University faculty wear many hats, and it’s often challenging to define and prioritize all of the elements of the job. In a recent webinar, Sarah Leach, an Associate Professor at Purdue University, shared the importance of understanding the role of a faculty member and getting to the “why” behind the role.
Purdue struggled to get faculty on board with outcomes reporting — Leach and her team had to work to build an understanding of the value of the process and how it ties to the mission of student success. But with the use of Watermark Planning & Self-Study and Faculty Success, faculty were able to shift their thinking and help Purdue evolve their internal and external reporting processes.
Faculty have a lot of responsibilities, including (but not limited to):
According to Leach, “effort in all these areas is required for collective success,” meaning the roles faculty members play throughout their career work together to advance student learning and keep universities running. The real challenge lies in the additional duties faculty must complete for both internal promotion and tenure reporting and external assessment and accreditation reporting. Because faculty members are often able to define their own unique forms of outcomes assessment, reporting can be quite the administrative headache (even more so if your university has hundreds of outcome reports from multiple courses and instructors using different assessments). This makes it difficult to create an efficient and organized system to analyze all of the assessment and outcome data for accreditation and review purposes. Furthermore, these annual reports can often trigger anxiety for faculty because they detract from other priorities such as curriculum development and working with students. Adjunct faculty have even greater challenges as they are balancing all of these priorities alongside a full-time job.
So how can we help faculty see the value of reporting?
Spending time recording learning outcomes and personal achievements can feel like an extra burden for faculty, but there are ways to make it easier. Leach credits Purdue’s success to standardizing internal and external reporting to the use of digital tools (specifically, Watermark Planning & Self-Study and Faculty Success). Here’s how both products helped Purdue’s faculty see the value in reporting:
For more tips to help your faculty understand the “why” behind outcomes reporting, check out our on-demand webinar.
