggled. It is easy for the instructional mission to take a back seat to immediate crises and externally imposed deadlines. Yet, the most successful department chairs I have known somehow managed to carve out the time necessary to encourage excellence in teaching and to nurture their faculty members. Valerie Whittlesey's article serves as a useful and rather comprehensive guide for novice and seasoned department chairs alike.

Whittlesey points out that it takes time for faculty to develop into effective teachers. A key question becomes, how much time can we afford? Or, put another way, are there ways that we can speed up the process? In support of an affirmative response, let me offer several suggestions.

First, we must be careful in our hiring decisions. Even teaching-focused institutions may be mesmerized by a particular candidate's research specialty or publication record. Some holders of the terminal degree will never become effective teachers, regardless of the serious and heroic efforts made by them, their department chairs, their colleagues, and even their students. How can we avoid these blunders in the hiring process? Routinely noting any previous instructional experience, asking for teaching prognostications from the candidate's references, and even observing the obligatory on-campus presentation are insufficient. Department chairs must take the lead in more thoroughly exploring a candidate's potential as a teacher. For example, in addition to a research-based presentation, candidates can be asked to be the substitute teacher in an Introductory Psychology course.

I am convinced that personality traits and core values are key contributors to instructional excellence, and these can be better assessed by directly contacting listed and other references, through longer campus visitations that include sufficient social interaction, and with probing, behavior-based questions. Here are a few examples of such questions:

A second means by which chairs can speed the development of excellent teaching in their departments is to be purposeful in matching instructor attributes with course assignments, perhaps even with a new faculty member's very first term. This strategy is a natural extension of what began in the hiring process, and requires the chair to be knowledgeable about each faculty member's talents and inclinations. Some faculty members thrive before large sections where they can deliver eloquent lectures. Others are at their best drawing out each student in a smaller, more interactive environment. Some may be better at capturing the beginning student; others find little enjoyment in repeatedly visiting basic material. Effective chairs value the individual differences among their faculty and seek ways to maximize their contributions through flexible course assignments and scheduling practices.

Whittlesey's article enumerates a host of other things that chairs must do to encourage excellence in teaching, but these will be largely wasted on those few individuals who, in spite of careful hiring and encouragement, just do not work out. Formative evaluations, as discussed by Whittlesey, are the cornerstone of a faculty development program. Still, the summative evaluative process must not be overlooked. The chronically ineffective teacher minimizes student learning, drains departmental resources, and is a burden on colleagues. Hiring errors are usually evident within the first two years of appointment, and the likelihood of remediation and improvement should be clear prior to making the tenure decision. If the ineffectual teacher is a "nice guy" and there has not been open conflict within the department, senior faculty members are usually reluctant to make adverse recommendations. Thus, responsibility falls on the shoulders of the department chair. Most ineffectual teachers are cognizant of the situation and are unhappy about it. With the help of a supportive administrator they can have their careers redirected in a mutually satisfying way. When this strategy does not work, chairs will need to act appropriately to terminate the faculty member and begin the process of finding a replacement. The long-term negative impact on the department's educational efforts is too great to do otherwise.

It is well that Whittlesey concludes her article by noting that the best of strategies will lose their impact if chairs are not practicing what they preach. Effective mentoring requires that faculty members see their department chair meeting with students outside of class, selecting up-to-date textbooks and revising their lecture materials, treating students with respect, expressing enthusiasm for their teaching, renewing their content expertise, expecting the best from students, seeking out colleagues to discuss teaching, staying technologically current, valuing student feedback, and so on. It makes sense to have effective teachers serve as department chairs. It is also a shame that, in doing so, we reduce their classroom contributions. Whittlesey makes it clear, though, that a chair can more than compensate for this loss through his or her leadership in creating a positive educational environment. Consider the following from J. W. 'Bill' Marriott, Chairman and CEO of Marriott International: "You start with good people, you train and motivate them, you give them an opportunity to advance, then the organization succeeds."

Rossi, M. J. (2004). A reaction to 'The role of the chair in providing administrative support and development of faculty teaching.' In W. Buskist, V. W. Hevern, B. K. Saville, & T. Zinn, (Eds.), Essays from e-xcellence in teaching, 2003 (pp. 9-11). Retrieved [insert date] from the Society for the Teaching of Psychology Web site: <http://teachpsych.org/resources/e-books/eit2003/eit2003.php>

A Reaction to "The Role of the Chair in Providing Administrative Support
and Development of Faculty Teaching"
Marcia J. Rossi
Tuskegee University

Whittlesey notes that effective teaching is comprised of a number of attitudes, skills, and strategies involved in encouraging student academic achievement. Similarly, serving as an effective chair requires certain skills and abilities. In addition to working with faculty to support their efforts, the chair has the responsibility of working with the dean, other departments, and other university administrators to facilitate the mission of the department and the university.

Whittlesey cites numerous ways that chairs may support and encourage faculty teaching; many of those suggestions must be viewed within the context of university policies and procedures that are sometimes difficult to change. For example, when arguing that chairs should build into the promotion and tenure process ways to reward activities related to teaching, the chair must first be able to negotiate with the administration to make such changes. Thus, the position of chair often involves one of compromise and negotiation in order to accomplish departmental objectives. This constraint requires a chair who is willing and able to take a stand in support of the department against an administration that may not be all that supportive. However, as resources are often scarce within institutions, chairs must learn under which circumstances to pursue change and when to work within confines of the existing structure and policies of the university.

Team Teaching

Whittlesey's suggestion to foster team teaching is an excellent one. Faculty are often stimulated by working with another faculty member and students receive the benefits of hearing different perspectives as well as observing models of cooperation in academic settings. In some institutions, it may even be feasible to have interdisciplinary team teaching. This strategy may be more feasible for smaller institutions that are more likely to have different disciplines represented in a single department. For example, in our department, we have the disciplines of Psychology, Sociology, and Philosophy represented. It is possible, therefore, for a social psychology course to be co-taught by a psychologist and a sociologist, or an ethical issues course to be co-taught by a psychologist and a philosopher.

Using Technology in the Classroom

Chairs may choose to pursue advances in technology to facilitate effective teaching. For example, chairs who are active in pursuing distance education technologies are able to provide students with greater opportunities for diverse learning experiences. The concept of team teaching may be extended to include faculty at other institutions. Similarly, providing access to technological advances for faculty in the form of updated computers, software, and smart classrooms equipped with video/data projectors and Web access can greatly enhance teaching. The ability to use e-learning, such as WebCT or Blackboard, can make teaching more flexible and make different forms of additional instructional resources more readily available to the student. The use of such media often makes instructors more accessible as well as other resources.

Teaching Beyond the Classroom

Whittlesey correctly notes that not all teaching involves classroom teaching. In addition to rewarding excellence in academic advising, faculty who supervise research assistants at both the undergraduate and graduate level may be rewarded for their efforts. Having research assistants present papers at conferences or publish papers demonstrates a strong commitment to teaching on the part of the faculty member. Similarly, advisors to psychology clubs and Psi Chi also are serving as teacher/mentors and deserve credit towards tenure and promotion.

Faculty Selection

An important part of supporting effective teaching is in making the decision of whom to hire for a vacant faculty position. Chairs can stress to faculty the importance of hiring a faculty member who has a commitment to quality teaching. Chairs can help to evaluate a candidate's teaching effectiveness and commitment to teaching by having the potential candidate give a teaching presentation to evaluate his or her teaching skills. In addition, by asking potential faculty members what courses they would like to teach as well as determining those they are competent to teach helps to instill the idea that teaching is valued, and that enthusiasm in teaching is an important ingredient in effective instruction.

Standards of Excellence

Finally, an important way to facilitate excellent teaching is for the chair to encourage faculty to maintain high standards of academic achievement. However, chairs must accompany their insistence on high standards with a supportive atmosphere. One of the best ways to do this is through modeling such behavior in interactions with faculty. Chairs who expect high standards of faculty behavior, but remain open to communication and are flexible, are more likely to produce faculty who are committed to high standards of academic excellence. Such faculty members then are more likely to interact with students in the same fashion.

Weaver, K. (2004). Maintaining an environment supportive of quality teaching: The chair's role. In W. Buskist, V. W. Hevern, B. K. Saville, & T. Zinn, (Eds.), Essays from e-xcellence in teaching, 2003 (pp. 11-12). Retrieved [insert date] from the Society for the Teaching of Psychology Web site: <http://teachpsych.org/resources/e-books/eit2003/eit2003.php>

Maintaining an Environment Supportive of Quality Teaching: The Chair's Role
Ken Weaver
Emporia State University

Val Whittlesey places the department chair in a central position for developing and promoting faculty teaching but does so recognizing the need for flexibility in accommodating the myriad of variables in a department. For example, at Emporia State University, Psychology, Special Education, and Art Therapy have formed a department for over 20 years. Additionally, 10 of the 17 faculty have been hired within the past three years; new faculty have much different needs in developing their instructional skills than senior faculty. Whittlesey's view of the chair's role for developing teaching is flexible enough to extend to faculty in disciplines other than psychology and to faculty regardless of their years of experience. For senior faculty, it is never too late to articulate a teaching philosophy, and doing so can stimulate innovativeness and renewed passion for teaching. On the other hand, engaging new faculty in this exercise immediately injects a reflectiveness about teaching and student learning that undergirds their professional development. Would Whittlesey's role for the chair be relevant in departments where chairs rotate every three years or where teaching may not be a strong part of the institution's reward system?

I am fortunate to work at a university that highly values teaching, weighting it 50% for salary, promotion, and tenure purposes. The university offers three annual awards and the college one annual award to recognize good teaching. Until experiencing the departure of the director and a subsequent budget crisis, the university had a teaching enhancement center offering programming and workshops to faculty throughout the year. A publication in Teaching of Psychology is regarded very favorably. Our college's dean expects quality teaching from every faculty member and publishes a monthly newsletter devoted solely to promoting teaching and student learning. However, most development efforts for advancing teaching occur at the department level, and the Chair in collaboration with the faculty is responsible for initiating them and expanding those efforts.

Two years ago, we stopped scheduling classes in the department during the 11:00 am to 12:20 pm slot on Tuesdays and Thursdays and now use that time for invited speakers, student organization meetings, colloquia, and faculty meetings. Last spring, I started offering a session once a semester solely for faculty professional development. This has been a wonderful opportunity to talk about teaching, the department's assessment plan, the merit system, and tenure and promotion.

New faculty must use the student input team (SIT) in their courses for the first couple of semesters. Two or three students in a class are randomly selected and asked to be members of the SIT. Twice during the semester, the SIT comes before the class while the professor is out of the room and asks students to answer three questions anonymously on a piece of paper: What concerns do you have about the course? What do you like about the course? What suggestions do you have to improve the course? The SIT collects the responses and then aggregates them into themes. A day or two later the SIT meets with the faculty member to review the responses and discuss how the quality of the course can be improved. I have used this formative assessment for eight years in all of my classes because of the many positive results, and no longer teach a course without having a SIT.

As a department, we have struggled with developing peer review of teaching over the issue of whether any report should be a part of the faculty member's permanent record. The contention is that faculty are not trained to be formal evaluators of instructors. Whittlesey's emphasis on formative assessment will be central in our new round of deliberations as we discuss peer review to develop teaching rather than to assess it.

With so many new faculty, we have lost a considerable amount of history and communal understanding of how things are done, what our priorities are, and why we do what we do. A year ago, I put together a departmental handbook for the faculty to declare the importance of teaching and to elaborate on teaching-related topics like the importance and construction of a syllabus, the statement of teaching philosophy, and dealing with difficult students while also describing the department's policies and procedures. The handbook has serendipitously become an effective recruiting tool for faculty applicants, who appreciate having so much information about the department and its orientation to teaching, research, and service.

In closing, Whittlesey is correct in observing that the chair needs to model good teaching practice, but technology presents interesting, new challenges. Does the chair have to first teach an Internet course to lead the department effectively in distance education? Does the chair first have to incorporate PowerPoint presentations in the classroom to determine their effectiveness and relevance for good teaching practice?

Trying new ideas in the classroom and updating one's teaching philosophy are important, but so is the chair's taking advantage of professional development opportunities for teaching. Attending a teaching conference, belonging to a teaching organization like the Society for the Teaching of Psychology, and seeking out teaching sessions at conventions exposes the chair to different ideas and practices. Making the time to talk about teaching with other colleagues in the department or college also helps keep the chair's instructional skills honed. Inviting and encouraging faculty to do the same maintains an environment conducive to quality teaching.

Pittenger, D. J. (2004). A reaction to "The role of the chair in provinding administrative support and development of faculty teaching." In W. Buskist, V. W. Hevern, B. K. Saville, & T. Zinn, (Eds.), Essays from e-xcellence in teaching, 2003 (pp. 12-16). Retrieved [insert date] from the Society for the Teaching of Psychology Web site: <http://teachpsych.org/resources/e-books/eit2003/eit2003.php>

A Reaction to:"The Role of the Chair in Providing Administrative
Support and Development of Faculty Teaching"
David J. Pittenger
The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Dr. Whittlesey offers many useful suggestions that I endorse. Her goal is clear-create a milieu of excellence in teaching. Although I support her useful suggestions, I would like to offer a bit of a caveat lector-let the reader beware-that reflects my experiences as a department head attempting to set the pace for good teaching.

Teacher Training Graduate Students Receive

It is my impression that the quality of training graduate students receive for developing their teaching skills is much better now than it was 20 years ago and what Dr. Whittlesey suggests. Although my primary evidence is anecdotal, as it reflects my interactions with candidates I have interviewed and hired, it is my impression that new faculty are more likely than not to have had some meaningful and supervised teaching experiences while in graduate school. The range is still great, however. At one end are the candidates who have served as a teaching assistant and then allowed to teach a section or two of a course. At the other extreme are candidates who have taken a teaching of psychology course, given many guest lectures that were videotaped and critiqued, and then allowed to teach one or more courses under careful mentorship. Overall, I have been generally pleased with the quality of skills that many young faculty bring to the classroom. Indeed, some have been better instructors during their first year than those who had been in the department for many years.

College-Sponsored Teaching Workshops

I am a bit of a cynic regarding university sponsored teaching workshops and teaching centers. Perhaps I am jaded by my limited experience, but my experience does not allow me to speak in praise of such services. I find that these workshops suffer from focusing on the trivial, the latest fad that will soon be passé, or techniques with iatrogenic consequences. Attending even the best of these workshops is like attempting to learn how to paint by taking an art history course. One learns much about art and art appreciation but not how to paint. I have not found them useful for developing the fundamental teaching skills.

Of course, there are times when a workshop may be useful. Specifically, I find workshops useful when the department or the college is willing to invest the time and energy to support wholesale revision of its courses. For example, several years ago, the institution where I used to teach reinvented its general education curriculum. As a part of the change, the Dean developed a new euphemism for writing across the curriculum. She then hired faculty from the school's Department of English and an equal number of faculty from other campuses to offer workshops on creating and grading writing assignments. These workshops were a success because there was a clear and common goal for the participants-all of us were expected to incorporate significant writing assignments into our courses. In addition, the leaders of the workshops made clear that there is no one correct way to reach the goal. After attending the different writing workshops, it was apparent that there are many right ways to do the same thing. Thus, I came away with bits and pieces that best fit my teaching style and the goals for my courses.

Teaching Circles

These experiences lead me to recommend the teaching circles that Dr. Whittlesey describes as an alternative. Rather than recommend that faculty attend workshops, I encourage casual meetings, typically over lunch, where faculty can talk in an unstructured manner about their teaching. For example, I will invite the untenured faculty to lunch and guide the conversation to their teaching. My goal is not to act as the wise sage who can give them the benefit of "my years of experience." Rather, I attempt to engage them in a dialog to help them feel comfortable talking about their frustration and excitement with teaching. Using this strategy, I find that faculty are more willing to seek each other for advice and recommendations.

One point that I'd like to emphasize is that during discussion of teaching, everyone in the discussion should be equal. I am not at heart a communist in assuming that we are all equal, only that I have found the discussions and exchanges of ideas to be livelier if there is not a "hierarchy" of expertise created in the discussion. Creating this context of equality sets the stage for a more open discussion of matters related to teaching. In addition, I find it useful to discuss the much broader goals of our teaching. I believe that what we do in the classroom makes better sense if we understand what we expect of our students. Thus, I find it useful to become lost in the discussion of first principles such as "what effect do we expect to have on our students?"

Finding One's Pace

Another caveat I'd like to share is my concern that there is a quest for the right or the best way to teach. I have had the occasional bad experience with administrators and self-proclaimed experts on teaching that there is a limited range of acceptable teaching styles, theirs. My experience as a student, teacher, and administrator leads me to believe that the best teachers are those who do what comes naturally to them. Some faculty are masterful at lecturing and accomplish tremendous academic feats while speaking without interruption for 50 minutes. Others excel at the Socratic method, and teach without the appearance of teaching. Consequently, I encourage faculty to explore strategies that work best for them rather then encouraging them to copy others. At the same time, I try to avoid labeling any member of the faculty as "good instructor." Again, experience leaves me a bit gun shy as pernicious comparisons and ill will typically follow the assignment of such labels.

A final caveat is that many administrators and proponents of the latest trend in teaching treat our courses as the ready dumping ground for new initiatives. I fear that junior faculty may become deluded that their course must do everything for the student in one course. If I had followed the edicts of one of my deans, I would have included in all my courses: (a) reviews of contemporary leadership and citizenship, (b) opportunities to enhance writing and oral communication skills, (c) exercises to improve interpersonal communication, (d) exercises to augment critical thinking and deep processing, (e) service learning projects, and (f) computer technology. Somewhere along the way I might have had the opportunity to teach a bit about psychology. The message that I emphasize is that these additions are worthwhile, but that one must pick from among them judiciously and not allow them to dominate the focus of the course.

One tactic that can help faculty explore their teaching style is to visit the courses of other faculty. Too often we force junior faculty to be the focus of attention in the name of formative or performance evaluation. As an alternative, I recommend to faculty that they visit the courses taught by their colleagues in the department as well as faculty in other academic programs. I have learned a tremendous amount about teaching by observing biologists, computer scientists, mathematicians, and English literature faculty practice their trade.

Scheduling

Another of Dr. Whittlesey's observations that I would like to emphasize is the power of scheduling. A teaching schedule can make or break a faculty member-four separate preparations taught across the entire week is a recipe for disaster. By contrast, two sections of the same course, taught on Tuesdays and Thursdays, provides an invaluable resource to the faculty-time. Issues of time management become more critical not only for the faculty member who wants to prepare a new course, but the faculty member who has a program of research in which he or she involves students, and the faculty who has important family obligations (e.g., school-aged children).

One can also control the faculty schedule by controlling the enrollment caps in a course. Too often, administrators want the highest student-faculty ratios possible. Those of us who teach in state-subsidized schools know all to well the mantra of increasing FTEs. Department chairs need to fight this battle at every turn. This often means explaining to a dean that the papers assigned in a psychology course require as much time and energy to grade as the papers assigned in an English composition courses-thus capping a course to 18 students is not only reasonable, it is essential.

Conclusions

All these recommendations are pointless if applied in a vacuum. Tenure committees that give lip service to teaching while focusing on other attributes­I had to spend an hour with a tenure committee defending a colleague because the committee did not think that the person "fit the culture of the institution"­quickly undermine any chair's attempt to reward innovative and potentially provocative teaching techniques. Similarly, inconsistent expectations of faculty within a department can also undo the reasonable advice we offer. Consequently, I believe that departments benefit from having clearly defined criteria for the outcomes of good teaching. Each college and university has, to some extent, a unique academic mission and zeitgeist. The goals of a small liberal arts college with close church ties may be much different than the goals of a metropolitan state university with many pre-professional colleges and academic programs. Those departments that can clearly articulate their expectations of their students will do much to help all faculty find their pace at the institution.

Moon, W. H. (2004). Comments on "The role of the chair in providing administrative support and development of faculty teaching." In W. Buskist, V. W. Hevern, B. K. Saville, & T. Zinn, (Eds.), Essays from e-xcellence in teaching, 2003 (pp. 16-17). Retrieved [insert date] from the Society for the Teaching of Psychology Web site: <http://teachpsych.org/resources/e-books/eit2003/eit2003.php>

Comments on "The Role of the Chair in Providing Administrative Support and Development of Faculty Teaching"
W. Harold Moon
Augusta State University

Whittlesey brings together several issues that demand attention by department chairs and by the faculty if the development of faculty teaching is to be a quality institutional and departmental enterprise. She is on the target in asserting that until recently preparation of teaching faculty has only rarely been an option in graduate programs in psychology. Although today there are some faculties in a small number of graduate programs who work to prepare tomorrow's teaching faculty, these continue to represent the exception rather than the rule.

The typical new member of a departmental faculty is likely to have been prepared for a career in research and/or professional application, not in teaching. Thus, for one to be better prepared to be an effective teaching faculty member, such development will take place in the course of one being a teaching faculty member. The implication is clear; development of most teaching faculty will take place on the job, either in a systematic or unsystematic manner.

As Whittlesey noted, an on-campus faculty development center can serve as a resource for members of a department; however, it cannot obviate the necessity of development of teaching faculty within the department. Because development as a teacher is so important, both the chair and the faculty member need to understand their respective responsibilities for the latter's development with these being made clear in descriptions of their positions.

Historically, faculty were assumed to be developing in an appropriate manner as they engaged in teaching and carried out their research. What is new is the recognition that quality development of faculty in institutions with pronounced instructional emphases requires more than one holding a terminal degree, meeting classes, registering students and engaging in scholarly activity. Today, it is generally accepted that a teacher needs to develop a philosophy that bears on the teaching and learning enterprise. This relationship includes the transmission and accumulation of information, and the development of conceptual schemes via which knowledge evolves. It also incorporates advisement and academic and vocational and professional counsel. Because it provides means whereby the effects of teaching and the outcomes of learning are measured, assessment is a vital component of the teaching and learning process, and a much too important matter not to be specifically included in the development of teaching faculty. It is not uncommon to encounter teaching faculty who appear to perceive no relationship between assessment and the learning process. Today's faculties also are expected to render services to the campus and to the community and often to participate in service learning activities. Thus preparation for these activities is fundamental to faculty development.

Very few teaching faculty arrive on campus fully prepared to appreciate or to implement these responsibilities successfully. They have to be informed and prepared. Productive teaching faculty are works in progress. Effective chairs recognize this fact and assist teaching faculty toward their maximal level of development.

Aeschleman, S. (2004). Collaborative research in teaching. In W. Buskist, V. W. Hevern, B. K. Saville, & T. Zinn, (Eds.), Essays from e-xcellence in teaching, 2003 (pp. 17-18). Retrieved [insert date] from the Society for the Teaching of Psychology Web site: <http://teachpsych.org/resources/e-books/eit2003/eit2003.php>

Collaborative Research as Teaching
Stan Aeschleman
Appalachian State University

Whittlesey cites four clusters of effective teaching delineated by Davis (1993) and provides some excellent examples of how chairs can provide opportunities and rewards to facilitate the development of those clusters by their faculty. Her article focuses almost exclusively on teaching as an activity confined to the classroom. The traditional emphasis on the teaching as only a classroom endeavor creates a dichotomy between teaching and research. Sometimes the two activities are seen as competing (i.e., any time spent on research subtracts from time that could be spent on class preparation). Alternatively, research has been characterized as necessary for teaching (i.e., only those with active research programs are sufficiently current in the discipline to provide an informed classroom environment). A broader view that extends teaching beyond the classroom permits a third option-research as a form of teaching. In this essay, I focus on opportunities and rewards chairs can provide to faculty members to facilitate a special teaching opportunity, collaborating with students on research projects. Collaborative research activities are especially suited to address Davis' (1993) Cluster Three-helping students become autonomous, self-regulated learners.

Providing Opportunities to Develop Collaborative Research Activities

To create a pool of students from which the faculty can draw, chairs must ensure that students are informed of the career benefits of participating in research activities and that students have information about and easy access to research opportunities. The former can be accomplished by the saliency of the message during interactions with students (e.g., orientations for new students) and in departmental publications for students (e.g., an undergraduate handbook). Assigning a faculty member to serve as a "Student Research Broker" for collaborative research activities is an excellent method to facilitate the latter objectives. The broker can solicit and publicize (e.g., on the departmental Web page, a centrally located bulletin board) project information from faculty members (e.g., nature of the study, number of students needed, description of student tasks).

Most importantly, the chair can provide small stipends for research expenses and to support student travel to conferences to present papers or posters resulting from collaborative efforts. Chairs can work with advancement officers to establish an endowment to fund these activities.

Motivating Faculty to Develop Collaborative Research Activities

Another role of the Student Research Broker can be providing public recognition of faculty by citing presentations and publications co-authored with students. Chairs can ensure that faculty members have tangible rewards for engaging students in their research by including explicit benefits for such activities in merit-based raises. Faculty members can receive merit considerations for engaging students in informal (e.g., independent study) and formal (e.g., theses) research activities. Collaborative efforts that result in significant products should be allocated more substantial rewards. For example, relative to presentations and publications without students as authors, those with students could receive an additional 10 percent in merit. If the department's merit document differentially rewards publications and presentations based on authorship order, student authors can be disregarded for merit purposes (i.e., if a student is first author on a manuscript, the faculty member who is the second author would receive first authorship).

Finally, the chair can advocate, both directly on behalf of departmental faculty and indirectly to change institutional policy, for consideration of collaborative research efforts as a criterion for teaching awards. As an example of the former, during my first year as chair, the University of North Carolina General Administration allocated funds to reward excellence in teaching and mandated that no more than 33% of the faculty could receive this supplemental allocation. In making my recommendations, I included the extra classroom teaching activities discussed in this paper (e.g., chairing theses, publishing with a student). This list of "excellent teachers" differed significantly from one that included only student evaluations of classroom teaching. Whenever possible, Chairs should encourage university and college teaching award committees to expand the award criteria to include these activities.

Hendersen, R. W. (2004). Risking failure for the sake of good teaching: Comments on Whittlesey's 'The role of the chair in providing administrative support and development of faculty teaching.' In W. Buskist, V. W. Hevern, B. K. Saville, & T. Zinn, (Eds.), Essays from e-xcellence in teaching, 2003 (pp. 18-20). Retrieved [insert date] from the Society for the Teaching of Psychology Web site: <http://teachpsych.org/resources/e-books/eit2003/eit2003.php>

Risking Failure for the Sake of Good Teaching: Comments on Whittlesey's "
The Role of the Chair in Providing Administrative Support and Development of Faculty Teaching"
Robert W. Hendersen
Grand Valley State University

Dan Quayle once opined, "If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure." This is, uh, hard to deny. It is slightly less tautological to note that lack of success often follows directly from reluctance to risk failure. This is particularly true when it comes to teaching, which demands dynamic, diverse, and creative responses to constantly shifting challenges. To encourage the continual development of excellent teaching, departments should provide environments in which faculty members can and do take substantive risks in their teaching.

Whittlesey has identified an impressive array of ways in which department chairs can provide teaching resources and support services to faculty members. New faculty members are no longer simply thrown into a classroom and told to teach. Good teachers have always sought evaluative feedback, informative criticism, and constructive suggestions, and many departments have institutionalized mechanisms (e.g., peer evaluations, student evaluations, course assessments, teaching circles, workshops) that provide such invaluable feedback.

There are times and circumstances, however, that call for decreasing, rather than increasing, the amount of scrutiny and the evaluative feedback that an instructor receives. Consider the case of relatively junior faculty member who, having mastered such basics as finding a trail to the classroom, prodding the projector into life, wrestling the course material into coherence, inhaling the fumes of whiteboard markers, and appearing less terrified than the students, now wants to make some dramatic, creative changes in teaching. In too many departments, this instructor's first thoughts will be: "Will changing my teaching affect my student evaluations?" "What will my peers think?," and "Is it safe to do this?" To the extent that extensive scrutiny and feedback make an instructor averse to taking risks, they impede the development of excellent teaching.

Teaching is an inherently risky business. What works with one group of students may not work with another, and an approach that the instructor thinks is compelling may leave students searching for meaning in the cracks in the classroom ceiling. Effective teaching requires constant experimentation and constant stretching of limits. New strategies need to be attempted, modified, tuned, or discarded, depending on their effectiveness. Like any good experiment, creative teaching risks failure.

To be a creative, risk-taking teacher, an instructor must believe that she or he can take risks without sabotaging chances for promotion, raises, and the respect and admiration of colleagues. A department can encourage creative risk-taking by explicitly recognizing that risk-taking is a virtue. Academic types tend to be a conservative lot, if not in their politics, then in their acceptance of fresh and unfamiliar approaches to teaching. Such conservatism serves neither our students nor our discipline.

Encouraging risk-taking also requires sensitivity to the developmental changes that characterize academic careers. What is risky for an untenured, junior faculty member may be very different from what is risky for a tenured, senior faculty member, but faculty members at all stages of career development should be encouraged to take risks.

One effective strategy is to give an instructor a hiatus from the constant stream of student evaluations, peer evaluations, course assessments, and self evaluations. Such a hiatus should have sharply defined limits (e.g., a single, particular semester). My own university requires student evaluations in every course, so I cannot offer an instructor the opportunity to teach a course without any student evaluations, but I can offer to put those evaluations in a context that lessens their impact. For example, I have invited faculty members to inform me in advance before they embark on large-scale, risky experiments to improve their teaching. I then place a memorandum in the personnel file noting, in advance, that student evaluations may be atypical in the coming semester, because the faculty member is thoughtfully taking considered risks in order to freshen her or his teaching. A personnel committee reviewing student evaluations can discount a semester of odd evaluations when there has been advance notice that risks will be taken.

Another crucial aspect of encouraging risk-taking is to react appropriately to failures when they occur. If the risks are real, then there will certainly be failures. Once a failure has occurred, the department chair can help a faculty member pick up the pieces and move forward. A faculty member who fails after taking a calculated risk should be respected and honored for the attempt-the risk should be judged according to the thoughtful consideration that went into taking it, rather than by its outcome.

Whittlesey noted that one of the essential goals of effective teaching is to help students become autonomous, self-regulated learners. One way to support this goal is to give faculty members the freedom to be autonomous, self-regulated teachers. Sometimes that requires backing off and giving the faculty member an opportunity to take risks without the threat of long-term consequences if the attempt proves unsuccessful.

Vazin, T. (2004). Challenges of department chairs. In W. Buskist, V. W. Hevern, B. K. Saville, & T. Zinn, (Eds.), Essays from e-xcellence in teaching, 2003 (pp. 20-21). Retrieved [insert date] from the Society for the Teaching of Psychology Web site: <http://teachpsych.org/resources/e-books/eit2003/eit2003.php>

Challenges of Department Chairs
Tina Vazin
Alabama State University

The primary goal of department chairs should be to create an environment for faculty members that encourages and enables them to develop and hone their pedagogical skills so that they can offer every student valuable classroom experiences. Whittlesey's article pointed out many useful strategies for chairs to implement to achieve this goal. However, I would like to take a step back and broaden the picture in order to consider the environment in which chairs perform. This environment challenges their ability to maintain their focus on the primary goal of promoting excellent teaching.

The purpose of highlighting some of the obstacles chairs face in fulfilling this responsibility is to raise an awareness of the competing goals and challenges that chairs face each day. Being cognizant of these obstacles enables chairs to make a conscious effort to keep their role as a facilitator of excellent teaching a priority. Maintaining a focus when there are many competing demands requires daily resolve.

Many smaller colleges and universities whose mission originally was to educate are struggling to increase their presence in the research arena. There are many reasons for this transition including the prestige of having faculty members who are active researchers and who are well-published as well as the lure of grant and contract money. The extension of the mission of small colleges and universities to include research often puts a burden on faculty to establish a research program and to publish while maintaining heavy teaching loads.

Since securing tenure and promotion often depend on fulfilling both of these responsibilities, faculty are faced with the decision of prioritizing these obligations. This situation creates a problem for chairs who have made a conscious decision to have excellence in teaching the primary goal of their department. Chairs have a difficult challenge in this type of situation, because there is the risk that faculty members will come to view teaching as a necessary evil.

To avoid this atmosphere from developing within a department, it is important for chairs to take steps to build cohesion within the department based on the activity that all of the faculty have in common, teaching. Faculty members are likely to have disparate areas of research, but the common thread that ties them together is a shared student population. Approaches to promote a sense of shared purpose and a dedication to teaching well include frequent informal faculty meetings devoted solely to teaching-related topics in which faculty are encouraged to discuss effective and ineffective classroom activities, curriculum revisions, relevant Web sites, and new ideas. Successful "teaching meetings" can be useful in promoting a sense of camaraderie if the meetings are regarded as a top priority by the chair, and have an atmosphere of mutual respect and openness to new ideas and suggestions.

A second challenge faced by most chairs in promoting excellent teaching is budgetary constraints. Many colleges and universities across the country are struggling with reduced budgets coupled with growing operational costs. Budget cuts often result in reduced travel funds. Faculty derive many benefits from attending conferences, workshops, and seminars designed for faculty teaching. Faculty usually leave these meetings with many great ideas for integrating technology into classes, hands-on activities, informative Web sites, and tried-and-true demonstrations. But more importantly, they leave with a sense of purpose and renewed motivation.

However, due to restricted budgets, travel funds are often inadequate to allow faculty to attend workshops and conferences. Chairs have to be creative in arranging for their faculty to get the effects of networking with their colleagues from other institutions with limited funds. One approach is to arrange video conferences with other psychology departments to discuss issues related to teaching. This approach is awkward at first, but within a short period of time the atmosphere becomes more relaxed and valuable information is shared.

Chairs have a responsibility to insure that teaching is viewed as an important priority by faculty members. There are many challenges that chairs encounter that can easily discourage or distract them from fulfilling this responsibility, but faculty and students deserve to reap the rewards of valuable classroom experiences. Chairs often have to think "outside of the box" to create affordable methods to promote teaching as a priority in the department, but the extra effort is rewarded when students come to your office to tell you how much they love their classes.

Whittlesey, V. (2004). The role of the chair in providing administrative support and development of faculty teaching: Leadership at its best. In W. Buskist, V. W. Hevern, B. K. Saville, & T. Zinn, (Eds.), Essays from e-xcellence in teaching, 2003 (pp. 21-24). Retrieved [insert date] from the Society for the Teaching of Psychology Web site: <http://teachpsych.org/resources/e-books/eit2003/eit2003.php>

The Role of the Chair in Providing Administrative Support and Development of Faculty Teaching:
Leadership At Its Best
Valerie Whittlesey
Kennesaw State University

The comments to my article are on target and strengthen it. The authors of the comments, Lewis Barker, Steven Hobbs, Marcia Rossi, Ken Weaver, David Pittenger, Harold Moon, Stan Aeschleman, Robert Hendersen, and Tina Vazin, are current or former department chairs. They clearly demonstrated their knowledge of the chair's role, and their comments nicely converged into three themes. In my target article, I articulated two major strategies that chairs can use to facilitate effective faculty teaching: (a) providing opportunities to develop faculty teaching, and (b) motivating faculty to develop teaching excellence. The three themes that were evident in the responses from the current and former chairs provide other important areas in which chairs can support faculty teaching in ways that demonstrate leadership at its best. Leadership at its best occurs when chairs take a comprehensive approach and start at the beginning with faculty selection and follow through to the end with challenging the institutional structure to support teaching and teaching innovation.

The Chair's Role in Faculty Selection

Several respondents focused on the critical importance of the chair in faculty selection as a component of faculty development of teaching. Barker, Hobbs, Pittenger, and Rossi suggested ways in which chairs may take a lead in faculty hiring. The chair and the departmental search committee can focus on teaching-related activities in the applicant's curriculum vita and other application materials. The chair and search committee can carefully construct questions during the telephone and on-campus interviews to get a sense of the applicant's teaching experience and interests. The type of presentation that the applicant gives during the interview can be a lecture presentation for a course. Once an applicant is hired, chairs should take care to match the new faculty with the courses that provide the best fit for him or her. However, Hobbs noted an important point. Despite the best hiring, support, and remediation efforts for new faculty, it is important to remember that not all faculty members will become good teachers. Chairs must, in the best interests of that faculty member, students, and department, redirect him or her to another career. The faculty member in question may be better suited at another type of institution, in a role other than a faculty member within the academy, or working outside of the academy. At the very least, the chair should encourage the faculty member to do some serious self-reflection to determine the best next step for him or her.

Some Proven Successful Faculty Teaching Development Activities

A second theme among respondents revolved around particular teaching-related faculty development activities that work well. Pittenger noted that teaching circles are effective because of their informality and unstructured nature. When all members of the circle are viewed as equals, lively ideas are generated. Weaver shared an activity in which student input teams (SIT) anonymously survey classes and provide feedback to new faculty members. Moon pointed out the important role that chairs have in encouraging faculty to reflect on their teaching. Teaching circles and SITs provide the atmosphere for such reflection. Aeschleman and Barker noted that teaching does not occur in a vacuum. They made an excellent point by stressing that faculty should attempt to balance teaching and scholarship. Aeschleman noted that since research may be construed as a form of teaching, these two faculty activities can be seen as complementary and not competitive. The chair, then, can reward faculty who collaborate with students on research projects and advocate for more support of faculty-student research collaboration at the institutional level.

The Chair's Role in Encouraging and Supporting Faculty Risk-Taking

Finally, Henderson noted that good faculty are not afraid to take risks in their teaching. In order for such risk taking to occur, chairs must actually encourage risk taking among the faculty. As Vazin and Rossi pointed out, chairs must be willing to think "out of the box" themselves. They must be cognizant of when to work within existing institutional structures and when to challenge existing structures and to take action. Weaver posed two provocative questions that challenge chairs. First, when chairs rotate every three years or are in institutions where teaching is not a strong part of the institution's reward system, can chairs have a strong impact in developing faculty teaching? Second, do chairs have to take the lead in developing teaching innovations (e.g., teaching Internet based courses) to be good models for faculty? My answer to the first question is "yes," and my answer to the second question is "no." Rotating chairs can establish mentoring systems within the department in which outstanding teachers work with new faculty in developing their teaching skills. Such a system transcends changes in departmental leadership and guarantees that new teachers will have uninterrupted faculty support for their teaching. Chairs at institutions where teaching is not a central focus can advocate for the prominence of teaching at the institution. Likewise, they can also encourage rank and file faculty as well as faculty who occupy prominent roles at their institution (chairs of tenure and promotion committees, chairs of strategic planning committees, etc.) to advocate that more emphasis be placed on recognizing and rewarding effective teaching.
In a similar vein, chairs can utilize the talents of faculty who are teaching innovatively as trainers in the department. By doing so, chairs encourage innovation and showcasing the teaching skills of their faculty.

In conclusion, the chair serves a critical role in developing faculty teaching. Chairs should keep in mind that their role can enhance or inhibit faculty as faculty foster students to think and learn.

References

Angelo, T., & Cross, K. (1993). Classroom assessment techniques: A handbook for college teachers (2nd ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Boyer, E. (1990). Scholarship reconsidered: Priorities of the professoriate. Princeton, NJ: The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

Davis, B. G. (1993). Tools for teaching. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Hammer, E., & Giordano, P. (2001). Dual-gender team-teaching Human Sexuality: Pedagogical and practical issues, Teaching of Psychology, 28, 2, 132.

McKeachie, W. (2002). Teaching tips: Strategies, research, and theory for college and university teachers (11th ed). Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.

Scharff, C. (2002, July 3). Organizing and maintaining university-wide teaching circles. Message posted to PsychTeacher electronic mailing list, archived at http://list.kennesaw.edu/archives/psychteacher.html

Copyright © 2003 by the respective authors of each essay. Reproduced and distributed by permission. See Copyright Policy at http://teachpsych.org/resources/e-books/eit2003/eit2003.php