Academic Affairs Department Chair Notes - Message #20

As a department chair, you work with your colleagues to advance and enrich the student experience. In the last three years, the campus has re-envisioned the core undergraduate student learning experience. We have updated the earlier “Principles of Undergraduate Learning” (the PULs) to become the Profiles of Learning for Undergraduate Success (the Profiles).

The Profiles are the basis for all learning experiences at IUPUI—from first-year general education courses to engaged learning opportunities to a capstone experience. The Profiles help students develop knowledge and broad skills that will prepare them for their future, regardless of the field, industry, or area that they choose to pursue. The Profiles incorporate both classroom and out of classroom learning to more fully capture what IUPUI students know and are able to do.

For more information about the Profiles and ideas for making these meaningful to your faculty and students, visit: https://due.iupui.edu/undergraduate-curricula/general-education/profiles.

The experiential and applied learning record (the Record) offers students and employers a much needed verification of experiences and student learning while also providing students a way to better articulate the knowledge and skills they acquired during their college experience. Please consider adding courses and learning experiences from your program to the Record. A downloadable submission form is available on the Record website.

The Student Engagement Roster (SER) is our tool to provide constructive, personalized feedback (positive and negative) to students. Accessible from your courses in Canvas on the left-hand side, faculty can provide feedback to a group of students rather than one student at a time.

Students are notified that their faculty member has submitted feedback, and we know that students like it. Students have told us that the feedback made them feel that their instructor cares about them, is approachable, and committed to creating an environment that is conducive to learning.

Advisors have ready access to SER feedback. It is included on the opening dashboard for each student record in AdRx. This is highly beneficial: when faculty provide feedback the advisor can follow up with the student.

Please ask your faculty to add feedback to the SER during weeks four and five of the semester; they can also update feedback throughout the semester. For more information on the Student Engagement Roster, including short videos on how to add feedback for groups of students, visit the SER webpage.

In order to ensure that IUPUI’s general education courses develop the statewide general education competencies successfully and in a manner that encourages integrative learning, each IUPUI general education course is reviewed on a five-year cycle.

Courses are reviewed by the Undergraduate Affairs Committee through dossiers that present and analyze the alignment between the course learning outcomes, the general education competencies, the Profiles, the course syllabus, student success rates and grade distributions, assignments, samples of student work, student feedback, assessment methods, and improvement plans. Courses that use a Mile Marker assignment, that is, an assignment specifically tailored to develop and evaluate students’ learning of the general education competencies and to reflect on that learning, can use a more streamlined dossier format.

It sometimes happens that the work of compiling general education review dossiers falls to part-time faculty members who are not compensated for the time spent on this work. If this cannot be avoided, any support that can be offered to these hard-working instructors would surely be appreciated. Resources to help with the process are available from the Center for Teaching and Learning website. A new general education review template that allows nearly all the information to be submitted in a single document became standard as of spring 2022. This is expected to save time and to clarify the expectations.

Dossiers for review in fall 2022 are due by September 15.

What ideas do you have for orienting new faculty to teaching?

Would separate sessions be useful for those who have prior teaching experience (as adjuncts or in another university) and those who are relatively new to being in full charge of a course?

Please email ideas or needs to nosugreF eigraM dna etagelppA lehcaR.

The time is fast approaching for nominations for IUPUI and IU-wide faculty awards. Staff from University Honors and Awards are happy to assist with preparing nominations.

Email nosugreF eigraM if you have any questions about any faculty awards processes!

• Next month, we will discuss search and screen process.

Reminders

• Fall Promotion and Tenure Workshops
  
• September 10: Nominations Deadline for Faculty Academy on Excellence in Teaching (FACET)
  • Review Membership Eligibility and Assess Faculty Readiness
• October 10: Nominations Open for IUPUI Campus Awards

• NEW! Searchable Faculty Affairs Resource Library: this is replacing much of what is in shared Faculty Affairs Guidance folder, and is being thoroughly updated this summer. 
  
• New Faculty Notes: Just-in-time monthly guidance to new faculty who cycle through New Faculty Orientation each year.
  
• Hiring Best Practices.
  
• The Forum Network: An integrated coordinating structure that supports faculty collaboration and creativity.
  
• Faculty Crossing: A technology-rich collaboration space for faculty and teaching staff of all appointments. Part workroom, part café, the space provides a welcoming environment that promotes creativity and innovation. This space will reopen in the fall.
  
• Review the official long-term calendar for refresher on holidays and breaks for AY 2022-2023.