During the 2000-2001 academic year, a group of faculty from the School of Physical Activity and Educational Services in Ohio State University’s College of Education began meeting regularly with the school’s director to find ways to enhance instruction. From these meetings came the idea for the PAES Instructional Enhancement Initiative, a faculty-driven series of instruction-related activities, which includes workshops, a book club, a quarterly newsletter, and seminars.

Faculty learning communities provide opportunities for faculty to get together to discuss similar interests and improve their teaching and learning practices. In the past 15 years, they have become more formalized through the work of Milton Cox and others as well as through use of Web-based technologies to connect faculty in new ways.

“You will submit three projects.” “I expect regular participation.” “You must attend class.” “Students bear sole responsibility for ensuring that papers…submitted electronically to the professor are received in a timely manner.” The “arrogant tone” and “imperial commands” (p. 51) are an all-too-familiar part of syllabi for college courses, writes Mano Singham in the article cited below. Edits like these even appear in the course outlines of gentle, kindly faculty members.

At the recent Teaching Professor Conference in Nashville, a session titled "163 Alternate Assessment Ideas" caught my eye. It was presented by Eileen Buckley from Western Michigan University. To be honest, the use of alternate assessment techniques is not something I completely embraced before attending this workshop. Although I have used group work and peer-led activities, they were for the purpose of helping students prepare for quizzes and exams. A theme in the workshop was that alternate assessment activities should be graded and used along with traditional testing methods to evaluate student learning in a course.

When Johnson County Community College Assistant Dean of Sciences Joseph Gadberry is hiring a part-time instructor, he seeks candidates with similar qualifications to his full-time instructors because hiring an adjunct is not necessarily a short-term staffing solution. The goal is to integrate adjuncts into the college community by having them serve on major committees, attend department meetings, and participate in the same professional development activities as full-time faculty members.

Jamestown (New York) Community College uses a joint faculty-administration committee to make all decisions related to faculty hiring, retention, promotion, salary, and tenure. The idea is that the variety of perspectives will help the college make better decisions in these critical areas.

Those of you familiar with The Teaching Professor newsletter know that we publish, monthly during the academic year with combined June-July and August September issues. We average about 35 unsolicited submissions per month, publishing between two and six of those. This summer we had more than 75 submissions! Despite the extra work of reviewing all those submission, I am happy that so many faculty see the newsletter as a viable outlet for their pedagogical scholarship and that more faculty may be reading and reflecting about their teaching.

In the mid-1990s I worked in a small education studies department that used a wonderfully simple, three-part conceptual framework for responding to student work -- whether oral presentations, written papers, or even student teaching. First, we modeled active listening by succinctly summarizing what we understood to be the students' theses or main points in their presentation, paper, or lesson. Next, we detailed their clearest strengths. Lastly, we recommended some next steps.