FacultyF1

We have very well qualified faculty. We have 3 full professors, 7 associate professors, and 1 assistant professor.  It would be helpful to our personnel processes and to the flexibility of our teaching, scholarship and service loads to have one or more of the associate professors promoted to full professor.  This year we have one full-time non-tenure track faculty member, and one administrative exempt faculty member assigned up to 15% teaching as needed and as available.  We also have one non-tenure track adjunct for two quarters as a sabbatical replacement in linguistic anthropology, and one non-tenure track adjunct full-time in winter quarter for high demand general education courses.  A new hire in biological anthropology who can teach at all levels of the curriculum will help to alleviate this need.  Some adjunct support is probably needed on an on-going basis to provide flexibility for research reassignments and sabbaticals.

Faculty Awards for Distinction 

2005    Prof. Michael Chinn, College of Arts and Humanities Distinguished Chair Award.

2004	Prof. William Folkestad Excellence in Teaching Award
National Residence Hall Honorary, Central Washington University.

2003	Prof. William Folkestad Excellence in Teaching Award
Central Washington University and the Center for Excellence in 
Leadership.

Currently half of full-time faculty are tenured.  The department has had difficulty recruiting and retaining full-time faculty due to low pay compared to industry.  In fall 2007 the department was approved to offer the 4th (vacant) full time position as a non-tenure track position with lower (B.S.) degree requirements, with the hopes of increasing the hiring pool and securing a faculty member who is committed for the long term.  Generally aviation professionals (pilots) from industry lack background in education, including understanding and ability to apply basic pedagogical methods.  Those with greater experience in teaching lack the required industry knowledge-base and experience.

Overall, the chemistry faculty are well prepared to teach in their area of expertise.  Student and peer evaluations reflect positively on the effectiveness of instruction in the chemistry department.  Some non-tenure track faculty have struggled early on to meet CWU student needs and to understand the prior knowledge our students come with.  These faculty have been mentored by the Chair and other faculty in their area of expertise.  The percentage of non-tenure track faculty is too high.  In Fall 2008, the department hopes to have four new assistant professors on board.  This will bring the percentage of tenure-track faculty back to an acceptable level.

The faculty in Communication have diverse backgrounds that contributes to the excellence of our programs.  The faculty are committed to their students and to staying current in their fields and demonstrate active scholarly and creative lives.  However, we have become over-reliant on part-time faculty.  This is especially true this year due to medical leaves and one sabbatical.  The dean has recognized this imbalance and has found funding for an additional tenure-track line, who began Sept. 2008.  We also were given an additional  FVS faculty member that will raise the tenure-track numbers to 10.  In spite of an 50 percent increase in majors over the last ten years, we have remained at 8 tenure-track faculty until this fall..

January, 2008
Adequacy and Preparation of Faculty

The five current full-time faculty members have extensive experience at both the undergraduate and graduate level from seventeen years to thirty-one years of experience in the profession.  All have established extremely positive records of contribution in teaching, scholarship and service.  The department also typically hires two or three adjunct, part-time facluty.  We have been fortunate to have access to individuals who meet our qualifications and who (as shown by our evaluations) make an important, positive contribution to our teaching mission.

Percentage of Tenured, Tenure-Track, Full-time Non-tenured and Part-time

All five full-time faculty are tenured.  Given the fact that this is a small department this is neither unexpected or inappropirate.  The full-time to part-time ratio of five to two or three allows full-time faculty to focus on the major program while qualified part-time faculty focus on our general education mission.

The strength of the DOE comes from its faculty. All full-time members of the economics faculty have Ph.D. degrees and are actively involved in teaching, research, and public service. One DOE faculty member has won the CWU Distinguished Professor of the Year Award-Teaching and three have won the CWU Distinguished Professor of the Year Award-Research. Several faculty members have also won various teaching and service awards sponsored by the COB and Central Washington University.

The faculty for the Department of Education, overall, is very strong. The teaching records for the faculty members demonstrate their abilities to incorporate department goals. There are always a few faculty members who need assistance in improving their professional abilities. These are addressed through training and mentoring.

Historically, the Department of Education has relied too heavily on non-tenure track and part-time faculty, particularly at the centers.  We are in the process of hiring 10 new tenure-track positions. This will greatly reduce this need.

Our faculty are well prepared to teach in their fields.  Two have received Distinguished Professor for Teaching awards and one received a Distinguished Professor for Service award.  In addition, two have received Phi Kappa Phi Distinguished Scholar awards, and another was named Washington State CASE Professor of the Year.

Our NTT faculty have extensive experience teaching composition, introductory literature courses, technical writing, and creative writing.  Seven of our NTT faculty have terminal degrees, and an eighth is ABD.  Although scholarship is not a part of their assignments, many are active scholars and creative writers.

By head count and number of sections taught, our T & TT faculty, FTNTT faculty, and part-time NTT faculty are roughly in line with national averages for departments with graduate teaching assistants.  By head count, T & TT faculty comprise 36% of instructors, compared with a 40% national average. During the 2007-2008 academic year, T & TT faculty taught 42% of all sections offered, slightly more than the national average of 40%.

The FCS department has adequate faculty resources for basic programs except for interior design.  Faculty from Business and Industry backgrounds have little experience in conducting scholarship but do provide excellent curriculum relevancy.  The Recreation and Tourism program would like to increase faculty resources and add an international program component.  The Family Studies program is offering a new graduate degree and would like additional staff resources to maintain the integrity of the two levels of programs.

The Dept has 10 full-time tenure track faculty and three full-time non-tenure track Lecturers.  There is one Lecturer at each campus.  This is a good balance of tenure and non-tenure track faculty and the distribution is fairly even across campuses.  The faculty are well prepared to deliver the programs we offer.
All tenure-track faculty have terminal degrees, except for two hired in 2008 who are ABD.

UPDATED JULY 2008
Faculty preparation to engage in scholarship is excellent. Geology faculty typically come from highly regarded, competitive PhD or post-doctoral programs that promote development of research skills, including designing and executing a research project, writing successful grants in support of research, and publishing in internationally published, peer reviewed journals. Although most faculty do not necessarily have direct training in undergraduate and graduate research mentoring prior to arrival, most faculty rapidly learn effective methods of mentoring. More experienced faculty often provide assistance and advice. Scholarship contributions are therefore more than adequate; geology faculty are accomplished in the areas of research and research mentoring and collectively have produced a distinguished record.

Teaching preparation typically consists of teaching assistance ship (TA) experiences in graduate school. In some cases, faculty arrive with substantial teaching experience acquired in NTT or previous TT jobs. Once a faculty member joins the department, experience is gained rapidly because of the teaching-intensive nature of faculty assignments at CWU. Particularly during the first few years of teaching, the department attempts to provide extensive feedback and mentoring. As noted above, the chair tries to apprise faculty members of development opportunities that enhance teaching. In general, faculty members are either well prepared to teach at CWU when they arrive, or they adapt during the first year or two of teaching. Standards are high in our department, and thus in general, faculty provide high quality experiences for all students.

As noted above, the ratio of TT to NTT changes each year. Because several of our NTT have been teaching in our department for more than one year, the quality of teaching is, in general, high. Seasoned NTT also allow us to maintain continuity in our undergraduate and graduate teaching programs. Multi-year contracts for NTT would further enhance the stability of our teaching programs by allowing us to have more concrete long-range teaching plans.

The History Department has actively sought out recognition for the accomplishments of its faculty.  The department chair has been honored with the university’s Distinguished Professor of Research Award.  Three members of the department have won the university’s Excellence in Teaching Award, and one member has won the College of Arts and Humanities’ Award for Faculty Research Excellence.  The faculty also successfully sponsored the department secretary for the Employee of the Month Award.  Faculty have also won university wide competitions for funding of research programs.

The faculty in ITAM continually revise course offerings and programs to best meet the needs of CWU students. Over the past five years, the ITAM faculty have designed new degrees, new programs, and new curricula. These changes have come about by careful research through professional organizations, advisory groups, student feedback, and industry interviews.

The majority of upper-division courses are taught by tenured or tenure-track faculty, with adjuncts and non-tenure-track faculty teaching the majority of our lower-division courses.

Not only do faculty members excel in being outstanding scholars but also all have been or concurrently are practitioners in criminal justice as police officers, correctional counselors, prosecutors and defense attorneys. Their expertise as professionals along with their excellence in scholarship makes them an outstanding group to model for our law and justice students. Since about one third of our classes are taught by non tenured/tenured track faculty, we need to reduce this ratio.

The high percentage of full time non-tenure track faculty creates a number of problems. However, this is not the result of their teaching abilities, but the following:

Failure by CWU to provide long-term contracts for historically stable positions creates concerns about potential turn-over. Obviously this is a concern for the non-tenure track faculty, but it is also a concern for the department as it may lose good faculty due to the late date at which contracts are offered.

Service credits are lost when non-tenure track faculty are hired instead of tenure-stream faculty. Under the ratio of 12:2:1 for teaching:scholarship:service, each non-tenure stream faculty (hired for 45 workload units) results in a loss of approximately 3.75 workload units of service. Unlike scholarship which is tied to individual faculty members, service is heavily tied to the size of the department and hence this loss means there isn’t time to meet all service requirements.

Given the high number of large general education courses taught by the department, retaining a relatively large proportion of full-time non-tenure track faculty is reasonable, however, accommodations must be made to retain these faculty members and tenure-stream faculty must be provided with adequate service release to compensate.

Faculty in the department faculty are well prepared for their work. The department has been going through a generational transition and at times the ratio of tenured-faculty has been low, but we are coming out of that. The department has had a percentage of non-tenure track faculty that is larger than most departments, in part due to our large offering in Gen Ed.

Overall, physics faculty are well prepared to teach at the introductory and advanced levels, particularly in their area of expertise.  While some faculty struggle in generating “high” SEOI scores, peer evaluations reflect positively on the effectiveness of instruction in the Physics Department.  As discussed earlier, the percentage of course offerings provided by non-tenure-track faculty is too high.  The addition of a tenure-track faculty member would assist in bringing this to an acceptable level.  Dr. Bruce Palmquist was selected as the 2005 Washington Professor of the Year, awarded by the Carnegie Foundation and Council for Advancement and Support of Education.

Our faculty is well-qualified and prepared in terms of the teaching and research areas within our program, though improved support through reassigned time or flexible workloads for scholarship, professional and technological development opportunities, etc., would be beneficial.  Before 2007-08, as mentioned in our 5-year program review, the department was strapped by having a number of members with reduced teaching loads due to administrative (chair, director, etc.) reassignments as well as missing certain subfield specialties, especially Latin American politics.  With the hiring of a new tenure-track Assistant Professor in Latino and Latin American studies (granted, only 2/3 time in the department), we are in better shape than before.  Thus, overall the Department appears relatively strong.
Jan. 08

(January 2008)
The disciplinary specialties of our department’s faculty cover the breadth of our mission very well. All of our tenure track faculty members have earned an appropriate doctoral degree and come to us with impressive teaching and research experience. New faculty members are hired from applicant pools that allow us to choose from many highly qualified candidates. Many non-tenure-track and part-time faculty members also have earned the doctoral degree and have professional experience that makes them very desirable instructors. 

Tenure-track turnover and undergraduate minor programs at university centers recently have resulted in an increased proportion of non-tenure-track and part-time faculty. These instructors are sometimes hired quickly from small applicant pools and may not have a long-term commitment to the university. These factors sometimes result in uneven teaching quality and unpredictable staffing stability. We expect these uncertainties to subside as we replace term appointees with tenure-track faculty.

The distribution of faculty resources is currently changing for the better for the department after a period of steady decline. At present we have nine tenure-stream faculty (including a full-time associate dean of COTS), one FTNT faculty member, and one part-time adjunct lecturer on Ellensburg campus. The department is conducting a search for a new tenure track faculty who is expected to join us in the fall of 2008. All tenure-stream faculty have doctoral degrees in sociology and expertise in the courses they teach.

Full-time Tenures and Tenure Track Faculty 63% FTE 10
Full-time Non-Tenure Track Faculty 13% FTE 2
Part-time Faculty 24% FTE 0.5

Ratio is very appropriate for our discipline.

Faculty members have worked professionally at theatres throughout the country and continue to maintain personal and professional relationships with theatre artists nationwide. Recently, faculty has worked at Artists Repertory Theatre, (Portland, OR), and Idaho Repertory Theatre. All of our faculty belong to national theatre organizations and unions, including, but not limited to: Screen Actors Guild, Actors Equity Association, American Dramatists Guild, Association of Theatre in Higher Education, Voice and Speech Trainers Association, American Federation of Television & Radio Artists, and the United States Institute for Theatre Technology, as national and regional members, (two faculty are serving or have served as officers for the regional chapter).

Our faculty are regular presenters and adjudicators at regional conferences and university productions throughout the region. The Theatre Arts Department has actively sought out recognition for the accomplishments of its faculty. One of our senior professors has been honored with the Phi Kappa Phi Distinguished Professor Award. Two members of the department have won the College of Arts and Humanities’ Excellence in Teaching Award. One of our faculty recently received the Horace Robinson Award for Service to Education Theatre from the Northwest Drama Conference. Several of our faculty and staff have also been awarded Certificates of Merit by the KCACTF for various artistic accomplishments. The department has produced plays written by our faculty, both as staged readings and as fully-mounted productions.

QUESTION: FacultyF1