CHSU Faculty Roles and Responsibilities

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  1. The University recognizes three broad areas of faculty endeavor – teaching, scholarship, and service – and expects that faculty members will be active in each of these areas, as described below.
    1. Teaching
      Teaching is a core activity of the University, and all faculty members are expected to achieve excellence in this role. Teaching includes not only traditional classroom and laboratory instruction and experiential instruction, but also service-learning courses designed to enable student engagement in the community and other non-classroom instruction such as independent study.
      All faculty members are expected to teach the equivalent of at least one standard course (defined as 3 - 4.5 credit hours) that contributes to the instructional load of their program each semester. Teaching may include preparation of lecture prework or TBL readiness materials, TBL iRATs and tRATs, TBL application questions, as well as facilitating a lecture or TBL session or experiential laboratory session and preparing exam items. Finally, all faculty members are expected to engage regularly in activities designed to enhance the effectiveness of their own teaching.
    2. Scholarship
      Scholarship is a core activity of the University, and all faculty members are expected to be productive scholars. Included in the University’s definition of scholarship are the scholarships of:
      1. Discovery: scholarship that adds to the field of knowledge of a particular discipline or combination of disciplines.
      2. Pedagogy: scholarship that adds to the knowledge and understanding of teaching.
      3. Integration: scholarship that makes connections among existing ideas within and/or across disciplines to provide new understandings.
      4. Application: scholarship that applies knowledge to issues of contemporary social concern in a manner that generates new intellectual understandings.
      5. Engagement: scholarship that applies knowledge and skills to elucidate the relationship between theory and practice in order to address significant local, national, and global issues.
    3. Service 
      Faculty service is the foundation upon which effective shared governance is nurtured at the University. All faculty members are expected to engage in activities at the department, College, and university levels that contribute in a substantial manner to the important work of the institution. Additionally, faculty members are expected to contribute their disciplinary expertise to address issues of importance in the region, state, and nation. Further, all faculty members are expected to engage in academic advisement and/or mentoring of students. Of particular importance are activities in regional, state or national organizations relevant to their field of expertise, providing professional expertise to the community beyond the University, and to deliberations about important regional, state and national issues. The University expects that faculty members will become increasingly active in service, assuming increased responsibilities over the course of their careers at the University. While most service activities are considered to be part of a faculty member’s normal responsibilities, there are times when the faculty members might be asked to assume a mission-critical responsibility that is beyond what would normally be expected of a faculty member. In these cases, the faculty member may receive reassigned instructional time to perform her or his responsibilities.
  2. Assessing Faculty Activity 
    Faculty members will be evaluated by their Department Chair on the following framework:
    1. Teaching Assessment
      CHSU is committed to excellence in teaching and scholarship. Faculty members are expected to be engaged, over time, with a broad cross-section of students in a variety of different learning circumstances and to continue to make substantial contributions to the instructional program of the University. Faculty members are expected to:
      1. Develop clear goals so that there is congruence between the faculty member’s espoused goals and values in teaching.
      2. Develop course-specific rigorous learning outcomes (CLO) that aligns with the Program Learning Outcomes (PLO) and are measurable.
      3. Ascertain that the learning/teaching activities/modalities are meaningful in obtaining the CLOs.
      4. Share with the students the expected learning outcomes and the activities utilized for obtaining those measurable outcomes through a well-defined syllabus.
      5. Design assessment methods and tools to validate the expected level of student learning outcomes.
    2. Assessment of Scholarship:
      1. Scholarship of teaching
        CHSU Faculty members are expected to have continued growth in their area of expertise and should embrace the current pedagogical principles and practices in their teaching, which require a methodical approach. Faculty members are expected to
        1. Exhibit adequate preparation by possessing an intellectual understanding of, and engagement in effective teaching which will be evident in the quality of their teaching/learning materials and by regular review and revision of the content.
        2. Demonstrate a broad repertoire of pedagogical strategies and utilize them in appropriate ways to maximize student learning.
        3. Utilize instructional technologies to enhance student learning and employ appropriate methodologies to measure student performance. iv. Provide evidence that they are responsive to the needs of students and utilize feedback to modify the course content or delivery for future iteration of the course.
      2. Research and Scholarship:
        Faculty members engaging in any form of scholarship are expected to share their experiences with the wider academic community. The projects in which they engage should reach a level of excellence sufficient to yield materials which, following rigorous external peer review, are selected for dissemination through published articles, books, presentation, posters, and other national/international venues accepted as equivalent to these within the faculty member’s discipline. CHSU faculty members are expected to:
        1. Identify the scope of their work in the field of research/scholarship. Formulate a clear purpose and goal of the research/scholarship work that they are planning to engage. The goals and objectives are realistic and achievable.
        2. Provide evidence of adequate preparation by showing an understanding of the existing scholarship in the field and demonstrating the necessary skills. They should have access to the appropriate resources and technology.
        3. Exhibit the intent to collaborate with other scholars or professionals and participate with strong research teams, both within and beyond the University.
        4. Ascertain the impact of the work on the existing knowledge and scholarship in the field and/or to learning and teaching in the field by having peer-reviewed publications, professional presentations, external grants or commissions, invited lectures, invitations to review manuscripts, the award of fellowships, the production of letters, reviews and other forms of validation by qualified experts, and/or major professional recognition.
    3. Assessment of Service:
      All service activities should be carefully evaluated by assessing the impact of the service and by comparing the stated objectives with the achieved outcomes. The faculty members are expected to:
      1. Demonstrate that their activities bring about evidence of a clear understanding of, and commitment to, service to the University, the profession and the larger community.
      2. Exercise academic leadership and responsibility at the department, College, and University levels that is appropriate for faculty member’s rank, experience and expertise.
      3. Exercise academic leadership in the discipline or field at the regional, national, and international level that is appropriate for faculty member’s rank, experience and expertise.
      4. Provide services directly related to faculty member’s academic expertise to external agencies, Colleges, organizations, communities, and similar groups.
      5. Generate impactful and tangible products from the service provided and assume increasing responsibility for providing academic leadership within the University, or at the regional, national and international level.