Consultation Services

The Center for Faculty Excellence announces a pilot faculty consultation service. The new program formalizes and expands activities that have always taken place; it is a major outcome of the needs assessment that took place in Fall 2008 as part of the planning and implementation process for faculty development at Ithaca College that Susanne Morgan was asked to carry out. Click here to download information as a pdf file.

New elements of the consulting service include mid-semester focus groups and classroom observations. Existing elements include consultations over coffee, meetings with committees or departments, tenure file support. All consulting activities have been and will continue to be entirely confidential and for formative and developmental purposes only.  They are not part of the formal evaluation process in any way.

The program will be implemented by Susanne Morgan, Associate Professor of Sociology, who is assigned half-time to faculty development activities. One or two additional faculty members will be invited to help design the program and engage in consultations.

Requests for individual consultations must be initiated by the faculty member and no letter will be written for a review file.

Consultations with groups such as departments, committees, task groups, writing groups, or friends are welcome as well. These are less likely to require confidentiality.

Consultation topics might relate to teaching, scholarship, or leadership. Examples include:

• Desire to strengthen an ongoing course
  • Classroom skills: engaging students, promoting discussion, managing disruption, teaching inclusively
  •   Interpreting and understanding student evaluations of your class
• Need to integrate assessment
  • Course design: identifying learning objectives, constructing syllabi
  • Assessing student learning: creating good assignments, grading efficiently
  • Developing plans for assessing student learning in a department
•   Desire to innovate
  •   Experimenting with a new technique or strategy
  • Integrating technology: identifying tools and resources
• Concern about scholarship
  • Writing about teaching for an audience: review file, grant, scholarly presentation or publication
  • Accomplishing scholarship: prioritizing work, locating internal or external resources
• Leading effectively
  • Reviewing faculty, classroom observation, evaluating teaching, writing review letters
  • Conducting good meetings, managing time, leading from a non-leadership role
•   Building a good career: strategies at different stages

Consultation formats could include:

• Conversation: in person or electronic
•   Mid-semester student focus group
• ·Departmental or small group meeting
• Resource-sharing and networking among those with common interests

Rationale for a consultation program:

• Internal research indicates our faculty would find it helpful (see needs assessment report)
• National research demonstrates the value of systematic reflection and collegial community for faculty success (Bain,  Boice)
•   Consulting is one way to integrate higher education research and scholarship into institutional culture.

To arrange for a consultation:

Please contact Susanne Morgan at morgan@ithaca.edu or 274 3521 and describe your request. Feel free to use Oracle Calendar to suggest the specific meeting if that is convenient.