Faculty Professional Development

Guiding Questions

Intructional Track Faculty Mentoring Guiding Questions

Please begin each session by asking if there are any questions or concerns from the new faculty members. Note that not all questions apply to all faculty positions; these are only intended to guide your discussions.

Teaching

    1. What are the department and university teaching expectations?
    2. What resources are available for class management, active learning, etc? What support is available for teacher creativity and autonomy?
    3. How do I get help for a class that is small but still requires a TA or more time to grade/evaluate?
    4. How can I set-up online assignments and quizzes and rubrics to minimize grading time and effort?
    5. How is teaching quality measured? What recognition is available for teaching excellence?
    6. How can I obtain feedback from students throughout the semester to make it a valuable experience for all concerned? What are the best strategies for interpreting student feedback to continue to improve for next semester?
    7. What resources exist for formative evaluations outside of teaching evaluations (which should only account for 50% of documented teaching effectiveness in a T&P packet)?
    8. How do I handle students-related issues in class? Regular absence, assignments not turned in, attitude that raises concern, etc?
    9. Where can I direct students to opportunities for scholarships and fellowships on and off-campus?

Service

    1. How do I know what my service expectations are as an instructional track faculty?
    2. What should new faculty say yes to and what should they say no to? Who in my department is the best person to help and guide with respect to identifying service requirements?
    3. How much time should I dedicate to service to be a good campus citizen?
    4. What are recommendations on university or national service?
    5. What are recommendations on local community service?

Work/Life Blending and University Culture

    1. What are strategies/boundaries to ensure healthy and happy balance?
    2. What support networks and community networks are available?
    3. What childcare/dependent care, leave options, exist?
    4. What dual career/partner engagement resources are available (Shannon Vairo ssvairo@mtu.edu)?
    5. What university events are most impactful to attend and why (C-cubed, workshops, networking, etc.)?
    6. How can I meet other faculty to discuss professional and personal development in an informal setting?
    7. How can I best deal with seasonal changes, particularly work/life balance throughout the year?

Promotion

    1. How do I know what the requirements are for promotion in my department?
    2. What individual goals and strategies should new faculty target to meet promotion requirements within their department?
    3. How does ITF promotion differ across units? How can I best discern relevant from irrelevant advice?
    4. Why have instructional track faculty (formerly lecturers) not been promoted in this department? Are there any common themes? 
    5. What is the timeline and process for reviews and how can mentors help?
    6. What are the steps and the process forpromotion and at what stages can mentors provide guidance? 

Conferences and Networking

    1. What is the value of attending conferences? What conferences have you found to be the most helpful to you?
    2. What is the value of presenting at conferences? What are the processes for doing so?
    3. How best to network or stay up to date beyond traveling?

For Faculty Engaged in Research

Equipment

    1. What equipment is available in core facilities/colleagues labs?
    2. When is it necessary and how to best arrange on site demos?
    3. What IT support is available and how best to navigate requests?

Research

    1. How can I best identify, connect with, and sustain collaborations in other units? In other institutions? In my own unit?
    2. What internal funding can I apply for as an instructional track faculty?
    3. What resources exist to locate funding opportunities?
    4. What is the value of traveling to meet with program officers?
    5. What centers/institutes would be beneficial? How to best connect?
    6. What resources exist to write and submit proposals (e.g. connect with the Research Development team)?
    7. If I have a specific question about a particular federal agency (i.e., NSF, NIH, NIFA, etc), is there someone I can contact?

Publishing and Scholarship

    1. What are the benefits of publishing as an instructional track faculty member?
    2. What help exists to review manuscripts prior to submission?
    3. What are good strategies to identify journals? Manage distribution of manuscripts to journals for a good promotion portfolio?
    4. What are good strategies to mentor students to viable manuscripts? How to recognize when a manuscript is ready to submit?
    5. How do I manage the desire to have students publish (which can slow the process) the desire to get the publication out for review?
    6. Advice on responding to reviews?
    7. How to avoid predatory journals?

Safety

    1. What are standard university/department protocols and best practices?
    2. What are the committees (e.g., IRB, IACUC) that can help gain certifications? What guidance exists when preparing a first application?
    3. What resources/points of contact exist for equipment recertifications/calibrations?
    4. What tools are available to help train graduate students/researchers certified to handle lab work and maintain a safety conscious culture in your lab?
    5. How to coordinate trainings with others on campus and maintain trainings?

Researchers

    1. What are the advantages/disadvantages and best practice strategies for including undergraduates in research? How to best engage them?
    2. Can instructional track faculty work with graduate students? What is the best way to recruit/screen/vet students?
    3. What are effective ways to communicate clear milestones and assess progress?