Dear Rick,
This approach works very well for us at our college. New faculty become
the "Class of 03" and participate in a 3-year program wherein they meet
monthly with the VP of Instruction. (This is in addition to their mentors
and appraisal teams.) He has them build the agenda from the kinds of
things they want to know plus those things he feels are necessary -- and
then they are put into interdisicplinary teams and sent out to research
the topics and come back to the group. We have noticed a substantial
difference in the ability of our new faculty to "bond" with the college.
Unlike their predecessors who didn't have such a program, they are much
more aware of institutional, even state, priorities and issues beyond
their individual departments and they are more familiar with collegues
from other areas of campus. I note that they are generally much more
eager to participate in extracurricular activities, such as committees,
even though we limit that participation the first year so they can focus
on their classes. We now have our more "experienced" faculty wanting
something designed for them!
Harriett J. Robles
hjrobles@aol.com
--Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>