Until recently, George Mason University’s tenure requirements were typical of most research institutions: research was the primary activity; teaching and service, though important, were secondary. During the past six years, GMU created new paths to tenure that recognize the different types of contributions that faculty can make to the university.

The accreditation review process may never be stress-free, but with proper preparation you can at least minimize the stress that so often accompanies it. So just how far ahead should you start preparing for your accreditation review? At least two years, according to Belle S. Wheelan, president of the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS), noting that some schools begin even more than two years out.

If you were asked to describe community colleges, the word “entrepreneurial” probably wouldn’t be one of the first things to come to mind. That may be changing. As the traditional avenues for funding decrease and expenses increase, community colleges are turning to innovative fundraising strategies to support everything from student scholarships to program development.

EDUCAUSE, the association for information technology in higher education, released its list of Top Teaching and Learning Challenges for 2009. Voted on by the EDUCAUSE teaching and learning community, the top five challenges are:

As an associate vice president at the University of Utah, part of my job is to oversee the continuing and distance education programs for the university, including accreditation visits from the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities.

Much attention continues to be directed at those freshman experience programs in college. As important as that time is, it’s not the only portion of a student’s career to which attention should be directed. True, seniors are no longer likely to drop out of college, but they face a transition just as compelling as the one that brings them from high school to college. They are about to depart from college to professional lives. It is a time for reflection, integration, and closure.

Has the rapid expansion of online education put your institution on a collision course with faculty incentive policies? Although more and more faculty are teaching online, few colleges and universities are proactively addressing faculty workload, promotion, and tenure policies to more accurately reflect the differences between teaching online and teaching face-to-face, said Philip DiSalvio, assistant provost and director of SetonWorldWide at Seton Hall University.

In yesterday's post, it was argued that perhaps student evaluations were not, in Martha Stewart’s famous phrase, “a good thing,” given doubts about the qualifications of students to judge instructors, questionable validity of the evaluation instrument, threats to academic freedom, and misuse by administrators. Every college instructor subjected to student evaluation, myself included, has probably mused about these possibilities at one time or the other. But before we throw out the evaluation with the bathwater, let’s take a look at the other side of this double-edged question of the value of student evaluations.

My students have always given me positive evaluations of my undergraduate and graduate courses. I still teach four courses a year because I love the classroom and believe academic administrators are well served by ongoing connections with students in instructional settings. As a department chair, dean, provost, and vice president, I have found these student evaluations informative as I considered questions about tenure, promotion, and yearly raises for faculty.