This study uses two national data sets to explore the relationship between faculty practices and student engagement. Our findings suggest that students report higher levels of engagement and learning at institutions where faculty members use active and collaborative learning techniques, engage students in experiences, emphasize higher-order cognitive activities in the classroom, interact with students, challenge students academically, and value enriching educational experiences. The quality and value of an undergraduate education in the past decade received, and continues to receive, scrutiny by various stakeholders associated with the higher education community. Much of the energy surrounding the undergraduate experience and student learning was placed on the two major responsibilities of faculty, teaching and research (Fairweather, 1996, 2002; Marsh and Hattie, 2002). The regulation of time allocated to these two roles was quickly becoming one of the most salient issues in higher education. Unfortunately, much of the debate about the nature of faculty work was shrouded in myth, opinion, and conjecture (Fairweather, 2002). Some of these perceptions, such as a faculty member being highly involved in teaching, engages students in the undergraduate experience resulting in greater student learning gains, were important to debunk or substantiate. As a result, assessing the impact that faculty

/pdf/faculty-do-matter-the-role-of-college-faculty-in-student-izb16oskbi.pdf

Faculty Do Matter: The Role of College Faculty in Student Learning and Engagement.

Student engagement literature review

Engineering education research (EER) has been on the fast track since 2004 with an exponential rise in the number of Ph.D.s awarded and the establishment of new programs, even entire EER departments. The National Research Council’s Discipline-Based Education Research (DBER) report (National Research Council, 2012) captures the state-of-the-art advances in our understanding of engineering and science student learning and highlights commonalities with other science-based education research programs. The DBER report is the consensus analysis of experts in undergraduate education research in physics, chemistry, biology, geosciences, astronomy, and engineering. The study committee, chaired by Susan Singer, also included higher education researchers, learning scientists, and cognitive psychologists. A central aspect of the DBER report is the focus on and application of research in the education, learning, and social-behavioral sciences to science and engineering curricula design and teaching methods. Froyd, Wankat, and Smith (2012) identified five major shifts in engineering education in the past 100 years: 1. A shift from hands-on and practical emphasis to engineering science and analytical emphasis 2. A shift to outcomes-based education and accreditation 3. A shift to emphasizing engineering design 4. A shift to applying education, learning, and social-behavioral sciences research 5. A shift to integrating information, computational, and communications technology in education

Discipline-Based Education Research: Understanding and Improving Learning in

'technology transfer' and the research university : a search for the boundaries of university-industry collaboration

The collaboration between universities and the industry is increasingly perceived as a vehicle to enhance innovation through knowledge exchange. This is evident by a significant increase in studies that investigate the topic from different perspectives. However, this body of knowledge is still described as fragmented and lacks efficient comprehensive view. To address this gap, we employed a systematic procedure to review the literature on universities-industry collaboration (UIC). The review resulted in identifying five key aspects, which underpinned the theory of UIC. We integrate these key aspects into an overarching process framework, which together with the review, provide a substantial contribution by creating an integrated analysis of the state of literature concerning this phenomenon. Several research avenues are reported as distilled from the analysis.

Universities-Industry Collaboration: A Systematic Review

Research accomplishment, the most "cosmopolitan" academic function, has social and economic value. Research visibility certainly enhances institutional stature among peers (Alpert, 1985). Political and public support for academic institutions, however, rests on the perceived institutional commitment to "local functions," especially teaching and learning (Ewell, 1994; Hearn, 1992). Legislative calls for accountability and effectiveness, and public concern about increasing costs and the potential adverse consequences for access clearly focus on the teaching mission. Many state legislatures have focused on faculty commitment to teaching often in terms of instructional productivity. Efforts to eliminate tenure by the governing boards in Arizona and Florida, legislation in Ohio to mandate an increase in the time faculty spend on teaching, and growing legislative interest in post-tenure review are specific expressions of this concern. The focus of this reform movement is not limited to public institutions. The Nati onal Science Foundation, which supports and influences both public and private institutions, recently required grant applicants to state how their research work will affect their teaching effort. Much of the policy debate about the nature of faculty work is shrouded in myth, opinion, and conjecture. Critics of the perceived lack of emphasis on teaching in research universities may assume that this criticism applies equally well to teaching-oriented colleges, a questionable assumption at best. Parents, potential students, and even state legislators often overestimate the actual cost of attending college (National Commission on the Cost of Higher Education, 1998). Yet the perceived inattention to teaching and learning, particularly at the undergraduate level, is not off base (B ok, 1992; Fairweather, 1996). Boyer (1990) acknowledged the legitimacy of this claim when he attempted to encourage institutional responsiveness to public concerns about teaching and learning. He advocated considering teaching as a form of scholarship to increase its status on college campuses. The American Association of Higher Education Forum on Faculty Roles and Rewards took Boyer's concepts a step further, encouraging institutional teams to foster changes in local faculty rewards. The willingness and ability of academic institutions to respond effectively to these challenges is influenced by what Clark (1972) calls institutional sagas. These sagas contain a variety of beliefs or myths that help perpetuate organizational culture by socializing new participants (students, administrators, and especially the faculty) by establishing norms for their behavior. Among the set of beliefs held by many academic administrators and faculty members about the nature of faculty work and productivity are that (a) teaching, research, and service are activities imbedded in some form within each faculty member's work effort, (b) teaching and research are mutually reinforcing, and as a consequence (c) faculty can simultaneously be productive in teaching and research. Other than hiring new faculty members, the principal expression of academic values about faculty work lies in the promotion and tenure decision. It is here rather than in institutional rhetoric that the faculty seek clues about the value of different aspects of their work. It is here that productivity is most meaningfully defined and evaluated. Yet promotion and tenure decisions are both individual and private in nature. These characteristics make it difficult to identify the cumulative effects of individual decisions within an institution, much less identify patterns across types of institutions and disciplines. The purpose of this article is to identify these larger patterns by examining national data that represent criteria often used in local promotion and tenure decisions or in annual faculty reviews. I am particularly interested in the belief that all aspects of faculty work--particularly teaching and research--can be equally (or somewhat equally) addressed by the work of each faculty member. …

https://www.jstor.org/stable/info/1558446

The Mythologies of Faculty Productivity: Implications for Institutional Policy and Decision Making

In 1990, Ernest Boyer argued in Scholarship Reconsidered for a renewed commitment to college teaching by recasting instruction as a form of scholarship. He intended to enhance the visibility of teaching on college campuses and to reduce what he saw as an overemphasis on traditional faculty scholarly publication (scholarship of discovery) (Boyer, 1990). Boyer's work appeared at a time when a dramatic recasting of teaching seemed essential. Traditional scholarly productivity in various forms had become an almost universal expectation for promotion and tenure at all types of 4-year colleges and universities (Bok, 1992; Massy & Wilger, 1995; Trow, 1984). In the late 1980s and early 1990s, it also dominated the internal and external academic labor markets (Winston, 1994). During this time, research consistently showed scholarly productivity as the strongest correlate of faculty pay. Teaching was typically unrelated to or a negative factor in faculty compensation. According to the 1987-1988 and 1992-1993 National Surveys of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF-88 and NSOPF-93), faculty who taught less and published more received the highest average salaries regardless of type of 4-year institution or academic discipline (Fairweather, 1994, 1996, 1997). Boyer's seminal work unquestionably influenced the policy conversation within and outside of academe. Efforts such as Gene Rice's American Association of Higher Education Forum on Faculty Roles and Rewards have led to many reforms in the assessment of faculty work (Braskamp & Ory, 1994; Glassick, Huber, & Maeroff, 1997). Legislative policies in Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, and many other states now tie some public university resources to a commitment to teaching and learning (Banta, 1986; Burke & Serban, 1998). Federal agencies, such as the National Science Foundation (NSF), and independent foundations, such as the Bush Foundation, have invested heavily in undergraduate education and professional development for teaching. The NSF has gone so far as to require aspiring grantees to demonstrate how their proposed research work will improve teaching and learning. The past decade also has seen increasing evidence about the effectiveness of active and collaborative instructional practices in improving student learning as well as about faculty development strategies to encourage the use of these practices by college teachers (Bruffee, 1993; Seldin & Associates, 1990; Wankat, 2002). Many colleges and universities have established centers for teaching and learning for this purpose (Rice, Sorcinelli, & Austin, 2000). Braxton, Luckey, and Helland (2002) found evidence that some institutions are starting to define expectations for faculty scholarship more consistently with institutional mission (p. 103). Johnstone (1993) has led the call for colleges and universities to focus on efficiently increasing student learning outputs rather than focusing exclusively on faculty instructional inputs. In the past decade, we also have learned that research universities, often the most criticized for paying inadequate attention to undergraduate teaching (Bok, 1992), vary in their origins and in their policies toward instruction and scholarship. Some have been research-oriented for decades; others evolved from a commitment to public service and only recently have focused heavily on research and scholarship. These historical differences are reflected in differing commitments to teaching and learning (Fairweather & Beach, 2002; Geiger & Feller, 1995). Indeed, some land-grant research universities, including the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Michigan State University, and the Pennsylvania State University through the new NSF Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning and other initiatives, are leading efforts to promote effective instructional practices. Yet countervailing forces remain. Some have argued that a national labor market for faculty based primarily on enhancing prestige through research productivity persists (Fairweather, 1995; Trow, 1984; Winston, 1994). …

Beyond the Rhetoric: Trends in the Relative Value of Teaching and Research in Faculty Salaries

Data on more than 4,000 full-time, tenure-track faculty in four-year colleges and universities were analyzed to examine the relative importance of teaching, research, administration, and service in determining basic salary. Results showed the dominance of a research-oriented faculty reward structure for each type of institution regardless of professed mission. The same research-oriented reward structure was evident in each type of discipline. Teaching activities seldom were rewarded; in some cases, time spent on teaching was negatively related to salary.

Faculty Reward Structures: Toward Institutional and Professional Homogenization.

The social and economic contributions which faculty make to society through teaching, research, and service have historically had both de­ monstrable value and cultural acceptance. Viewed as a “social good,” investment in higher education has been fundamental to maintaining the American social fabric (Bowen 1977; Leslie and Brinkman 1988, 8 0 82). This support is now eroding. Some critics view the role of faculty as educators— training citizens to participate in the workforce— as in­ sufficient, particularly in a global economy where more direct involve­ ment in technology transfer may be needed (Chmura, Henton, and Mel­ ville 1988; Tomatzky and Fleisher 1990, 236-57). The recent overhead expenditure fiascos at leading research universities also have tarnished the image of higher education, raising questions about the ethical use of funds received from public and private sources. In the name of account­ ability, some state officials have asked (or in some cases required) col­ leges and universities to demonstrate the productivity of their faculty (Jacobsen 1992).

Academic Values and Faculty Rewards

A nationally representative sample of youth with disabilities who recently exited high school was studied to determine the participation of the youth in postsecondary educational programs. The results show that youth with disabilities participate in postsecondary programs at only one-quarter the rate attained by their counterparts without disabilities and at only one-third the rate attained by economically disadvantaged youth. The relationship of postsecondary education for youth with disabilities to long-term success in employment is yet to be determined.

James S. Fairweather

Papers

The Mythologies of Faculty Productivity: Implications for Institutional Policy and Decision Making

Beyond the Rhetoric: Trends in the Relative Value of Teaching and Research in Faculty Salaries

Faculty Reward Structures: Toward Institutional and Professional Homogenization.

Academic Values and Faculty Rewards

Making the Transition to Postsecondary Education and Training