Some Things We Heard at the First ACE Faculty Forum
November 14, 1996

• What do we expect of our students?
• Applied skills for a job v. society's values.
• We need to adjust our teaching methods and techniques to fit today's student--the MTV kids!
  • We need to teach our faculty members to teach, if they didn't learn this in their doctoral programs. There was general agreement that most doctoral programs did not teach us to teach.
• An office is needed to support teaching.
  • We have the Teaching Excellence Award, etc. but we need more incentives (monetary and nonmonetary) to encourage good teaching and innovations in teaching.
    • Who should furnish this professional development in support of teaching? Who pays for it? Is it going to be valued by the institution?
• How can we emphasize interpersonal skills in our curriculum?
  • We don't need a separate class. This should be integrated throughout the curriculum.
• Encourage students to expect a challenge for the degree and not to expect a "gimme" just for being in the classes.
• What is the role of education in a democratic society:
  • People who can think are essential for a free society. We need individuals capable of being citizens in a democratic republic.
• We must prepare students for a job and provide a "well-rounded" educational experience.
• SFA has a good emphasis.
  • Maybe all we need is a change in our marketing to really emphasize our teaching environment.
• Today's students are market driven. If that's the case, why do they come to SFA? Answer: environment!
• How can we take advantage of our emphasis on the full college experience? Not only do we emphasize teaching and a student-oriented classroom environment, we also emphasize the overall college experience.
• How do we market our teaching emphasis? Can we? Or, is this word-of-mouth all we can count on?
• SFA still lacks a global perspective. Our students will be hurt because of this.
• University is developing leaders; therefore, we might need to adapt the curriculum to produce these leaders.
• How do we foster critical thinking?

• Interaction with communication
• Living conditions - housing & atmosphere
• Size - Like to see SFA grow to about 12 -15,000 so that we may still enjoy the quality of library and offer the current array of programs.
• Lots of people in "big room " idea left over from 1950's
• Faculty influence quality of teaching and environment. Currently faculty are in transition. Salaries are not competitive - hard to hire top people.
• We should work toward the "guide on the side" philosophy and move away from the "sage on the stage" philosophy
• We will need to engage in more mentoring of our students

• Look at demand vs surplus vs. competition
• Performance or standards
• Inflation of grades
• "Do more with less"
• Provide scholarships to entice better students into programs and allow the incentives to be at the department or college level as well as the tier for university recruiters.
• Graduate students: offer more money; offer housing options; pay with housing opportunities; assure year round options.
• What will be the impact on SFA of the non-traditional student? How do we accommodate them?
  • What about more weekend and evening courses?

• Coexistence with technology as a tool for instruction
• Distance Learning was a controversial issue with strong feelings on both sides.
• Should we compete or how do we "move our fingers" into the pie of community colleges?
  • Some felt that we should work more on articulation with the Community Colleges, not competing with them. Offer more 300 and 400 level courses where there is no competition.
• Necessary to define the position of the University and perhaps let SFA develop a technological outlet!

• Erosion in education and who are the competition? corporations, industry
• Query: Does academics drive the budget or does the budget drive academics
  • Would reallocation of resources be appropriate and necessary?

• We are responsible for the problems in K-12 education when we establish unrealistic requirements for teacher education, particularly in math.
• Poor teachers should be eliminated - as long as we could establish standards for what a good teacher is versus a poor teacher.
• Look at the evaluation process on the campus - HEAF monies and replacement funds
• How do we educate the public on the value of education?
• Teaching not rewarded at SFA

• Human beings are reoccuring problemmatic costs which must be dealt with.

• They discussed more metropolitan universities; we are rural.
• Core versus perimeter. Did Zemsky really mean that all undergraduate education is core? Note: According to the article we saw in St. Louis, he didn't mean this.
• What is the core at SFA and what is the perimeter? This was mentioned but not really discussed in detail.

• Tenure: encourage innovation.
• Can Department Chairs be fooled? One thought so. Others did not agree.