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iCAT

iCat Corner

"Nearly everything CWU does should revolve around and support the faculty-student experience to maximize learning and our collective ability to productively contribute to the world. Faculty teaching and scholarship inform one another and help make the CWU student experience distinct. Current faculty workload and activities reporting processes are inefficient and unnecessarily restrict faculty and student performance. Tools that reduce workflow inefficiency are needed to allow faculty to improve teaching performance and further pursue scholarly and creative endeavors that benefit everyone at CWU."


Ian J. Quitadamo, Ph.D.
Professor of Biology and Science Education
Central Washington University


The upcoming changes in Faculty Workload Plans and Activity Reports are “stunning” according to folks who have been involved in this iCAT Project. As a refresher, the Faculty Workload is a document that summarizes the proposed workload for the following year. It includes teaching load, scholarship/research proposals and service opportunities. The Workload Plan is typically submitted by faculty members in February and finalized by the Provost by June 15th. In October, the Activity Report is submitted and it is a summary of what was accomplished the previous year. The Activity Report becomes a part of the professional record upon which faculty are evaluated for tenure, reappointment, promotion and post tenure review. Typically the professional record is collected and put into two or three binders; a very labor intensive process. Each set of records have to be copied so that it can move through the five levels of review; Department Personnel Committee, Chair, College Personnel Committee, Dean and the Provost.


The beauty of the new Faculty 180 is that there will be one electronic record that can be viewed simultaneously from anywhere! Our forests are thanking us! Benefits to faculty members include:


• The professional record can be easily updated.
• Faculty 180 automatically creates a Curriculum Vitae
• Can upload scholarship, research and service activities that will be contained in the electronic record.
• No longer have to gather, print, collate the materials – a great time saver and stress reducer


There are also substantial benefits to departments. Data analysis can assist with program review and accreditation. It will also be a great assistance with grant submissions. Charlene Andrews, former administrative assistant in the College of Arts and Humanities, who has been working closely with this project  thinks that in addition to being “really slick,”faculty 180 has the potential to reduce the time required to put professional records together by 50 percent.

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