These Things Take Time

One promising - literally - initiative on this campus is the "Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning." It sounds like a wonderful thing. Provided, of course, that it can be located. Although the "Faculty Center" has been described as a "virtual center," the closest virtual resource center I could find was the Academic Development Resource Room. While other University documents - such as the Provost's page on SoTL,- reference the "Faculty Center" and/or its Fellows,"a full list of the Fellows is nowhere to be found on the University website. Evidence of the "Faculty Center's" effects on the quality of teaching is likewise absent to date.

I'm not faulting the Central Administration on this. The Associate Provost for General Education and the Assistant Provost for the Extended Campus are extremely busy people and, I suspect, have a good handle on what needs to be done. I understand these things take time. I'm not personally looking for the cavalry. Nor am I in any big hurry. Nothing's going majorly wrong in my classroom. Whatever can be improved upon will be tweaked appropriately. I don't need any help - at least not from the usual Carnegie/SoTL suspects - in designing my new class for the upcoming semester. If I cared about studying Educational Design or Motivational Student Psychology, I would have done it as an undergraduate. As with the dear old Showcase, the language that they constantly prate says nothing to me about my life.

What would I like to see at a "Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning?"For one thing, spaces - both physical and virtual - where faculty members can talk about teaching without necessarily feeling compelled to label their conversation as the almighty "Scholarship of Teaching and Learning." In the late 1990s I participated in an impromptu discussion group with faculty from four different colleges. I went primarily because I enjoyed meeting with colleagues and sharing experiences with them. The benefits I obtained over the two years I attended the group were substantial - but secondary. I think a sense of community can be built among faculty, but not if it is forced on faculty as a mandate.

I would also like to see the "Faculty Center" led by a real, live, practicing teacher. Not by a staff member, no matter how capable. Not by one of those semi-administrative looters who routinely cadge released time for dressing in nice clothes and going to meetings. Not by one of those armchair theoreticians who publish reams but can't teach their way out of a paper bag. Not by one of those hothouse flowers who hasn't taught undergraduates in more than a decade. Of course, most (if not all) of the real, live, practicing teachers I would have in mind would run screaming from an administrative job - especially one that would take them out of the classroom. I can't even imagine the patience required to sit through the endless meetings with people dressed in nice clothes. But maybe one of them could be talked into taking one for the proverbial team.

What Difference Does It Make?

Criticizing the so-called "Scholarship of Teaching and Learning" these days is like setting an American flag on fire with a flaming baby seal . SoTL, as it is fondly known to its devotees, is a fixture on university campuses literally around the world. I just wish I could figure out what the hell it is. I'm all for reestablishing teaching as a priority. Teaching is the reason why I entered academia. But I can't get excited about the jargon and the breathless testimonials and the prospect of endless meetings chock full of "Kumbaya." That's why my career as a Secondary Education major ended before my first day of college. Why should I give valuable time to stuff like this?

The Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning - or CASTL, as it fondly calls itself - was founded in 1998 to "build on a conception of teaching as scholarly work." You can read all about it right here. In 1999, SMSU hopped on the CASTL bandwagon with coffee and doughnuts and press releases and hours of meetings attended by well-meaning faculty members, many of whom were among the institution's finest teachers. Copies of Boyer's Scholarship Reconsidered and Glassick's Scholarship Assessed were stacked like cordwood in the Academic Affairs office, waiting for someone or anyone to take and read. After all due deliberation by the well-meaning faculty members, the following definition of SoTL was arrived at:

The definition of the scholarship of teaching and learning at SMSU, as established by the faculty in 1999 is: A systematic exploration and evaluation of teaching and learning processes that involves ongoing dialogue, documentation, and dissemination of results.

"Established by the faculty." This disingenuous phrase is typical of the way that CASTL and SoTL were more or less crammed down the University's throat. It suggests a wellspring of grassroots involvement from a wide range of faculty constituencies. Nothing could have been farther from the truth, although one would never have known it from the torrent of news releases about "distinguished off-campus visitors" and "Campus Conversations" and "SoTL Fellows." CASTL was in fact nothing more than useful window-dressing: it could just as well have been called the Potemkin Academy. While the CASTL Steering Committee preached to a continually shrinking number of the already converted, Academic Affairs went on its merry way managing the production of educated persons. CASTL, like the Academic Development Center, was a typical corporate approach applied to whatever was wrong with the teaching here. Buy something, throw it at the problem (hint: the real problem was faculty morale), and forget about it. If the problem persists, it's not management's fault.

If only Academic Affairs could have been bothered to lead.

This perception is not unique to Missouri State University. Eileen T. Bender's 2005 Change article, "CASTLs in the Air," offers a detailed review of CASTL's progress to date. While fundamentally sympathetic to CASTL and its goals, she is ultimately realistic about its achievements.

Thus even these optimistic CASTL exemplars must acknowledge the continuing gap between their own transformation as Carnegie Scholars and the un-transformed academy at large. The central idea of teaching as scholarship is parroted today by campus spokespersons--but their words are not matched by changing policies.

That observation is not only echoed but even magnified in reports and observations drawn from the rank and file of the professoriate across institutional types. When we move from the rarified air of CASTL and its scholars, a somewhat more discouraging picture emerges about the actual penetration of SOTL into the deep structures of academe.

Has SoTL actually penetrated into the deep structures of Missouri State University? What difference does it make? The official CASTL site at http://www.missouristate.edu/carnegie was last edited August 31, 2005: the date of the Great Name Change. It directs questions about CASTL to the email of a faculty member who retired from the Biology Department in 2006. Clicking on the "Discussion Group" link gets you an Error 404 page. The 2007-2008 Committees Handbook contains no sign of a CASTL steering committee. Here is what President Nietzel had to say about SoTL in his 12 September 2007 Report to Campus:

And finally, we want to look at the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. Faculty need to have the opportunity to compare and contrast different strategies of teaching and to see what we learn by conducting research on our own scholarship.

So much for CASTL. The President obviously knows what SoTL is, but he doesn't see many signs of its effect here. So what difference does it make? It makes none. What is the next flavor of SoTL going to be?

Stop me, oh stop me

Prominently featured this holiday vacation on the MSU website is a little banner announcing the Academic Development Center's 19th Showcase on Teaching and Learning. Given that it's holiday vacation, I assume the banner will remain in place until the 19th Showcase on Teaching and Learning actually transpires on 9 January 2008. The casual visitor might be forgiven for thinking it is a pretty big deal. It showcases teaching, and learning, and is the nineteenth in a series. The very existence of an Academic Development Center on this campus would indicate that MSU is serious about quality education, right? Stop me if you think you've heard this one before.

Even a quick look at the ADC website suggests the Showcase is not the big deal it's cracked up to be. The content hinted at by the ADC website's left-hand navigation bar promises more than it delivers. One can choose from "professional development resources," or "learning communities," or even a conference on the "scholarship of teaching and learning" to be held a year and a half from now right here at MSU. Whatever the "scholarship of teaching and learning" is or isn't, it has never repaid the effort I have invested in trying to comprehend it. For example, the ADC website proudly features an article entitled "Integrative Model for Learning and Motivation in Higher Education." The article's authors, which include the ADC Director, undoubtedly worked very hard on it. But the accompanying graphic also - unwittingly, I'm sure - illustrates my stupefaction with the entire concept:

It looks like somebody decorated a dartboard with buzzwords: hit the bull's eye and win LEARNING PROCESSES AND OUTCOMES! Again, I'm sure the article is a major contribution to its field. But how it applies to anything I do in a classroom is utterly beyond me.

As for the development resources, the ADC offers seminars, learning committees, workshops, and - drum roll, please - the Showcase on Teaching. I have never attended the Showcase on Teaching, but I have been presenting at it since the last century. It used to bring together a mix of teachers with things to show off and support staff with new tools to offer, and it once attracted a representative audience of faculty. These days it is pretty much the usual suspects talking about the usual stuff to a rather specialized audience. Tenure-track faculty attend it because they have to attend everything, and attendance is taken (by social security number, no less). Administrators attend it because it would be churlish not to attend a showcase on teaching. Everyone else there attends it because they want to rub elbows with administrators. There are some interesting presentations scheduled the 19th Showcase on Teaching - but only one of them would add to what I already know. I think I'll be spending my time on something more meaningful - like a killer round of Bookworm.

Unloveable

From time to time, the powers that be Missouri State University let on that they are not exactly feeling the love from the community at large. Usually, the coldness is blowing down from Jefferson City: either the Legislature is screwing MSU, or the Governor is, or the Coordinating Board for Higher Education is. Democrats punish MSU for being in a Republican part of the state. Republicans punish MSU to get even with the whiny liberal professors. As a matter of fact, MSU has been getting screwed for years. The slice of the funding pie we receive from the CBHE is rather smaller than the piece of the pie - credit hours taught, degrees granted - produced by this particular state university. And women never really faint, and villains always blink their eyes...

There is plenty of resentment to be found right here in the Queen City of the Ozarks. Always has been. Coming here from a college town where the university basically is the city, I was taken aback by the locals' vitriol toward "Sodom and Gomorrah on the corner of Grand and National." Over time, I came to see as partially true the local belief that college professors are pathological whiners out of touch with how the real world works. Unfair, yes. Totally unfounded, no. Still, the institution itself has not helped its case much either.The Emily Brooker case brought MSU national notoriety. Spring 2007's furore over Dr. Michael Hendrix raised a stink statewide, as has the recent flap over the Strong Hall Christmas tree. It seems like a valid time to ask just how MSU presents itself to the local community.

So I clicked on the Community link featured prominently on the MSU home page. I was shocked into shame to discover the relationship between university and community expressed in exactly two paragraphs.

The community of Springfield and the Ozarks supports Missouri State by attending campus events, cheering Bears sports, and interacting through many other activities.

Missouri State also supports the community through its statewide mission in public affairs. Community outreach programs through public affairs research centers, adult continuing education, distance learning courses, public broadcasting, and telecommunication linkages with other metropolitan universities utilize faculty expertise and skills to address state and community problems.

Great. The community cheers for the Bears, and in return we give the community public affairs. It dawns on me that if this is the best MSU can do at justifying itself to the local community, we really deserve all the opprobrium we get. And if the best MSU can do to remedy the situation is appoint a blue ribbon committee packed with the usual suspects, I'm going to give up defending my job as a lost cause.

You Just Haven't Earned It Yet

I barely recognize the Honors College any longer. When I taught my first Honors sections back in the late 1980s, they were smaller (about 60% of the normal class size) and the students expected to be worked harder. Not only expected it, enjoyed it. Being an Honors student was a big deal and so was being a member of the Honors Faculty. Not all applications were accepted, and not all of those accepted stayed accepted. I myself felt honored when I got to teach an Honors section.

But things changed. One common way for a college or university to make itself look good is to trumpet its Honors program. The bigger the better, even if there's not enough brains to go around. Not so much the kids, although over the years there did seem to be a few more marginal students than before. No, there was a shortage of "stations," as the then-dean used to put it. First, the number of "stations" was increased by adding extra students to each section. By and by, additional Honors sections were added as individual departments felt able to do so. I am told that the Honors College reimbursed departments for offering Honors sections, although the exact nature of the arrangement still escapes me. Over the years, I must have brought a fair amount of money into my department that way. Whatever. I was still just genuinely honored by the chance to teach in the Honors College.

I honestly can't say just when I stopped being pleased to teach in the Honors College. Even though additional Honors sections had been added, the number of "stations" in each section crept upward. In his unending quest to grow the program by adding more and more "stations," the then-dean of Honors College insensibly exercised less and less scrutiny over the faculty providing these "stations." Quantity counted more than quality.

The situation has not improved with time, as a quick glance at the Honors College's official list of outstanding faculty demonstrates. Most of these people are in fact outstanding teachers and scholars. Some are decidedly not. The official list includes adjunct faculty, retired faculty, and even one full-time member who boasts an Ed.D. from Nova Southeastern University. Absent from the list is last year's dean of the College of Arts and Letters, despite a teaching load which consists exclusively of one Honors section per semester. But absent from the list are several long-time Honors Faculty members who have won various University awards for teaching and/or research, but no longer teach in the Honors College. Not what I would call true excellence.

I don't question the administration's sincere intention to "upgrade" the Honors College. The proverbial rising tide lifts all boats, et cetera. The time, trouble, and money expended in renovating Scholars House, instituting three endowed chairs, and founding a new Honors academic journal all demonstrate good intentions. Yet to me, at least, these initiatives address only tangential concerns. The Honors College already has more students than it can effectively handle with the resources - Honors sections and qualified Honors Faculty - it currently has. Until the Administration addresses this very real need - an outside review would be an excellent start - I am concerned that its efforts will amount to little more than window dressing.