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Office of Instructional Innovation

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For New Faculty

FOR NEW FACULTY

As a faculty member, you have a number of points of contact for issues related to undergraduate education: your department’s director of undergraduate study, a knowledgeable peer, your department chair, and Abigail Panter (Senior Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education).

The Office of Undergraduate Education includes programs that relate to undergraduate curriculum and innovative teaching, including:

  • Office of Undergraduate Curricula: Building a syllabus, new courses, general education curriculum, interdisciplinary studies, learning contracts, syllabi, undergraduate catalog.
  • Office of First-Year Curricula: New course preparation, student expectations.
  • Office of Instructional Innovation
  • Office for Undergraduate Research

Detailed information for new faculty can be found in these documents:

Here are a few important highlights from these documents:

What needs to be on your syllabus?
The Faculty Council-adopted guidelines for course syllabi can be found here:
A syllabus must be provided to students no later than the first day of classes and should include the sections described in the guidelines.

Departments/units are obliged to collect and archive syllabi for every course by the first day of
classes every semester. To manage this process, the College has implemented an Online SyllabusManagement (OSM) system. Instructors will be able to upload their course syllabus to OSM by the first day of classes.

Course Evaluations
At the end of each semester, students in your courses will be administered an
online course evaluation. You will receive the results after your grades are posted. Many professors administer their own mid-semester evaluations (or at any other time during the semester) to get a readon how things are going in the course so far.

Peer Observation
Most faculty have never been observed outside of the promotion process. We
have rubrics that are useful for peers to use when observing other peers for formative feedback. We’re creating a culture of “coaching” and peer mentoring. The CFE has a formal program to observe specific faculty who are using technology and other innovative ideas.