Information & Initiatives for Faculty
University College does not have its own faculty; but it does have a crucial role in providing support and structure to faculty in the academic colleges who teach General Education and Freshman Seminar courses.
Support
One of the roles of University College is to provide support to faculty teaching general education courses. The following list is subject to change since the college is still exploring different options for supporting faculty, but it provides a starting point for discussion. Please feel free to contact John Smail, Dean of University College, if you have thoughts or ideas.
1) Communications Across the Curriculum
A faculty taskforce jointly appointed by the Provost and the President of the Faculty has issued its preliminary recommendation on the creation of a Communications Across the Curriculum Program at UNC Charlotte. This program will provide support to faculty and departments in order to assist both in their efforts to develop students’ communications skills. During the 2009-2010 academic year, the CAC program is offering a series of workshops and brownbag seminars, and also hopes to work with selected departments interested in discussing how faculty could implement CAC ideas into multiple courses in a program. These efforts will culminate in a second Summer Institute planned for May 2010.
2) Undergraduate Teaching Assistants in Freshman Classes
In order to provide different kinds of support to new freshmen University College considering a program to create freshman only classes in Fall 2009. Instructors in these classes will be asked to be attentive to their students’ transition to college. For large sections of such classes, University College hopes to be able to provide resources to fund an undergraduate teaching assistant to help the faculty member. Interested faculty should contact the University College office.
General Education
As the university office responsible for the General Education Program; University College provides certain basic structures that relate to courses taught in that program.
1) New Preparations of Gen Ed Courses
Any faculty member thinking of developing a section of a General Education class is encouraged to contact University College to get help in understanding the course objectives and information about how other faculty have approached the challenge.
Please note that no formal approval process exists for faculty seeking to teach sections of LBST courses. University College relies upon the professionalism of the faculty and the oversight of department chairs to ensure that all sections conform – in both content and structure – to expectations.
2) Writing Intensive (W) and Oral Communications (O) Courses
Any faculty member who wishes to have a course designated as meeting the Writing Intensive and/or Oral Communications requirements within the General Education program must submit the class for approval to University College. Once a course is approved it does not need reapproval even if a faculty member different from the person who originally got approval is teaching it. However, faculty are encouraged to seek support from their department and/or University College in they event that they are called upon to teach a W or O course. For more details about the course and curriculum process, please visit the Faculty Governance pages.
3) Assessment
University College is responsible for coordinating the assessment of all aspects of the General Education Program. In some instances, where the Gen Ed requirements are taught by means of courses offered out of specific departments, the assessment is undertaken in the unit: for example, the English Composition, Math, Science, and Social Science requirements. In other instances, particularly the LBST curriculum, assessment is done by University College working with instructors for those classes. Assessment runs on a three year cycle: English and Math in one year; science and social science in the next; LBST in the next.
4) Faculty Meetings
In order to provide opportunities for faculty teaching in the general education program to get to know one another and to discuss the courses they are teaching University College hopes to hold periodic meetings during the year (once or twice a semester). Announcements of meetings will be sent via email to instructors active in a given semester, but all are welcome.
