Improving Teaching at a Research-Oriented University

Purpose

This project aimed at improving the climate for undergraduate teaching at a large, research- oriented state university flagship campus. Project staff worked systematically with a total of 28 departments in the College of Agricultural Sciences and Natu ral Resources, and the College of Arts and Sciences to strengthen the climate for teaching and learning, enhance recognition of teaching excellence, and assist each department in developing plans for achieving these two goals.

The largest amount of activity went on within individual departments: four joined the project in the first year, eight more in the second, and an additional 16 in the third. The project directors provided information, directed faculty to useful written materials on the topic of faculty rewards, and helped to frame issues. In turn, each department directed its efforts to developing written plans for documenting, evaluating and rewarding teaching excellence.

In a parallel effort at the institutional level, administrators developed a series of specific strategies to support and encourage increased attention to teaching achievements in promotion and tenure decisions.

Innovative Features

"From Regard to Reward" has been the largest and most systematic effort to date to influence the status of undergraduate teaching at a research university. It is also unusual in the coordinated involvement of both faculty and administrators, and in the ability of the project staff to document the results of their efforts.

Evaluation

A planning grant from FIPSE prior to the beginning of the project had allowed the university to gather baseline information concerning faculty opinions about the campus climate for teaching and perceptions about the relative weights of teaching and rese arch in faculty tenure and promotion decisions. This data not only helped to define the problem that the university wished to address but provided a basis for measuring the effects of the project in changing attitudes and perceptions.

Pre/post-project data were gathered on faculty estimates of such matters as:

• the status of teaching versus research in hiring and tenure decisions;
• general perceptions about the importance of teaching well;
• the quality of efforts to improve teaching;
• the climate for teaching and teaching improvement in the department and college;
• the intensity of department and college leadership commitment to support efforts of recognition of good teaching and encourage improvement; and
• the quality of teaching evaluation.

These quantitative data, gathered through questionnaires, were supplemented by an external evaluator's structured interviews with participating faculty and administrators, using the twelve participating departments in years one and two as the treatment group, and the sixteen Year 3 departments, who were only beginning their work at the time of evaluation, as the control group. The new departmental policy and procedure documents and an account of observable actions and changes provide additional evidence of the project's success.

Project Impact

The data support claims of statistically significant (in the case of quantitative measures) and important improvements in the climate for teaching, the concern for teaching ability in personnel decisions, the documentation of teaching performance, and r ewards for good teaching. As would be expected, not all units made equal progress nor does every measure show positive change. But most measures reveal quite positive results, and many interesting and apparently successful models have emerged from this work.

Some of the more striking results include:

1. In 25 of 28 participating departments faculty generated and adopted written plans for documenting, evaluating, and rewarding teaching.

2. Statistically significant positive changes occurred in faculty perceptions that:

   • the need to teach well is more balanced with the need to publish;
   • the climate in their college is favorable for teaching improvement;
   • teaching is emphasized in hiring decisions;
   • chairs give consideration to teaching in annual reviews;
   • multiple sources of data are used in evaluating teaching;
   • teaching is appropriately weighted in tenure, promotion, and merit decisions at both departmental and college levels;
   • specific goals are being set for teaching improvement; and
   • support for teaching improvement is available.

3. Individual department plans include such strategies as:

   • regularly scheduled small group faculty discussions about teaching;
   • teaching portfolios;
   • five-year peer review of the way courses are taught;
   • lists of criteria for excellence in teaching; and
   • credit for teaching improvement activities.

4. The project generated such widely useful materials as a resource manual, a process manual, a list of "pressure points" for effecting change, and workshop materials.

5. Administrators developed 25 action strategies to exploit the pressure points, including:

   • revised position descriptions linking rewards to expectations;
   • modified evaluation procedures for tenure, promotion, and merit pay awards;
   • teaching demonstrations by candidates for faculty appointment;
   • awards for instructional improvement; and
   • a capital campaign to create "distinguished teaching" chairs.

Lessons Learned

Wide involvement of faculty in the participating departments resulted not only in specific teaching evaluation and recognition plans but in a sense of community within and among the units. The involvement of administrators along with faculty and coordi nated efforts among the administrators produced a pervasive and consistent message to the faculty, assuring them that their efforts would be recognized and accepted. In other words, this project demonstrated again the value of communication and grassroot s ownership.

Continuation

Ten additional departments, supported by university funds, joined the teaching reward and recognition effort after the FIPSE-funded work ended, for a total of 36 units now actively pursuing change. The work has been strongly supported by the Vice Chanc ellor for Academic Affairs through funding of a Project on Rewarding Teaching. By institutional policy, excellence in teaching and research are now being rewarded equally.

Dissemination

A dissemination grant from FIPSE has permitted UN-L to train faculty and administrators from 18 research institutions to undertake similar efforts on their own campuses, assisted by visits from UN-L faculty who counsel and lead workshops. Three national conferences that included workshops and a teleconference have further spread results of the project.

Available Information

Individual department plans, a resource manual, a process manual and a list of pressure points for effecting change, along with a summary report on the project and its evaluation are available from:

Leverne Barrett and Robert Narveson
Teaching/Learning Center
121 Benton Hall
University of Nebraska
Lincoln, NE 68588-0623
402-472-9791

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