Standard Five
Faculty
The institution develops a faculty that is suited to the fulfillment of the institution’s mission. Faculty qualifications, numbers, and performance are sufficient to accomplish the institution's mission and purposes. Faculty competently offer the institution's academic programs and fulfill those tasks appropriately assigned them.
Structure and Organization of the Faculty
Wesleyan’s Faculty Handbook (insert URL)defines the faculty as follows:
The faculty shall consist of the professors, associate professors, assistant professors, lecturers, instructors, and the president of the University, together with such others as may be constituted members thereof by vote of the Board.
The majority of Wesleyan faculty are on the tenure-track or have already been tenured. Of the _ regular faculty, _ are on the tenure-track and _ are tenured. In addition, there are _ faculty slots that are occupied by “adjunct” faculty on four or five-year contracts. These are regular faculty positions dedicated primarily to teaching, and concentrated in areas such as the arts and foreign languages. Adjunct faculty are expected to teach an additional class each year and do not have the scholarship expectations of tenure-track and tenured faculty. . Each year, the University augments these regular faculty with visiting faculty as needed to fill temporary vacancies. This results in a student:faculty ratio of 9.7:1. Graduate students do not, as a rule, have responsibilities as the primary classroom teacher, although they may assist regular faculty
{note: numbers need to match data tables in appendix}
In 2007-08, there are _ FTE faculty lines, occupied by _ number of faculty. _ % of faculty have a PhD and _ % have the terminal degree in their field.
Each faculty member is hired after a thorough search process. For non-visiting positions, a national search is conducted to identify the best candidates in the particular field. A faculty search committee is formed and the specifications of the position, as well as the strategy for building the candidate pool, are worked out in consultation with the Academic Dean responsible for the department conducting the search and the Vice President for Academic Affairs. The Office of Affirmative Action plays a critical role in all faculty searches; when a list of finalists for any position is identified, the entire search process is reviewed by the Affirmative Action Officer and the University President to insure that the search was as inclusive as possible and that all possible candidates from under-represented groups were included.
The process by which faculty are reviewed and eventually promoted is initiated by the appointing department and thoroughly reviewed by an elected committee of tenured faculty whose charge is to make a recommendation to the President. The normal process for a tenure-track appointment begins with a four-year contract, renewable for a second four year contract. A faculty member is reviewed in his or her second year, then evaluated for re-appointment in the third year. If the outcome is successful, the faculty member is given a second four-year contract, with another interim review in the fifth year and tenure review in the seventh year. A faculty member would then be granted tenure and promoted to the rank of associate professor at the end of his or her seventh year. {do we need to state tenure rates at all?)
In addition to the re-appointment, tenure, and promotion processes, there are other regular means by which faculty are evaluated. Students fill out a standard evaluation at the conclusion of every course. These evaluation data are used in a number of ways including feedback to the faculty member, as part of the re-appointment, tenure, and promotion process, and as a factor in Wesleyan’s annual merit-based evaluation process. At the end of each academic year, every tenured faculty member (except those who are being promoted to full professor that year), is eligible to participate in a review by his or her department chair, the dean of that division, and the Vice President for Academic Affairs. The faculty member’s teaching, scholarship, and colleagueship for the past year are taken into account and salaries for the following year are based on these factors.
Every Wesleyan faculty member, with the exception of the adjuncts and visitors described above, is expected to teach a full load of classes, to pursue an active scholarly / research agenda, and to contribute to the collegial atmosphere on campus, through service to one’s department, to the University, and beyond to their particular discipline. Tenure-track and tenured faculty are eligible for a one semester fully paid sabbatical after three years of full-time service. In addition, faculty are encouraged to apply for external grants to support their scholarship and Wesleyan faculty are quite successful at this. In 2006-07, the volume of externally sponsored research at Wesleyan was _ [is this in appendix]. In addition, Wesleyan offers a number of internal grant programs to support faculty research, scholarship and innovation in teaching. In 2006-07, $ _ of these grants were awarded to faculty. Wesleyan’s Center for Faculty Career Development, now in its sixth year supports faculty in a number of ways including providing a range of resources to assist faculty in developing their pedagogical skills, in fostering connections with faculty from the full range of disciplines, by bringing in outside speakers, and sponsoring weekly dialogues on a range of issues of importance to faculty.
Teaching and Advising
Wesleyan’s almost 300 regular faculty are expected to teach four classes per year, two each semester. Faculty are occasionally granted a course reduction for significant university service in a given year. In 2006-07, Wesleyan faculty taught a total of _ courses in _ different disciplines. These courses range from one student tutorials to a few large lectures. The average class size is _ . Majors ore designed to encourage students to take advantage of the full range of faculty specialties, both within departments and programs and in related fields.“
Wesleyan’s Information Technology Services (ITS) division is strongly committed to helping faculty with sophisticated uses of technology in their teaching. As a result, faculty are continually improving their courses and methods with the latest and most appropriate technology, including ………
Wesleyan also supports curricular and pedagogical quality and innovation through a competitive program of grants to faculty to provide support for new course development, new methods or collaborations across disciplines, or large scale innovations. Some recent examples of these innovations include:
Every tenure-track, tenured, and adjunct member of the faculty is expected to advise students, including those majoring in their department or program and first and second year students who have not yet declared a major. Most first year students are matched with a faculty advisor who is teaching one of the student’s first year classes, ideally a First Year Initiative seminar. When this match is not possible, a first-year student is assigned to an advisor with whom he or she shares an academic interest. Faculty in their first year at Wesleyan are not expected to advise these “pre-major” students. Faculty are trained to be advisors through an ongoing process, beginning at their end of their first year, with meetings with appropriate administrators. Each fall, all faculty are expected to attend an advising training sessions where the latest information on academic programs and resources are shared with advisors. There are also a number of print and electronic resources to guide faculty with advising issues.
Scholarship, Research, and Creative Activity
All tenure-track and tenured faculty are expected to pursue an active research agenda and to integrate their research into their teaching. Wesleyan faculty regular collaborate with students on research projects, ranging from one on one assistantships in which a student apprentices with a teacher on an area of the faculty member’s research or as an active member of a research team. In _ [year]_ Wesleyan students appeared as co-authors with faculty {get data from science planning report}. However, the faculty – student collaboration extends far beyond the sciences. Faculty regularly work with their students on collaborative projects in the arts, humanities, and social sciences.
Wesleyan is committed to maintaining the infrastructure needed to support faculty scholarship, research, and creative activity. See section __ for a discussion of Wesleyan’s library resources. Wesleyan has recently renovated studio space in the arts and is in the process of creating a new Center for the Study of Public Life that will support faculty in the social sciences (probably need more here). Finally, we are in the planning stages of building a new Molecular Science Building, to be opened in the next decade.
Institutional Effectiveness
Wesleyan continually evaluates the substance and sufficiency of its support for faculty in all their various endeavors. The regular reviews of every faculty member are described above. These reviews are informed by appropriate data. In addition, institutional initiatives, such as the Center for Faculty Career Development are regularly reviewed to assure that they continue to meet the needs of the University. Internal grants programs, including the pedagogical, seed, and fund for innovation grants described above are regularly evaluated and adjustments made, as needed, to meet the changing demands of faculty teaching and scholarship.
