SUS News

Colleagues:

At UMUC, we seek out the best faculty in terms of education and experience because we believe in the scholar-practitioner model: effective teaching should be based on a combination of scholarship and informed practice. However, teaching at UMUC can be difficult for a number of reasons. One reason is that our instructors aren't spending a great deal of time interacting with other instructors. Spread out across the world, our faculty miss learning about the informal aspects of teaching through those "hallway conversations" that occur among faculty who may be co-located. Because they often must approach teaching from a solitary perspective, faculty often struggle with questions such as

• What is "A" work?
• Am I grading too hard? Or too easily?
• What should I do if a student complains about my grading?
• Should I grade "on the curve"?

And the truth is that students have these questions too. They want to know what constitutes "A" work, why some instructors seem to grade "harder" than others, and why they received the grades they did.

And administrators worry that grade inflation may be diminishing the value of the A grade.

To answer these issues and establish clear guidelines for all undergraduate faculty, I asked Dr. Cynthia Davis, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in SUS, to lead a task force to define academic rigor, to establish clear standards for what is expected from students in lower-division versus upper-division courses, and to assist faculty with guidelines for assigning As, Bs, etc.

As just one aspect of their work, the task force defined Academic Rigor for the School of Undergraduate Studies. They determined that "UMUC defines academic rigor as the degree to which students demonstrate content mastery, application of critical thinking skills and adherence to UMUC's code of academic integrity." They also defined expectations for upper-division courses, and developed grading rubrics for faculty use. Their report offers a comprehensive approach to academic rigor that is clear and logical.

The task force members were

• Andy Au - Assistant Director Mathematics, collegiate faculty
• Irena Bojanova - Assistant Director Computer & Information Science/Computer Science, collegiate faculty
• Catherine Campbell - Collegiate faculty Adelphi and FAC member
• Jean DuBro - Collegiate faculty
• Lydia Fettig - Adjunct faculty
• Doug Franklin - Associate Dean Europe
• Lisa Beth Hill - Assistant Director Humanities/History/Government/Political Science, collegiate faculty
• Bruce Hull - Collegiate faculty Europe, FAC member
• Eleana Lazarus - Asia Assistant Dean Communication/Humanities/Social Sciences
• Bill Sondervan - Director of Criminal Justice/Investigative Forensics, collegiate faculty, FAC member
• Joe Whelan - Chair Accounting/Economics/Finance, collegiate faculty

I want to thank the task force for the exceptional work they did.

During 2009 we will be sharing the specific work of the task force with you, including the rubrics that you will find helpful in grading students' work. Your Academic Directors will be working with you to use these materials to apply to your specific disciplines. We hope that these materials will make expectations clearer for both students and faculty, and make the learning experience richer for students.

~~Marie