Standard X - FACULTY
Swarthmore College Education —> State Review
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College-Wide Faculty Demographics and Diversity
In the Fall semester of 2001-2002, the Swarthmore included 160 tenured and tenure-track faculty, 16 temporary faculty, and 19 full-time leave replacements. Approximately 8l% percent of the regular full-time faculty are tenured. 48.5% of the regular faculty are Full Professors, 30.5% are Associate Professors and 20.5% are Assistant Professors. Women comprise approximately 36 percent of the full-time faculty; minorities comprise 14%. Ninety-eight percent of all of the regular full-time faculty hold doctorates in their respective disciplines. Swarthmore College is committed to increasing the diversity of the faculty. Special attempts to hire women faculty are no longer pursued in most departments. However, the College's ability to hire and retain faculty of color remains a high priority. In the last ten years, the numbers of minority faculty have increased from 11% to 14%. Currently 7.8 of the faculty are African American, 3.6% are Asian, and 3.6% are Latino/a. (See the Swarthmore College 2001 Fact Book in the Document Room for additional information.) In the hiring process, departments are asked to advertise faculty openings through journals, publications, placement offices that will reach faculty of color. The Office of Human Resources provides materials to each department about ways in which a department can maximize the number of faculty of color in the applicant pool and how to assure equality of opportunity during the interviewing and hiring process. An additional way in which Swarthmore attempts to increase the presence of faculty of color on campus is the College's participation in the Minority Scholar in Residence Program. This is a consortium of selective liberal arts colleges that collaborates in a program to bring doctoral candidates who are completing the dissertation process to their campuses for a year in which they spend half of their time working on their thesis and half-time teaching. This program gives doctoral candidates an opportunity to see what teaching in a selective liberal arts college entails, with the goal of encouraging faculty of color to teach in this type of college environment. In several cases the College has subsequently hired a Minority Scholar in Residence for a regular faculty line. The presence of Minority Scholar in Residence Fellows on campus also clearly enhances the opportunities of our students to interact with faculty of color and of departments to diversify their course offerings.
Education Faculty
There are three tenured faculty in the Education Program, all of whom are women and Full Professors. (At the time these individuals were hired, women comprised a fairly small percentage of the faculty and an all-female department clearly contrasted with the heavily male departments in most of the College. In future appointments, most specifically when the current Education Chair retires probably in four years, the Education Program will make diversity both in terms of gender and racial/ethnic diversity a priority.) All regular faculty have doctorates in Education (two from Harvard and one from Bryn Mawr). All three tenured faculty in Education have experience teaching at the middle and/or high school level. One tenured faculty member was also Associate Dean of the College on a rotating faculty assignment for three years and during one semester was Acting Dean of the College. Another has served as the Social Sciences Division Chair for two years and as Chair of the Women's Studies Program for a year. All three have served, often multiple times, on the two elected faculty committee, the Council on Educational Policy and/or the Committee on Faculty procedures. In l999, the Education Program was allowed to make an additional full-time, renewable appointment for three years. The College has agreed to turn this position into a tenure track line, as soon as funds from the current Capital Campaign permit. The faculty member in this position also has public school teaching experience, worked for the New Jersey Department of Education, was the Curriculum Coordinator for a group of school districts in New Jersey, and recently completed a doctorate in Education at the University of Pennsylvania. All of the full-time Education faculty teach sections of the Introduction to Education. They all also supervise student teachers, though not every semester. Teaching of the discipline-based education courses, such as Educational Psychology, Adolescence and Urban Education, are taught by Education faculty with research and/or graduate school training in these fields. In l999-2000, Education was fortunate to have a Minority Scholar in Residence Fellow, a Japanese Hawaiian male from the University of Wisconsin, who completed his dissertation while in residence and also contributed importantly to the discussion of diversity in the courses he taught. (See faculty vitae, in Appendix K for additional detail about the qualifications of the regular Education faculty.)
In addition to the four full-time faculty in Education, we typically hire part-time faculty, to teach a total of two to three courses a year. These include, for example, a high school English teacher who has a doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania and regularly teaches a section of Introduction to Education, a professor at Widener College with extensive experience as a Special Education teacher who has a doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania and teaches Special Education on an every other year basis, a former counselor in the Career Planning and Placement Office at Swarthmore who has a doctorate from the University of Delaware and teaches Counseling on an every other year basis, and the Director of the Schuylkill Valley Nature Center who teaches Environmental Education on an every other year basis. Student teaching supervision is done by both regular Swarthmore faculty and by part-time College supervisors. Part-time supervisors, of whom we typically hire 3 to 4 a year, usually have Masters Degrees (or higher) and teaching experience at the elementary and/or secondary level. College Supervisors typically supervise between one and three student teachers each semester. In most cases the College Supervisor has teaching or research experience in student teacher's content area. Supervision of four student teachers per semester equals a course equivalent. College Supervisors and local school practitioners also teach some of the Special Methods workshops in the secondary content areas and in elementary education. Vitae of part-time Education faculty and the vitae of College Supervisors are included in Appendix K.
Swarthmore Faculty Evaluation Process
Prior to being granted tenure, faculty undergo two major reviews of their teaching, scholarship and service—in the third year of their employment and in the sixth. As part of these reviews, letters are collected from current and former students, all departmental faculty members, six faculty outside of the individual's department and six faculty members external to the College. These sources of information, in addition to the faculty member's scholarship and service, are evaluated by the Committee on Tenure and Promotion. Most faculty members are promoted to Associate Professor at the time they receive tenure. For promotion to Full Professor, a review of the same type is conducted. (See the Faculty Handbook in Document Room for further detail about the review process.) While there is no formal College-wide system of course evaluation, many deparments, including Education, ask students to complete mid-semester and/or end of the semester evaluations of their courses. These evaluations may be discussed with department members and/or the department chair. Occasionally faculty members also observe each others' classes and discuss curricula and teaching strategies. Some departments, including Education, occasionally discuss teaching strategies and curricula for a portion of some regular department meetings and others do so in special meetings for that purpose.
Faculty Professional Development
The College provides for the professional development of its faculty through sabbatical leaves, financial support for research, and programs contributing to improved teaching. The College has a very generous sabbatical leave policy. All full-time faculty may apply for, and typically receive, a semester's paid leave every fourth year. Faculty members may also compete for funding from the College for an additional semester of paid leave through a proposal process that is peer-reviewed. In addition faculty may take an additional semester of unpaid leave or count course overloads toward some reduction in teaching for the second semester of the leave year. All three tenured Education faculty have been recipients of second semester funding from the College, which has enabled them to take a full year of sabbatical leave with pay. Education faculty have also applied for and received funding for part of their sabbatical leave from the following sources: American Association of University Women, Fulbright, Spencer Foundation, the International Research and Exchanges Board, the Educational Testing Service and the National Science Foundation. In addition, faculty research or projects have been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, the Humboldt Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, the Sloane Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, the Hewlett-Packard Foundation, AT & T and by internal Swarthmore College research grants.
The College values the individual development of faculty and to this end supports attendance at professional meetings, $l,000 peryear, and provides up to $1,000 per year for expenses incurred in faculty research. Education Program faculty attend professional meetings, present papers and have served as coordinators or reviewers on committees of a number of professional organizations, which add to their understanding of issues and developments in basic education. These include the American Educational Research Association, Pennsylvania Association of Colleges of Teacher Education, American Psychological Association, Society for Research and Child Development, Sigma Xi, National Association for the Education of Young Children, Friends Council on Education, Moral Education Association, The Jean Piaget Society, Educators for Social Responsibility, the Consortium for Excellence in Teacher Education International Reading Association, and the National Council of Teachers of English. The research, professional activities and publications of Education faculty are included in vitae, which are available in Appendix K.
The College also enhances the development of individual faculty members through stipends for new course development of $2,500-$5000. In addition to support for individual faculty course development and research, Swarthmore College values and supports ongoing departmental or College-wide curricular enhancement. In the past five years, faculty were involved in a comprehensive reform of the Honors Program, and several academic departments and academic concentrations were reviewed by external evaluation teams, which led to enhancement of the curriculum in these departments. In the past five years the College has received funding from the Mellon Foundation and the Hewlett Packard Foundation to support curricular enhancement and faculty development. This fall, in conjunction with Bryn Mawr and Haverford Colleges, Swarthmore faculty are participating in a series of Writing Across the Curriculum workshops, funded by the Mellon Foundation. One Education faculty member also served on a tri-College committee to investigate and suggest opportunities for faculty development across the life-cycle at Swarthmore, Bryn Mawr and Haverford Colleges, also with support from the Mellon Foundation. In several instances, Education faculty have been asked to help coordinate or facilitate faculty development programs in areas such as new faculty orientation, multicultural education, writing across the curriculum, scientific literacy, and research on learning in mathematics and engineering. As the Social Sciences Division Chair for two of the last five years, one of the Education faculty members contributed significantly to the overall curricular planning and reform at the College.
Professional development opportunities in the areas of technology are mainly coordinated by the Associate Provost for Computing and Technology and by the three Computing Center staff members assigned to each of the three academic divisions of the College. In most cases professional development opportunities are departmentally-based and are tailored to meet the needs of individual faculty members who wish to use new technologies to enhance their teaching and research. Individual faculty (or departments) may also apply for new equipment through the College's Fig Leaf Grant Program, which gives grants to purchase items that will enhance a department's educational program that can not be funded through their regular budget. In 2000, an Education faculty member received a Fig Leaf Grant to purchase a dozen Palm Pilot computers for use in taking field notes during course observations and student teaching. The Computing Center also holds regular workshops to acquaint faculty members with ongoing developments with the College's computing system and new software applications that are available. In l999-2000, the Swarthmore College Education Program, in collaboration with the Education Programs at Bryn Mawr/Haverford and the University of Pennsylvania, applied for and received a grant of $50,000 from AT & T to run a series of technology workshops for students and faculty in our departments. The grant, "Inquiry, Interaction and Technology, as the tile suggests was to provide support for using inquiry-oriented and interactive technology strategies and curricula. As part of this grant, the Education Program was able to purchase a laptop computer and portable projection system, so that student teachers and faculty could do whole-class teaching with a computer in their classrooms. They were also able to purchase a digital camera so that students could incorporate visual images from their student teaching or other sources into their on-line portfolios and on web pages they design.
Collaboration with Departmental Faculty and Local Educators
As described in the Governance section of the Introduction/ Standard I write-up and in Standard VII, Education faculty regularly collaborate with faculty from academic departments and with local school educators as they plan, implement and evaluate the Swarthmore College certification program. The Teacher Education Committee, composed of Education faculty, departmental faculty and local school professionals is an ongoing vehicle for this collaboration. In addition there are multiple types of collaboration between Swarthmore departmental faculty outside of Education with educators in local schools. (See Standard VII: Collaboration for additional details.)
