Teaching-intensive Institutions Research Articles

Perceptions of Teaching Importance Among Associate and Full Professors at Regional, Public Universities

Background: Research on perceptions of the promotion process among psychology faculty at teaching-intensive institutions is missing. Objective: We examine whether perceptions vary by academic rank and faculty gender. Method: We surveyed 386 associate and full psychology professors at regional, public universities in the United States to measure perceptions of (1) the importance of effective teaching, scholarly productivity, and service activities and (2) the clarity of the criteria and standards, for promotion from associate to full professor. Results: Teaching was regarded as the most important criterion for promotion to full professor. However, full professors regarded teaching as more important than did associate professors. Perceived teaching importance was positively correlated with perceived clarity of criteria and standards for promotion. Women regarded promotion criteria as less clear than men. Mentoring was positively correlated with the intention to apply for promotion. Conclusion: Faculty who perceive that their institution strongly values teaching perceive greater clarity regarding the relative importance of teaching, research, and service for promotion, as well as how excellence in these areas is judged. Teaching Implications: Teaching is the most important criterion for promotion to full professor among faculty at regional public universities.

Academic Options: Teaching-Intensive Institutions

The expectations and demands within undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral academic positions can vary greatly when considering teaching, research, and service. Human factors academics-in-training who enjoy teaching and are passionate about developing a pipeline of human factors practitioners or educators, might want to consider academic positions in a teaching-intensive college or university. The panelists will provide information on (1) the qualifications sought by teaching institutions during the hiring process; (2) the expectations of teaching, research, and service in teaching-intensive programs; (3) differences in the populations served, job incentives, and rewards; and (4) how some teachers maintain an active research program and/or consulting activities.

Time Allocation and Satisfaction Among Tenured Psychology Faculty at Public, Regional Universities

Background Research on the experiences of tenured faculty employed at teaching-intensive institutions is lacking. Objective We gathered data regarding how tenured psychology faculty allocate time. We identify variables that predict time allocation and report associations between time allocation and job satisfaction. Method We surveyed 386 tenured psychology professors at regional, public universities in the United States. We measured (1) the percentage of time respondents typically allocated and would prefer to allocate to four activities: teaching, research, service, and administration, and (2) job satisfaction and intentions to seek another position. Results Time typically allocated to teaching, research, service, and administrative activities was unrelated to job satisfaction. Time allocated to research was associated with intentions to seek another position. Associate professors allocated more time to teaching than did full professors. The discrepancy between typical and preferred time allocation was associated with occupational dissatisfaction. Conclusion In contrast to previous studies, we found that allocating a large percentage of work time to teaching activities did not predict lower job satisfaction. Teaching Implications Tenured psychology faculty allocated time to teaching activities in ways consistent with their preferences.

Publication Rates for Tenure-Track Faculty Members in Kinesiology and Exercise Science Departments at Liberal Arts Colleges and Universities

ABSTRACT Over the past several decades, the scholarship requirements for faculty at teaching-intensive institutions have increased and are used in the tenure and promotion evaluation process. Thus, in order to establish some normative data for faculty and administrators at these institutions we evaluated publication rates among kinesiology departments within liberal arts (LA) institutions and determined what factors might be associated with publication rates across institutions. Departments were identified from the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU) and members of the Consortium of Liberal Arts Colleges (CLAC). Web of Science, SportDiscus, and PubMed were searched for research published between 2009 and 2018. Demographic information for each school included extramural funding, endowment, number of undergraduate students, and the presence of graduate programs. Of the 116 LA kinesiology departments identified, the mean publication rate across the entire sample was 0.09 ± 0.18 publications/year/tenure-track faculty member. Multiple regression analysis yielded the model: publication rate = (0.266 × endowment) + (0.406 × extramural funding) + 0.057 (R2 adj = 0.333, SEE = 0.181, p < .001). In the 10 R1 kinesiology departments examined, the mean publication rate was 1.97 ± 1.33 publications/year/tenure-track faculty member. Scholarly activity in kinesiology departments at LA institutions is substantially lower than has been reported for their counterparts at R1 institutions. And access to extramural funding is a primary predictor of scholarly productivity. While publishing one peer-reviewed manuscript every 3 years at an R1 institution would likely be unacceptable for promotion and tenure, this publication rate would be in the 90th percentile among LA kinesiology faculty.

How to Get a Job Offer from a Smaller Joint Teaching‐Research Mission University and What to Do Once You Have It

How to Get a Job Offer from a Smaller Joint Teaching‐Research Mission University and What to Do Once You Have It

Prioritizing Pedagogy in Victorian Studies

This essay argues that practical discussions about pedagogy in the field of Victorian studies warrant a regular place in major field-based conferences and journals as well as greater attention in graduate programs at large to maintain our discipline's viability. While conversations about and tools to help with teaching have become more prominent in digital projects like Undisciplining the Victorian Classroom and COVE, these topics continue to be minimized at conferences like NAVSA and are often relegated to special issues of Victorian studies journals. By “defamiliarizing” pedagogy, we ask the field of Victorian studies to reckon with the ways its systems of prestige and recognition sideline teacher-scholars working at teaching-intensive institutions, community colleges, high schools, and minority-serving institutions. We assert that, given the current state of the job market, more space must be dedicated to pedagogical research, and requirements for tenure/promotion need to recognize pedagogy as a viable field of research. Such attention to pedagogy will contribute to efforts to decolonize Victorian studies, attend more deeply to gendered and racialized labor politics, and mobilize for collective action.

Supporting women's research in predominantly undergraduate institutions: Experiences with a National Science Foundation ADVANCE Institutional Transformation Award.

This paper describes the Gender Equity Project (GEP) at Hunter College of the City University of New York (CUNY), funded by the U. S. NSF ADVANCE Institutional Transformation Award (ITA) program. ADVANCE supports system-level strategies to promote gender equity in the social and natural sciences, but has supported very few teaching-intensive institutions. Hunter College is a teaching-intensive institution in which research productivity among faculty is highly valued and counts toward tenure and promotion. We created the GEP to address the particular challenges that faculty, especially White women and faculty of color, face in maintaining research programs and advancing in their careers at teaching-intensive institutions. During the course of the ADVANCE award, its centerpiece was the Sponsorship Program, a multifaceted paid mentorship/sponsorship program that paired each participant with a successful scholar in her discipline. It offered extensive professional development opportunities, including interactive workshops and internal grants to support research. The GEP helped change key policies and practices by ensuring that all faculty were treated fairly in areas like provision of research start-up funds and access to guidance on how to prepare for tenure and promotion. Qualitative and quantitative evidence suggests that participation in the Sponsorship Program boosted research productivity and advanced the careers of many of the women who participated; the Program was highly rated by all participants. Some of the policy and practice changes that the GEP helped bring about were sustained at Hunter beyond the award period and some were adopted and disseminated by the central office of CUNY. However, we were not able to sustain the relatively expensive (but cost-effective) Sponsorship Program. We share the lessons we learned, including that creating a diverse, successful social and natural scientific workforce requires sustained support of female faculty employed at teaching-intensive colleges. We acknowledge the difficulties of sustaining gains, and offer ideas about how to make the case for gender equity when women seem to be doing “well enough.” We underscore the imperative of building support for women’s research in teaching-intensive institutions, where most women scientists are employed, and well over 90% of all college students—a disproportionate percentage of whom are female, minoritized, or both—are educated.

Stimulating and sustaining scholarly activity at teaching-intensive institutions

IntroductionResearch and scholarship are core elements of the academic mission. Yet fulfilling institutional and accreditation requirements for scholarly activity can be challenging, particularly for teaching-intensive institutions. This paper describes strategies for employing a teacher-scholar model to stimulate and sustain scholarly activity. MethodsMetrics of scholarly productivity were programmatically assessed and reported for at least five years following implementation of sixteen different strategic initiatives at three teaching-intensive colleges of pharmacy. Data reported included publications (original peer-reviewed publications, case reports, review articles), presentations (posters, podiums, and continuing education sessions), peer-reviewed published abstracts, grants awarded, and total extramural funding per annum. Faculty and student engagement in scholarship was indicated by authorship on at least one scholarly work. ResultsBroad increases in metrics of scholarly productivity were observed, while the timing and degree of change varied (1.4-fold to 10.4-fold, across all institutions, all years). Notably, the most robust growth was observed in grantsmanship and the number of faculty and student contributors to scholarly works. A key observation was that increased scholarly output was sustained, as during the most recent three-year period publications increased 1.6-fold, grants and extramural funding increased 3.4- and 15.8-fold, respectively, and faculty and student contributors increased 1.8- and 4.5-fold, respectively. ConclusionsOverall, these data point to a substantive, detailed approach for increasing scholarship at diverse, teaching-intensive institutions by implementing cost-conscious strategies, including clear ties between scholarly effort/productivity and faculty performance/advancement, strong faculty development and mentoring, institutional commitments to infrastructure and research budgets, and student engagement in scholarly activities.

A Strong Teacher Identity May Buffer Woman-Scientist Identity Interference: Preliminary Evidence from a Teaching-Intensive University

Previous research has shown that women in STEM often feel a tension between their woman and scientist identities. However, this has not been examined at teaching-intensive institutions, where women in STEM in the United States are more likely to be employed (compared to research-intensive institutions), and where faculty members’ identities as teachers may be especially salient. Because aspects of the teacher identity and woman identity overlap, and because STEM faculty must integrate their scientist identity and teacher identity when teaching STEM classes, women faculty in STEM at teaching-intensive universities may be able to resolve their woman-scientist identity interference through teaching. In an online survey, women faculty in STEM and social sciences at a teaching-intensive institution in the northeastern United States (N = 44) reported their identity centrality for teacher, woman, and scientist identities, as well as their woman-scientist identity interference and experiences of workplace flexibility. Analyses revealed that those who had a strong teacher identity had a positive correlation between their woman and scientist identities, whereas those with a weak teacher identity had a negative correlation between their woman and scientist identities. Furthermore, for women in STEM (but not social sciences), a strong teacher identity was associated with lower woman-scientist identity interference. Finally, greater workplace flexibility was associated with lower woman-scientist identity interference. Though not yet generalizable, these findings raise questions about the stature of teaching in academia and its relationship to the underrepresentation of women in STEM.

Different universities, different temporalities: placing the acceleration of academic life in context

ABSTRACTA growing body of literature is encouraging academics to slow down their academic work as a way of managing the acceleration of university life. Little attention, however, has been paid to the important differences in temporalities among different sorts of higher education institutions, and the effect this is likely to have upon the sense of acceleration and, crucially, the capacity to resist it. This article discusses interview data with academics at a particularly ‘fast’ academic site, drawn from a broader comparative study of three very different sorts of institution. It argues that the culture at this university is fundamentally structured around the principle of rapid change, in marked contrast to both more research-intensive and more teaching-intensive institutions. Any advice about the management of change must, I argue, take into account the specifics of institutional situations as well as broader structural causes of institutional difference, if it is to prove effective.

Theory-Informed Research Training and Mentoring of Underrepresented Early-Career Faculty at Teaching-Intensive Institutions: The Obesity Health Disparities PRIDE Program.

Mentoring has been consistently identified as an important element for career advancement in many biomedical and health professional disciplines and has been found to be critical for success and promotion in academic settings. Early-career faculty from groups underrepresented in biomedical research, however, are less likely to have mentors, and in general, receive less mentoring than their majority-group peers, particularly among those employed in teaching-intensive institutions. This article describes Obesity Health Disparities (OHD) PRIDE, a theoretically and conceptually based research training and mentoring program designed for early-career faculty who trained or are employed at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).

Teachers' general and contextualised research conceptions

The integration of research into teaching is a new and important focus in teaching-intensive institutions in higher education. Given the paucity of empirical insight into the research–teaching relationship in teaching-intensive institutions, teachers' research conceptions are studied as a first step in understanding the research–teaching relationship. In particular, teachers' general conceptions of what attributes constitute research and the contextualised interpretation of these attributes are studied. Participants were 79 teachers from five teaching-intensive institutions. The study illuminated three categories of general research attributes: research steps, qualities of research processes, and qualities of researchers. From the perspective of their teaching context, teachers reinterpreted the attributes and differentiated between the target of research attributes as well as students' required level of mastery of research attributes.

Community of Research Practice: A Model for Student Research

In fall 2008, a small faculty-student research community formed within our department to support and encourage individuals engaged in research. In the four semesters since its inception, the community grew significantly, student and faculty research productivity increased, and the department steadily moved toward a culture of inquiry where scholarship is embraced and active engagement in research is sought out. The group’s success in increasing scholarship within a teaching-intensive institution leads us to propose the “community of practice” concept as one possible vehicle for building student and faculty research amid the current academic climate. Features of the research community and the results of an initial study of its members are shared.

Scholarly Productivity in Non-Ph.D. Departments

AbstractPolitical scientists hail from large, research-intensive universities like the Ohio State University, regional comprehensive schools like Western Kentucky University, and small teaching-intensive institutions like Mars Hill College. Despite this diversity, most studies of the political science discipline overlook the contributions of individuals from non-Ph.D. departments. To address this oversight, we compare the publishing rates of scholars with four types of affiliations: non-Ph.D. departments, Ph.D. departments, non-U.S. departments, and nonacademic institutions. We focus particularly on whether faculty from non-Ph.D. departments publish in different types of journals than faculty from other departments, and whether the institutional affiliations of editorial board members corresponds to the institutional affiliations of published authors. We find that people from non-Ph.D. departments represent 16% of the authors in our sample of political science journals, and their contributions are particularly noteworthy in certain types of journals. We also demonstrate that the institutions represented on editorial boards generally do not reflect the institutional affiliations of the authors who publish in these journals.

Change: Trendlines: Research-Intensive vs. Teaching-Intensive Institutions: By the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching

Change: Trendlines: Research-Intensive vs. Teaching-Intensive Institutions: By the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching