2006 New Faculty Orientation
Found in Union University Core Values > Excellence-Driven
David Thomas, Professor of History
I have ten minutes to talk about excellence, which is so brief a time that, of course, I’ll only be able to do a mediocre job of it. It’s probably safe to say that none of us here are driven to be mediocre. Even in Lake Wobegon all the children are above average; surely we can be too. We want to be good, excellent, even great at what we do.
Academic institutions tend to define excellence with numbers. Size and student selectivity are the two most important, but schools also brag about libraries, endowments, publications, the number of departments granting doctorates, and other forms of resources. Certainly Union does this every year.
Rather than go that way, though, I’d like to say a few words about excellence as it pertains to individual faculty.
I know some of you are fresh out of grad school and others are experienced, but I think most of you are new to this type of university—the small, private, Christian institution. There are some crucial differences between Christian universities and the secular institutions from which most of you have come at some point in your lives.
For faculty, the standards of excellence in this country are largely set by the top-flight research universities. Excellence is defined by articles published in the best peer-reviewed journals. Excellence is defined by books published by certain presses and not others. For scientists and engineers, by the amount of grant money raised. For artists, by the location and status of the forum for one’s music and artistic presentations. The standard though, is the R1 university, places that usually do not reward faculty for teaching. The old quip is cynical, but not far off: You begin your career teaching. After your first few books, you teach only graduate students. After you become a name, you don’t have to teach at all!
Our standards are broader than that and more oriented towards teaching. If you can get a book published by Oxford press, we will all stand up and applaud. If you are so successful as a writer that you earn a course-load reduction, this is negotiable. But our standards are broader than research. Particularly for those of you just out of grad school, it may take some time before you feel and can identify with the difference. You will feel it right away; but it took me, at least, a few years before I identified with it and owned it. It wasn’t until the middle of my 2nd semester here that I realized the students want me to know their names and say hello in the hallway. Something so simple, definitely a part of excellence here at Union, but nothing at all like my experience at Ohio State.
Three things to pay attention to: First, I encourage you to keep up your research (Pam’s going on research leave; I’ve a book coming out; Mike is one of most active researchers; Tony’s working on a book), but, in fact, we ask you to be generalists in your discipline, not specialists. It’s a different kind of expertise. Second, we ask you to be teachers more than researchers. Students come first, not a distant second. Third, we expect or maybe hope, that you will develop your understanding of the Lord and his claims on your life and work.
Excellence in teaching is worth unpacking at length. In practice it will be different for you than it is for me, of course, but here’s some basic components:
What you teach:
-be competent as a generalist; you gotta know the content, broadly
-communicate your love for the subject;
-content is king, but passion is the prime minister (or something)
-communicate meaning—one of things we should do best;
-tell students why today’s topic is important
Who you teach:
-learn your students names and interests;
-listen: to what they say; to what they don’t say; to their body language;
-no doubt—they will learn better if they have a good relationship w/ you
-model faithfulness and learning outside the classroom;
-Dr. Bates eats lunch in Coburn most days so he can talk to the students;
-some play intramurals or work out with them;
-many interact with them at church; go to their athletic events
-it’s not just social; it’s modeling thoughtful Christian living;
How you teach:
-pay attention to how your students learn;
-experiment with new ideas;
-read literature on teaching;
-the most exciting book I’ve read is by Dee Finke, Creating Significant
Learning Experiences
-I particularly like his mix of goals and how to achieve those goals
-talk to your colleagues—is this a good idea? how can I make it better?
-why didn’t this idea work?
-I talk to other faculty every semester about my classes
-excellence is an on-going project
Excellence in discipleship is worth unpacking at length, also
-somebody here is going to talk about it
-Duane Litfin will be here this fall
-Conceiving the Christian College; excellent book, get a copy and read it
-articulates the vision of Christian higher education and the hindrances
or temptations thoroughly and carefully
-excellence in discipleship means, in particular, figuring out what the Lordship of
Christ means to your teaching, your research, your service to the institution
-and, again, this is an on-going project
Time for me to close. Let me end with that encouragement from Philippians 4:8: “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”