The Committee on Teaching

1999-2000 Annual Report

To the Academic Senate, Santa Cruz Division:

The Committee on Teaching (COT) met approximately twice per month to carry out its charge of fostering and promoting the teaching mission of the campus. The work and accomplishments of the Committee during the 1999-2000 year are summarized below.

Teaching and Technology

The Committee submitted an initiative to CPEVC Simpson, as part of the campus initiative process, for an augmentation of COT's budget in the amount of $125,000 for a three-year period. The purpose of the request was to allow COT to address Instructional Improvement (see below) proposals in the area of instructional technology. The majority of requests reviewed by COT are already of this type. Many technology-related instructional needs are met through divisional funding. However, since COT is the only faculty body on campus with the experience and charge of considering specifically the pedagogical merits of a request, COT advocated its own involvement in technology-related allocations. The EVC approved COT's initiative at $100,000 for a one-year period only, meaning that COT's budget in the current academic year will nearly double. Further augmentation of the regular funding was stated to depend on the degree of coordination in evidence between COT and divisions. We note that funding requests far outstrip our regular budget, and that COT is often unable to fund proposals that it feels deserve funding. Hence we would like to see our budget permanently increased.

COT formed a subcommittee to consider issues involving teaching and technology at UCSC. The main issue addressed was how to make the very decentralized technology support resources around campus more accessible and comprehensible to faculty. These include CATS, Media Services, and the Faculty Instructional Technology Center (FITC). COT drafted a memo to DUE Goff and others, the preliminary recommendation of which was to create an information resource that would allow any faculty member to find out easily who is responsible for what technology-related need, and how to reach that person. COT member Suresh Lodha took the lead in these discussions and deserves credit for a good deal of the work. It is expected that this endeavor will continue this academic year.

COT would like to point out an important new resource made available by CTE along these lines: the faculty Teaching Portal, at

TA Teaching Support

COT also formed a subcommittee on teaching support for graduate student teaching assistants. The subcommittee sent a memo to Dean of Undergraduate Education Goff making recommendations, including establishing ties between TA training initiatives at the department, division, and campus levels, and creating funding to support improved TA mentoring at the department level.

Instructional Improvement Program Grants

One of the regular charges of the committee is to adjudicate applications for Instructional Improvement Program (IIP) Grants. COT considered a total of 67 proposals. In all, 41 were funded for a total of $148,157.

IIP grants fell into the following categories:

Mini-grants are available throughout the year when COT is in session. They support small-scale projects designed to improve undergraduate instruction. Mini-grants have a maximum budget of $2,000. In the year-long competition for Mini-grants, there were 28 funded projects for a total of $41,869.

Teaching Development Incentive Awards are for faculty who wish to experiment with activities aimed at enhancing their development as teachers. Awards are in the form of a stipend of $500 to individual faculty or $2,000 to a department, college, or interdisciplinary unit. This was the third year that COT offered this type of award. In each of the past two years, there has been only one application in this category. The 1999-2000 proposals received funding in the amount of $2,000. Because of the underutilization of this category, and because of questions within the Committee concerning its merit, this category has been eliminated from the IIP.

Course Development Fellowships make up a grant category that was instituted two years ago for a two-year pilot program. The category will be retained in the IIP. The award provides $6,000 to cover one course release for a fellowship recipient. Course Development Fellows use the course release to develop a new undergraduate course or program in their departments or to make significant revisions in an older course. Recipients are asked to present and discuss some of their work at a workshop together in the following year. There were 12 applications for Course Development Fellowships, totaling $72,000. Of these, 5 were funded for a total of $30,000.

Individual/Collaborative Grants offer up to $15,000 for major projects aimed at improving undergraduate education. Large projects involving instructional technology, the bulk of our requests, were diverted to the Classroom Technologies Grants (see below). There was one application for an Individual/Collaborative Grant requesting a total of $8,975. This was not funded.

            Classroom Technologies Grants offer up to $15,000 to fund instructional technologies for undergraduate classrooms. For example, applicants for these grants might wish to develop course web sites, acquire specialized instructional software, or purchase other teaching-related equipment. There were 16 applications for Classroom Technologies Grants for a total of $190,153. Of these, 7 were funded for a total of $74,288.

Various methods were used in order to make the availability of the grant funding known. The annual Call for Proposals was sent out early last Fall quarter; announcements were also made by electronic mail. The Chair of COT and the Director of the Center for Teaching Excellence held an open forum early in the Winter quarter for faculty interested in the application process. The Center for Teaching Excellence also offered individual consultations to grant applicants all year long, as it has in the past.

In an ongoing effort to make the Call for Proposals clearer and more inviting to potential applicants, the Committee on Teaching and CTE Director Eileen Tanner carried out the annual review of the Call during COT's last meeting of the year on May 23.

Sixth Annual Convocation on Teaching

With the Center for Teaching Excellence, COT co-sponsored the Sixth Annual Convocation on Teaching, held on February 14, 2000 in Classroom Unit 2. The title was NES and pedagogy: are narrative evaluations important to teaching and learning at UCSC?  Four faculty members and one undergraduate student of UCSC acted as panelists, presenting diverging views on the subject. They were: Carolyn Dean, Associate Professor of Art History; Daniel Guevara, Associate Professor of Philosophy; Barbara Rogoff, Professor of Psychology; Anthony Tromba, Professor of Mathematics; and Juan Caballero, Regents Scholar and student of Cowell College. The Chair of COT introduced the event and moderated. Following the panel presentation, discussion was opened up to all attending. Approximately 100 people attended the Convocation.

National Trends

The Chair of COT and the Director of CTE attended the Professional and Organizational Development Conference in October, and gave a presentation on the history of CTE and COT initiatives. Along with another member of COT, Norman Locks of Art, they also attended the annual meeting on Faculty Roles and Rewards sponsored by the American Association for Higher Education (AAHE) in February.

Excellence in Teaching Awards

COT, in coordination with CTE, continued its efforts to better publicize these awards. The Call for Nominations appeared in all departments and colleges as well as other key locations on campus. Electronic mail announcements were sent to all faculty, department chairs, curricular deans, the Graduate Division, and the Student Union Assembly. In addition, for the first time flyers were sent, with the help of the colleges, to all students on campus. For the first time also, nominations were accepted for most of the academic year. The result was a total of 30 nominations from students.

To select the recipients, COT considered the nomination letters from students, endorsement letters from department chairs, and statements on teaching from the nominees themselves. Nominees who had already received an Excellence in Teaching Award within the last 5 years were excluded from consideration. Following past practice, COT also took into account information provided by the Registrar's Office about outstanding narrative evaluations. Nominees with missing evaluations were given an opportunity to explain or correct the Registrar's report. Only those who were up to date on their narratives were considered for an award.

COT selected 13 faculty for Excellence in Teaching Awards. They were presented by the Chancellor and the COT Chair at a University House reception on May 25. The recipients were Frank Bauerle (Mathematics), Murray Baumgarten (Literature), John Borrego (Community Studies), Linda Burman-Hall (Music), Geoffrey Dunn (Community Studies), Diane Gifford-Gonzalez (Anthropology), Stephen Gliessman (Environmental Studies), Craig Haney (Psychology), Robert Kuhn (Biology), Justin Revenaugh (Earth Sciences), Barbara Rogoff (Psychology), David Sweet (History), and Daniel Wirls (Politics).

Formalizing the Relationship between COT and CTE

The Committee on Teaching and the Center for Teaching Excellence work closely together. For example, CTE administers the Instructional Improvement Grants and Excellence in Teaching Awards Programs. CTE also co-sponsors the Convocation on Teaching. In addition, COT and especially the Chair historically act as faculty advisors with respect to CTE's own many initiatives, while CTE raises possibilities to COT for consideration. The Director of CTE has attended COT meetings ever since CTE first opened in 1991. To recognize the role that CTE has in COT initiatives and programs, and in order to solidify the Senate's voice in matters concerning CTE and teaching support, COT has been exploring ways of codifying the COT-CTE relationship. COT discussed these issues extensively with the Committee on Committees, the Senate Advisory Committee, and the Dean of Undergraduate Education (who oversees CTE). Ideas being explored include creating a Faculty Director of CTE position which future Chairs of COT would occupy, changing the COT Bylaws to include CTE in its charge, and changing the COT Bylaws to have the Director of CTE “sit with” COT. These issues will continue to be on the COT agenda this academic year.

Acknowledgments

The Committee is grateful for the continuing indispensable contributions of Eileen Tanner, Director of the Center for Teaching Excellence, and Laurie Babka, staff to COT from the Academic Senate Office. We also thank Jan Dickens, Director of Media Services, and Chris Laxton of Media Services, for their valuable input to the committee. Dean of Undergraduate Education Goff has been an important source of support for the Committee as well.

                                                                        Respectfully submitted,

                                                                        COMMITTEE ON TEACHING

                                                                        Robert Anderson
                                                                        Mary-Kay Gamel
                                                                        Norman Locks
                                                                        Suresh Lodha
                                                                        Justin Stevenson (student representative )
                                                                        Jaye Padgett, Chair


October 10, 2000