In her article, Donna Bowles offered some useful and stimulating ideas on how the film The Wizard of Oz suggests the “characteristics necessary for teaching excellence.” I’m sure that Professor Bowles prompted many of us to consider other classics that serve as sources of pedagogical inspiration. For me, it’s a text I use in several of my courses, Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince, a famous and short book on political theory and practice produced in Renaissance Italy.

In the upcoming March issue of the Teaching Professor you’ll find highlights from two really excellent articles on teaching philosophy statements. I’ve been sort of down on these statements for a while now. When they are written to accompany job applications or to be included in tenure and promotion dossiers, or as part of a case for a teaching award, the motivation to write a “correct” or “impressive” statement gets in the way of writing a statement that truly reflects what the teacher thinks and believes.

Instant messaging can be an effective online learning tool that can build community and foster collaborative learning. The following are some suggestions from Debby Kilburn, computer science professor at Cero Coso Community College, for making the most of this tool.

In course evaluations, 90 percent of the students in John Thompson’s graduate-level education courses at the University of San Diego indicated that the online learning experience was as good as or better than the traditional classroom and 91 percent would take another online course.

In several of my books, I’ve referenced a wonderful classroom assessment query I came across in Teaching of Psychology, some years ago now. At the end of the course, the authors asked students to reflect back across the whole semester and then report the first 10 things they remembered about the course. Students were told not to edit their thinking but to simply write down the memories as they came to mind.

Few issues have more powder keg potential than academic tenure. Not only is applying for tenure a nerve-racking, time and labor intensive process for faculty, but the resulting tenure decisions can cause discontent for tenure candidates and ill will in departments. Tenure even carries the potential for costly lawsuits for institutions.

When it comes to course design, is the goal to help your students understand concepts, enable future retrieval of concepts, or enable future retrieval of concepts and apply them in real-world situations?

How do you come across to the people you work with? Does what you say and how you say it send mixed messages? Are your actions consistent with your words? Do you listen intently? Do you acknowledge others’ ideas? All these questions are important for any leader, and answering them honestly can help you become a better leader, says Florence Richman, special assistant to the president for academic growth at Northern Virginia Community College.

As higher education institutions face the call for greater accountability amidst shrinking resources, the need for strategic planning has taken on new importance within the academic community. And with good reason. When done properly, a strategic plan delivers tremendous value and can serve as a definitive three-to-five year roadmap that takes a department where it wants to go.