New Faculty's Perception of Faculty Development Initiatives at Small Teaching Institutions
Table 1
Themes and subthemes derived from qualitative analysis.
Themes
Institutional challenges subthemes
Barriers subthemes
Facilitators subtheme
Faculty development programs
New faculty development program (i) Lack of support for promotion/tenure P11: “Well, that’s something that I would hope would be enhanced. New faculty orientation, I mean it is couple of days at least on the calendar, but really it was a morning with some people in the administration and it was more structured along the lines of the nuts and bolts of human resources… but I would have liked more in terms of… explaining the process of probation and development and what they are looking for and how they gauge success year after year. I would have liked more of that because I found you can get that by asking colleagues and asking your chair, but I think it would be a good thing to see more of that upfront for new faculty.” (ii) Lack of support for teaching and scholarship P13: “I think there is [are] okay resources around teaching, but it could be better. Well, periodically, they will have a continuing program and the next one with college is in October… I would like to see that a little more consistently… but I would like to see a little more comprehensive around teaching. Around research, the support is awful.” (iii) Lack of formal mentoring (program) P10: “I have not had any and I would like to be involved in this mentorship [mentoring] program. I have not had any unofficial [informal] mentor… No I never had any mentor, unfortunately. I would like to… to be enrolled and engaged in mentorship [mentoring] program. I would love to have anybody… whether from my discipline or a different discipline to mentor me. It would be encouraging to me and motivating and keeps me going and make sure that I am doing the right things.”
(iv) Lack of mentors support for promotion/tenure P14: “… tenureship , I need to know more about that and what that means, how you get there, and if I had a mentor in or out of the department, I could ask them those question[s]….”
New faculty orientation program (i) Time constraints from teaching P5: “I think NFO is a valuable component that the college is initiating. But it’s a limitation for myself…it would be wonderful to have it at a different time in order to make it more feasible to get to.” (ii) Curriculum sequence P4: “the active learning that was first introduced in NFO was extremely helpful… I would have liked to see it earlier in our curriculum.”
Mentorship (i) Access to formal/informal on- or off-campus mentors P9: “I have had some kind of informal mentorship with Dr. [XXX] and I think that has been wonderful.”
P7: “I do have mentors informally also, outside of the college that I consult. There are colleagues… I went to graduate school with, at other institutions and in other positions, so I call them up… about this… issue and solicit suggestions and ideas from them. And if I have a question or suggestion about teaching, I don ’ t hesitate to talk to those folks. So yeah, I would say… the quality of the relationship is excellent.” New faculty orientation program (i) Positive learning experience P7: “the last meeting we had about grants, I know I am moving into the second year of my appointment. So, it’s time… for me to start thinking about writing a grant. But I had no ideas, how to start, where to send it, where to look, but with that information, it made it easier and now [I] kind of have some information about where to start. I think that was a very very wonderful resource.” (ii) Opportunity to interact with interdisciplinary faculty P2: “what I liked best about [NFO]…was having those people talk about their experiences and [being] able to ask how did you teach… did it work for you or not… I think that helps, having the perspective from different colleagues…. It was more like I felt I am in good company and I can ask stupid questions, they are not going to go ‘why did you not know that,’ ‘how did you get the job without knowing.’ ”
