Faculty Development for Student Success

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The Faculty Development for Student Success activity is a junior faculty mentoring program that aims to cultivate a faculty-initiated culture of innovation that encourages teaching, advising excellence and collaboration, promotes career-long faculty development in scholarly and creative activities as well as in professional development activities. [/one_half_last] 

This activity will focus on improving student outcomes and meeting SACSCOC in terms of credentialing for faculty. The goal is to usher in a new cohort of teacher­ scholars who are committed as much to teaching as to research and service.. Through the programs and activities, the new and existing faculty will endeavor to create and sustain an academic environment of rigorous teaching, research and service. Several integrated programs of activities are planned, beginning with an Intensive Faculty Orientation that introduces first-year tenure track faculty to the expectations of academic citizenship at Jackson State University. Matters from policies and procedures to interpretations of scholarship will be central to the orientation.

The use of technology in the classroom through online training, innovation in curriculum design, collaborative research and student advising are integral components of the objective of maintaining academic rigor, retention and student success.

Each year, junior faculty participants will be assigned a mentor from the senior faculty at the University and will participate in activities designed to assist them in building their

(1) tenure and promotion portfolio

(2) following best practices in higher education for classroom and teaching techniques

(3) developing a professional development strategic plan that shows innovation, scholarship and adds to          the body of knowledge in higher education.

The guidance of the mentor will assist them in their scholarly endeavors in teaching, research and service. Additionally, activities and programs for faculty members who have earned the rank of associate or full professor with tenure will be offered in an effort to support a level of continuous scholarship and effectiveness in teaching, research and service.

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Both the junior faculty who are the focus of the program and the more senior faculty who serve as mentors benefit from participation in the FDSS program. Benefits include (but are not limited to) the following:

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For early-career faculty protégés—

• Completion of a 3-year Career Development Plan to ensure that junior faculty surpass promotion and tenure requirements
• Higher levels of research productivity through clear goal setting and support for access to release time and other resources
• Improved teaching effectiveness and an emphasis on the scholarship of teaching and learning
• Expanded networking and professional socialization opportunities on campus and support for networking within the discipline
• Establishment of peer-support groups to encourage writing productivity
• Increased job satisfaction and a sense of belonging at JSU
• Access to advice on the culture of JSU, finding work/life balance, successful grant proposal writing, finding support for innovative research and teaching at JSU, promotion and tenure expectations, and much more!

For senior faculty mentors—

• Personal sense of satisfaction from sharing wisdom and experience with younger colleagues
• Ability to influence another generation of faculty, often leaving their mark on the next generation of faculty
• Cross-fertilization of ideas, both from junior faculty in the mentor’s discipline and from junior faculty outside the mentor’s discipline
• Professional rejuvenation through a focus on generating research agendas and improving teaching
• New skills through participation in workshops and training with the junior faculty
• Increased research productivity by finding junior faculty collaborators
• Addition of a highly productive colleague to one’s academic unit or professional network