Target: The unit has policies and practices that encourage all professional education faculty to be continuous learners. Experienced unit faculty mentor new faculty, providing encouragement and support for developing scholarly work around teaching, inquiry, and service.
For all EMU lecturers (full-time faculty members not on the tenure track), the Lecturer's Contract (see Exhibit 6.13) states (Article XIII.A) that the Lecturers' "professional responsibility" includes "developing and maintaining their professional skills (e.g., professional development) in order to ensure a high quality education for their students." There is similar, although broader, language in the AAUP Contract (see Exhibit 6.12), Article IX.A, applicable to all EMU tenure-track faculty members.
The AAUP Contract calls for tenure-track faculty members "to engage in pursuits that enable them to be current in their respective disciplines, to continually improve their understanding of the learning process and use of pedagogical methods that promote learning. . . . [T]o engage in pursuits that help to further organize and contribute to growth of the body of knowledge in their respective disciplines, and /or to explore interdisciplinary implications. . . . [T]o engage in pursuits that further the interests of their respective disciplines, the University, their Colleges, their Departments, and the community at large."
See Standard 6.C for a discussion of both campus-wide and internal to the COE professional development opportunities that are available to professional education faculty members. For approximately a decade, each new tenure-track faculty member in the COE has been assigned a mentor from among the experienced members of the new faculty member's department. Each new academic administrator in the COE is assigned a mentor from among persons with similar responsibilities. Mentors are recognized at the COE Fall Conference each year. Other resources are provided (e.g., the COE Faculty Directory [see Exhibit G-18] with faculty areas of interest) such as to facilitate incoming faculty members making additional linkages for support.