Maryland's Public System of Higher Education

The USM in 2010: 

Responding to the Challenges that Lie Ahead

Faculty Development

Through its faculty, the USM will improve the quality of classroom instruction.

Historically, the term "faculty development" has suggested sabbatical leave and attendance at professional meetings. However, the term often refers to activities that help faculty become better teachers, a task for which most never received any formal training prior to entering the profession.

Broadly, faculty development programs help professors improve their teaching, scholarship, and service and outreach skills, and offer advice on how to improve individual courses, curricula, and student learning. In recent years, mentoring has become a key component of many faculty development initiatives.

In the current environment of fast-paced technological changes, faculty opportunities to update skills become even more imperative than they have been in the past. Faculty development activities that integrate the Internet into teaching are particularly critical.

Strategically planned and sustained faculty development programs contribute to increased professional satisfaction and are important to institutions' abilities to meet changing societal and student needs. Unfortunately, although many institutions around the country specify faculty development in their budgets, the most commonly cited obstacle to these programs is inadequate financial resources.

USM Response

USM institutions will:

• Include faculty development in their long- and short-term institutional plans (and accompanying annual budgets derived from general funds).
• Provide development funds and opportunities to all categories of faculty.
• Provide opportunities for developing the technological skills necessary to integrate the Internet into classroom teaching.
• Increase opportunities for reduced teaching loads during the initial year of appointment so that new tenure-track faculty may engage in development activities.
• Enhanced faculty development centers or programs at all USM institutions.
• Developed Teacher/Scholar in Residence Programs to recognize, honorifically and financially, tenured faculty who have achieved excellence in teaching and to foster, through implementation of these programs, teaching excellence among tenured faculty. While in the program, a Teacher/Scholar will share his or her expertise throughout the institution through consulting, workshop presentations, and other means.