Those Who Can, Teach
by O'Dette Havel
published in ARKANSAS, The Magazine of the Arkansas Alumni Association
Summer 1995, Vol. 44, No. 4
Veteran professors in the UA Teaching and Faculty Support Center boost the classroom confidence of new faculty and give long-time teachers a jumpstart to recharge their batteries.
There was method in their (seeming) madness.
The refreshments were zany, and early visitors to the Teaching and Faculty Support Center (TFSC) aren't likely to forget the menu, even if they try--Twinkies, Cheetos and root beer. "There were lots of left overs," one person recalled later. Folks were used to tidy bite-sized cookies and vegetables with low-fat dip at their faculty mixers. The off-beat refreshments were hardly an accident. "Paul and Wally and I wanted the Teaching Center to have an element of fun," said Ro Di Brezzo, one of three part-time co-directors who started the center. "We wanted to let people know that learning doesn't have to be awkward or difficult. I think we tried to carry that over."
Each of the trio, selected to organize and run TFSC, is an accomplished and respected teacher first and foremost. They knew each other through University committee work, but had their own reservations about "telling people how to teach." They wondered how the center would be viewed by people on campus--it was important, they felt, that the faculty know it was designed to be "by the faculty and for the faculty" and "not an administration deal."
Di Brezzo is a professor of kinesiology, the study of human muscular movement, in the College of Education. Paul Cronan is a professor of computer information systems and quantitative analysis in the College of Business Administration, and Wally Cordes is a professor of chemistry in Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences. After two years, Cronan rotated off of the team and was replaced by Tom McKinnon, an economics professor. Cordes' term will be up in July. (WWW note: Craig Beyrouty has now replaced Wally on the TFSC team.)
The University's goal was to provide a center that would be a support for campuswide teaching efforts. "We wanted to establish a reputation as both a helpful and good place for faculty who already were excellent teachers but wanted to get even better, as well as a place for people to come who were having trouble with their teaching," Cordes said.
"From the beginning, our target was the new faculty because we were trying to make people aware of the center's existence. "We wanted them to know right away what we were trying do," he said.
Restructuring the existing orientation program for new faculty became one of the TFSC's early projects, as was organizing new faculty luncheons and visits to every dean on campus and "every department that invited us."
Elizabeth Lamb, an assistant professor in horticulture attended the first new faculty orientation sponsored by the center. She said those early contacts with the TFSC made a real difference to her as an incoming, inexperienced faculty member.
"The orientation was wonderful, and the fact that I have a diverse group of friends--friends from all over campus--is because of new faculty orientation," she said. "The luncheons were wonderful, too. There was a great exchange of information."
Veteran faculty members have found the center helpful, too.
Since Daniel Levine joined the UA faculty in 1980, his skills in teaching the classics, Latin and Greek have become almost legendary. He was one of the founding members of the UA Teaching Academy, which also promotes teaching excellence on the campus.
"I became interested in the Teaching and Faculty Support Center when I heard about the teaching portfolio idea. I saw it as an opportunity to do a scientific examination of my teaching, what worked, what didn't." he said. After preparing his own portfolio as part of the teacher/mentor program sponsored by the center, he helped others prepare their portfolios. He was assigned as a mentor to faculty members in physics, education, economics and law. "We learned a lot from each other," he said.
"Preparing the portfolios makes you a better teacher by forcing you to go back and examine and evaluate every teaching technique you've ever used. It forces you to set goals for yourself. It helps you look at the future."
The teaching portfolio workshop was only one of 17 that the center sponsored in its first two years. All together, more than half the 940 teaching faculty members attended workshops or luncheons the center sponsored. In 1993-94, 11 departments invited the center to teach a workshop in their departments on alternatives to lecturing, the teaching portfolio, exploring diversity or teaching and learning styles.
That the team is so frequently asked to talk with other faculty members reflects the respect they have earned on campus. The co-directors make a good team, combining energy and enthusiasm with specific goals they want to bring to the center.
"Wally keeps us on task with the practical things," Di Brezzo says of her co-worker. "Paul was the dreamer of the original three, and I always try to remind them there is always another way to look at things."
"I've tried to make us conscious of the diversity on our campus, and that we literally have faculty from all over the world. Those people come with academic and cultural orientations that are different from ours. That's what we celebrate. That's the life line of campus."
McKinnon is exploring different types of learning styles among students. "We know that different people learn in different ways," he said. "Some are visual learners; if they see it, they remember it. Others are more verbal. They have to transfer what they see into language. Some are global learners. There are personality assessment tests you can give students that can help the students and professors know what their learning styles are." "I've been at the University since 1971, and done many different things across campus," he continued. "The association with Wally and Ro, planning and carrying out these workshops and meeting people across campus has been very rewarding to me. It is really fun."