Top 10 FAQ from Faculty (answers, too!)
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What should be included in my course syllabi? (Updated for Fall 2018)
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What services are available to help me to better help my students?
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What opportunities are there for me to be involved on campus?
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What opportunities are there for me to be involved in the surrounding community?
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How do students evaluate and provide feedback on my teaching?
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What are the expectations for being promoted?
1. What should be included in my course syllabi?
Required Information:
- course number and title
- credit hours associated with course
- course prerequisites and course description from Undergraduate and graduate catalogs
- instructor's name, office phone number, email address and office hours
- class location and meeting dates/times
- indication of how instructor the will communicate with the students and how they can best communicate the instructor outside of class
- guidelines for absence or cancellation due to illness or inclement weather
- listing of required texts, readings, services, clerances, or other material or media needed for the class
- course-specific student learning outcomes (SLOs) related to academic program SLOs for the major or minor area of study, and inclusion of General Education Program SLOs and artifacts that are assessed for evidence of student learning in the General Education Program, if the course is part of the General Education Program.
- evaluation & grading policies
- class calendar with topics/assigned readings/due
Required Language for MU Syllabi
Syllabi are required to contain standard language on certain topics. The language is updated regularly and is located on the Provost's website under "Syllabus-Required Language".
2. What should I consider when choosing course materials?
- Consider how to best meet the information needs of your students:
- ·Is the most current (and expensive) version of a course text significantly better than an older, less expensive, version?
- ·Could your students have access to the same information by accessing articles in the North Hall database or from other online sources? D2L lets you add external links and upload files into the Content section on all of your course shells. Know your copyright laws (or ask one of the knowledgeable and helpful library staff) and explore your options!
- ·Does the content information for your course exist in video form? While the campus library has a multimedia collection, services like YouTube, Vimeo, and even Khan Academy also offer a growing collection. Again, check on copyright protections, and be certain to pre-view clips the entire way through before sharing them with your class. Visit the Tech-Based Teaching Innovations sections for suggested services that can make multimedia more manageable.
- Would you believe that the majority of students have skipped buying a college textbook because they're too expensive?
North Hall Library can help here, too! Faculty members often receive or can request complimentary copies of textbooks from publishers. Therefore, if a faculty member has an extra copy of a required textbook for a course they are teaching, they can put the extra copy on library reserve
Putting a personal copy of a textbook on reserve is easy. Visit the library's Reserves site, complete the printable form and bring it and the textbook to the library circulation desk.
If you have any questions or concerns about the reserve process, please feel free to contact Nichole Book, the library's circulation supervisor at x4687 or nbook@mansfield.edu
MU's Project Textbook's Reserve 2.0 initiative, if you haven't already. Our goal is to have as many textbooks on reserve at the library as possible, since student success is linked to textbook access and this is one way to help with retention. When you place copies of your books on reserve in North Hall library, be sure to let students in your classes know that your books can be found there.
3. What services are available to help me to better support my students?
ATTENDANCE:
Students who attend classes regularly and participate in class activities are more likely to succeed academically.
- If a student misses your class, consider reaching out to them via email.
- If more than one of your classes are missed, try contacting the student by phone.
- If the student misses multiple times in a row, or frequently enough to raise your concern, please report via email to absent@mansfield.ed.
SUPPORT SERVICES:
- Help with writing, as well as supplemental instructional support and tutoring services are available to every MU student through the Learning Center.
- Students with documented learning disabilities, physical challenges, or other significant medical conditions that may affect their learning should meet with the Services for Students with Disabilities (SSD) Coordinator, Melinda Phillips, in the SSD Office located in 144 South Hall (Phone: 570-662-4436) as soon as possible, preferably within the first two weeks of the semester.
- Students may struggle for reasons other than having identified disabilities, of course. The MU Counseling Center is committed to the development of the whole person: academically, personally, spiritually, socially and physically.
Sometimes students are unaware of or reluctant to seek services. Many misunderstand the process for receiving them.As an instructor, if you sense a student is struggling, then taking the initiative to contact the SSD office or Counseling Center to get advice and potentially set up a meeting for your student might be just the step that is needed to help them move forward positively. Counselors and support staff will not break student confidentiality, but are qualified to assess what is needed and assist students in making the arrangements they need.
4. What should I know about being an academic advisor?
Full-time faculty are assigned advisees by their departments.
The role of the faculty advisor is two-part:
- Getting to know your advisees and helping them successfully navigate college-level work and transition into careers.
Join Chris Cummings from AHD for this overview of Good Advising: A Shared Responsibility
- Knowing the requirements of the university and degree programs and how to utilize Student Self-Service for academic planning.
- Help your students be active on campus and get the most out of their time at MU. There are a number of student organizations on our campus. Some are related to academic majors while others are based on personal interests. Check the list to know what the options are for your students.
- Do you have advising tips to share? Or materials that your department uses for advising purposes? Please share with the CATL committee!
5. What opportunities are there for me to be involved on campus?
Senate elections are held each spring.Elected officers and committee members represent all factions of campus life and academics.
From athletic events to musical and theatrical performances, featured speakers and film screenings, the calendar is your source for MY events.
- There are a number of student organizations on our campus. Some are related to academic majors while others are based on personal interests. All recognized student organizations need faculty advisors. Check the list to see what interests you, and to know what the options are for your students.
6. What opportunities are there for me to be involved in the surrounding community?
- A range of community-based organizations provide services in our area.
- The Tioga County Partnership for Human Health offers a calendar of events in the community and hosts workgroups across a range of interests.
7. How do students evaluate and provide feedback on my teaching?
The amount of feedback you get from your students is limited only by how often you seek it or provide a means for students to give it. Consider building in several points during your course for students to provide feedback, either through an informal request, written questions, or through an online prompt. Students are more likely to be honest if they can answer anonymously.
New and adjunct faculty are required to be formally evaluated by students for each course that the faculty member teaches. Tenured faculty are required to participate in the student evaluation process less frequently, but many choose to do so on a regular basis.
At MU, the student evaluation process is implemented online. You can access the system used for this process by using your MU username (w/o the @mansfield.edu) and password to log in here: http://evals.mansfield.edu/
You are strongly encouraged to access your student evaluation results use them to guide your teaching and course design. You can also add items to the standard question set if you do so before the course evaluation window is opened. Dr. John Cosgrove (jcosgrov@mansfield.edu) is the Director of Institutional Research & Assessment Data and contacts all faculty with the notifications about the process.
In addition, faculty are given feedback through classroom observations and performance reviews, which are implemented by other faculty members and the department chair.
8. What are the expectations for becoming tenured?
APSCUF's Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) is the most comprehensive and binding document on expectations for faculty. The Table of Contents and Index can serve to help you locate any specific information that you may need, and the document is searchable in the online format as well.
It is a good idea to become familiar with this document, as it outlines the responsibilities of your position and many of your options as an employee.
The local promotion guidelines for Mansfield University, as well as forms for performance review, are available here.
A PowerPoint overview of the Faculty Evaluation Process was prepared by former Deans. View the 'Faculty Evaluation Process' PowerPoint.
In the fall of 2016, Dr. Karri Verno, on behalf of the campus-wide Tenure Committee, provided an overview of the tenure process. Her PowerPoint presentation from that session is available here.