Apple Tree Society seeks to expand role of teaching
The Apple Tree Society is seeking to expand faculty development activities at the Medical University. With the support of our President, Ray Greenberg, M.D., Ph.D., the Apple Tree Society has four working groups of faculty who are interested in expanding the role of the scholarship of teaching at MUSC. One of the four task forces is named The Campus Program and its committee members are Chris Fredericks (COM/GS), Elise Davis-McFarland (CHP) Richard Pollenz (COM/GS), Diana Vincent (COM), Steve Schabel (COM), Ruth Patterson (CHP), Phil Hall (Pharm), Elizabeth Connor (Gen Faculty), Tom Waldrep (Gen Faculty), Sandi Brown (Nurs), David Mishkin (Dent), and Jim Tietage (Dent). Co-chairs of this task force are Lisa Saladin, and Amy Blue. The Campus Program is a project of the Carnegie Teaching Academy, conducted by the American Association for Higher Education (AAHE), and is “for institutions in all sectors prepared to make a public commitment to new models of teaching as scholarly work to improve the quality of student learning and the status of teaching.” At this time, MUSC is the only medical university that has registered to participate in this project but there are more than 100 non-medical colleges participating. The Carnegie Teaching Academy is a $6-million, five-year effort to create a scholarship of teaching and learning and is funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and The Carnegie Foundation. The academy project has three parts. The first of the three, The Pew Scholars National Fellowship Program, has chosen 15 faculty committed to scholarly inquiry into their teaching and their students’ learning. The second part of the project is The Campus Program, which is designed to have campuses engage in conversations about the role of teaching on their campus. The third part of this project will involve awarding small grants to campuses that were in The Campus Program and found issues that they would like to address in this area. Most of this project is based upon the 1990 report, “Scholarship Reconsidered” by Ernest Boyer and the 1997 publication, “Scholarship Assessed” by Glassick, Huber, and Maeroff. The Campus Program asks that institutions make a public commitment to reconsidering the scholarly work of teaching. Conversations should occur in institutions that have become a part of this project aimed at discussing what the “scholarship of teaching” means for that institution. Conditions that work for or against the scholarship of teaching will be addressed by these small groups. In addition, the group will choose one or two key projects related to fostering the scholarship of teaching and recommend actions to implement them here at MUSC. This task group has met on several occasions and has arrived at the following definition of what the scholarship of teaching means at our institution. Our task group would like for all faculty to read the committee’s definition below and give feedback to us. As this definition is the basic foundation for this committee to work with for the balance of the task, we ask that you respond by March 18 to any member of the committee. |