1) Defining the scholarship of teaching and learning as it applies to Geneseo's efforts to enhance pedagogical development and evaluation, and to introduce a Teaching and Learning Center on campus.

2) Pursuing our campus issue for the Carnegie Program--how to implement the "Scholarship of Teaching and Learning" at Geneseo, with the longer-term aim of including it in our evaluation system.

REPORT OF OUTCOMES OF CAMPUS CONVERSATIONS, PART ONE
 

 1.  Institution:  State University of New York at Geneseo, a Comprehensive University II.  Contact person is:  Helena Waddy, Professor of History (waddy @geneseo.edu;  Department of History, SUNY Geneseo, 1 College Circle, Geneseo, NY 14454; 716-243-0284)
  
 2.  Geneseo's definition of the scholarship of teaching and learning emerged as follows:

 "The scholarship of teaching and learning is identification and investigation of issues related to teaching and/or learning, application of results to practice, reflection, and peer dialogue."

 We altered the original definition in order to accomodate our local interpretation of the scholarship of teaching and learning 
and to further our desire to incorporate related activities into our evaluation system. 

 3.  Structures, policies, and practices supporting the scholarship of teaching at Geneseo:

1.  Faculty and staff:
  
 a.  SUNY-wide Chancellor's Excellence in Teaching Awards and Distinguished Teaching Professorships are available to the Faculty.

 b.  Faculty consistently develop new and experimental courses, sometimes with the support of Curriculum Development 
grants.  Funded professorships on the college level specifically encourage development and presentation of new courses as well as discussion across disciplines.  Institutional support for such courses encourages this level of experimentation to some degree.

 c.  Some faculty are involved in team-teaching within the department or in interdisciplinary team-teaching, as well as 
training to teach interdisciplinary courses. 

 d.  Some faculty are researching and publishing in the field of teaching and learning and/or  author internal academic 
support materials.

 e.  Faculty on Geneseo's Diversity Commission are exploring ways for professors to incorporate cultural diversity 
issues into classroom teaching.
  
  f.  The Faculty Teaching and Program Development Committee coordinates Faculty Development activities on campus.

 g.  The Assessment Planning Committee coordinates the assessment of learning outcomes on the departmental level.

 h.  Milne Library workshops provide training in the use of technology and search procedures.

 i.  Geneseo's Laptop Computer Initiative and other technical supports underwrite the innovative use of technology in 
teaching.
 

    
2.  Departments:   

 a.  Several departments hold discussions about teaching and/or organize mentoring programs, including the mentoring of 
Teaching Assistants; some use peer review of teaching in their evaluation process.     

 b.  Some departments have taken part in the Council Of Public Liberal Arts Colleges disciplinary meetings.  

 c.  Some departmental chairs support attendance at teaching conferences.

    
 4.  The structures, policies, and practices that inhibit the scholarship of teaching at Geneseo:
 

 a.  There is no broad campus culture to support the scholarship of teaching and learning, and Geneseo does not 
yet have a Teaching and Learning Center, a formal, college-wide mentoring program (although some prefer informal mentoring), and established mechanisms for sharing the scholarship of teaching and learning.  Moreover, the scholarship of teaching and learning is not explicitly recognized or rewarded in the evaluation process, and there is a lack of a formalized peer review process that follows common standards throughout the college.  Sabbatical policies do not encourage proposals to develop courses or to read outside the discipline.

 b.  Faculty suffer from extreme time restraints and little interaction inside and outside the departments deriving from:  
heavy and inequitably distributed teaching loads (both number of courses and number of students); and lack of release time to develop the scholarship of teaching and learning.  In addition there is little monetary support for training, workshops, and 
conference attendance in the teaching and learning field, especially if the faculty member is not presenting; technical support for the development of new instructional materials is sometimes inadequate as well.

 c.  Student evaluation of teaching forms do not reflect in fullthe philosophy of teaching at Geneseo,
  
 d.  Faculty have only limited opportunities for team-taught interdisciplinary teaching as this teaching must take place as an 
overload or cost the department a course in the major. 
 

 5.  Geneseo's issue and plan of action for Part Two of Campus Conversations:
  .
1.  Geneseo's issue:

 "In what ways can Geneseo best encourage faculty members to do the scholarship of teaching and learning?  
What changes in the evaluation and reward system can we make to support these efforts?"
 

2.  The following plans of action have emerged to date: 

1.  Encouraging the scholarship of teaching and learning: 

 a.  Committing several thousand dollars to fund projects in the scholarship of teaching and learning for  2000-2001. 
Projects could include establishing venues for reflective discussion and peer review of scholarly efforts on campus, faculty 
development workshops, and teaching circles.

 b.  Providing Geneseo's Carnegie Campus Program listserve, talk-l, as a resource to all faculty for ongoing discussion of teaching of scholarship and learning issues, inviting them to join in on the electronic debate.  This debate should help to document and share faculty scholarship related to teaching and learning.

 c.  Supporting all efforts on campus to establish a Teaching and Learning Center.  Members of the Campus Program 
also plan to work together with the Faculty Teaching and Program Development Committee in developing and institutionalizing support programs for faculty teaching, including the funding of travel to teaching conferences and workshops.  They will also support faculty seeking to obtain external grants to fund scholarship of teaching and learning activities on campus.  These initiatives should help to foster changes in the campus culture that will underwrite the scholarship of teaching and learning.

 
2.  Changing the evaluation and reward system:

 a.  Educating the evaluators (administrators, personnel committees, and chairs) about the value of the scholarship of teaching and learning.

 b.  Improving communication between the administration and faculty about the importance of teaching and the scholarship of teaching and learning at Geneseo.   

 c.  Making explicit and well known the expectations for various forms of scholarship, working toward 
campus-wide understanding of what "teaching," "scholarship," and "scholarship of teaching and learning" mean in different disciplines. 
  
 d.  Revising the "H" form used to evaluate faculty performance to include recognition of the scholarship of teaching and learning, either by adding a separate category, "The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning," or by adding the scholarship of teaching and learning to all three categories:  Teaching, Contributions to the Discipline, and Service.  This process should include the improvement and standardization of the peer review of teaching in departments.

 e. Exploring flexibility in the evaluation process, perhapsthrough the development of "creativity contracts" as defined and 
explained in Boyer's 1990 book.  Such contracts would be valuable not only to faculty anticipating major personnel decisions 
but to mid-level tenured and senior faculty.  They might also prove valuable to departments, and hence to the College as a whole, as instruments of assessment.  If faculty agree, in writing, to devote their energies to fairly well defined activities for a period of three to five years at a time, and if, at the end of each period, they report, in writing, on how they have fulfilled such agreements, then departments have ready-made reports on faculty productivity--with "productivity" open to multiple definitions, spelled out in individual contracts, not narrowly restricted to "hours logged," "students taught," or "articles published." 

 
 6.  Key words and terms that are important in Geneseo's discussion of the scholarship of teaching and learning (other than 
those listed on p. 15 of the CASTL booklet):
  
 Creativity contracts; diversity; electronic dialogue; evaluation and reward system; experimentation; faculty development; innovation; mentoring; peer dialogue; Teaching and Learning Center; teaching circles; teaching portfolios; team-teaching; and technological infrastructure.
 

 7.  Senior Campus Administrator supporting Geneseo's Carnegie Campus Program:  Professor Barbara Dixon, 
Provost;  Office of the Provost, Erwin Hall, SUNY Geneseo, 1 College Circle, Geneseo, NY  14454;  716-245-5531; 
dixon@geneseo.edu.