New Faculty Orientation
North Central College
September 3, 2009
I will take a few minutes to share with you my perspective on North Central College’s community, campus life, and its traditions. I will also briefly talk about teaching, advising, and scholarship. My observations are based upon my 25-year association with North Central College, the first ten years as a professor of mathematics and the rest as vice-president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty. While my remarks will seem to be aimed at full-time faculty, I hope that teacher coaches, visiting professors, and half-time adjunct faculty also will find them to be relevant to their professional life.
As you will have learnt by now, one of the assets of the College is its wonderful location: a vibrant downtown bordering the College; a metro-train station a block from the College; Chicago a 30-minute ride from Naperville, one of the best livable cities in the Country. Taking advantage of its location and recognizing the needs of the larger community surrounding it, the College which has a long-standing commitment to pure liberal learning, offers pre-professional degrees as well as some selected graduate programs. Rooted in its culture is the College’s practice of shared governance, a concept that embodies a collaborative model of administration in which the trustees, cabinet members, and faculty work together to fulfill the institution’s goals and aspirations. Even the College’s organizational structure – four divisions headed by division chairs – a structure somewhat unique to a College of our size, reflects this philosophy. We do not have schools such as the school of arts and science, the school of business and the like with full-time administrative deans. Instead, our divisions are chaired by senior professors who teach while carrying out their administrative responsibilities. After a certain number of years of service, they resume teaching full-time and new leaders are appointed to chair the divisions. (Pause and expand: rotation of leadership that includes department chairs; faculty get institutional perspective).
You don’t need to wait until you become a senior faculty member or a department or division chair to begin contributing to our collaborative institutional culture. You may ask what kind of opportunities a junior faculty member will have to contribute to campus life. Often called citizenship at North Central College, the opportunities to serve come in many forms. A more visible form of service is serving on committees, but it could also take many other not-so-visible forms: serving on student organizations, clubs, or discipline-based honor societies (tell your story).
Our curriculum reflects what we want our students to be and to become; it transcends time and space. It reflects the ethics, values, and ethos of this institution. Like our organizational structure, our curriculum brings our community together. As I mentioned earlier, as a comprehensive liberal arts college, the College offers liberal arts as well as pre-professional degrees. Despite these mixed characteristics, the College is committed to “one curriculum,” a commitment that requires all students take a common set of core courses for graduation. For example, every single student is required to take a course in Religion and Ethics where they “examine ethical and religious ideas, traditions, and views;” an Intercultural Seminar where “topics are addressed from global, international, or multi-cultural perspectives;” and a Leadership, Ethics, and Values Seminar where “students examine varying topics with an emphasis on how leadership, ethics, and values interact.” (Talk about Foreign Language Requirement).
You will have noticed that I did not begin my remarks with a discussion of teaching, which is paramount at North Central College, but rather I chose to talk about shared governance, collaborative leadership, and connectedness. The reason is simple: while teaching is what North Central is all about — nothing can redeem you if you do not become excellent teachers — I believe strongly that building a community is critical to the success of our enterprise.
Now let me talk briefly about teaching and scholarship. There is no one style or model of effective teaching. The College never attempts “to prescribe a single behavioral model to satisfy the test of effectiveness [of teaching].” You will need to experiment and decide what makes your teaching effective for our heterogeneous student body. Our students come to North Central with varying talents, abilities, and motivations so teaching our students can become a challenge. (Pause) I never teach a class. I teach every student. I know it can be extremely challenging to teach every student, especially in large classes, such as the 100 — and 200 — level classes which typically enroll 30-35 students. (Expand on this – visiting residence halls and even making House Calls – Verandah mathematics)
Regarding scholarship, North Central College’s mission is not to produce world-changing discoveries through the scholarly work of our faculty. This mission belongs to research universities. However, to advance as a teacher and as a professional, one of the important ingredients is the pursuit of good scholarly or artistic work. Every North Central faculty member develops a program of scholarly activity, crafted in consultation with their department and division chairs. This activity keeps one’s mind active and creative, enhances teaching effectiveness, increases the subject matter expertise, and produces scholarly publications or artistic presentations. Whatever is the nature of your scholarship, the College expects all products to be peer reviewed. (Talk to your department and division chairs)
I am going to stop here. I am sure there will be plenty of formal and informal opportunities for me to share my thoughts with you. Remember that North Central is a community, not simply a collection of talented individuals. What happens outside the classroom—on the verandah– is as important as, perhaps more important than, what happens inside the classrooms. So find ways to engage your students as well as your colleagues in the hallways, in the Cage, in the Boiler House. I am looking forward to your becoming a part of the community and beginning to contribute to the life of the College.