Faculty

Faculty Excellence and Professional Development (FEPD) Program

he program’s goal is to engage faculty in frank self-assessment about their strengths and challenges in teaching. The FEPD process, rooted in 19 commonly held attributes/standards of excellence in teaching at Emma Willard, includes a summer and fall semester of reflection and feedback elicited from peers, students, and the department chair, as well as a faculty mentor experienced in the FEPD process. The culmination is a report written by the faculty member, which includes a detailed explanation of the process, the insights gained, and plan of action for professional development. Faculty members, including residence faculty, undertake the FEPD process at regular cycles. The assistant head for academic affairs and director of faculty development oversee the program.

In 2003 a faculty task force developed the 19 attributes/standards by which to measure faculty performance. The intention in defining these attributes/standards has not been to suggest that a faculty member should or could exhibit all of them perfectly or uniformly. Instead, the intention has been to create a credible, useful, and thoughtful faculty evaluation process which acknowledges individuality and fosters collaboration in pursuit of excellence.

ATTRIBUTES/STANDARDS

Definitions of Standards

Personality or temperament

For all of the roles a faculty member fulfills at Emma Willard, some personal traits are always valuable and sometimes necessary. Along with such predictable qualities as intelligence, energy, integrity, imagination, enthusiasm, and humor we agree on a number of other traits. We believe that the successful Emma Willard faculty member will be interested in and open to new experiences, open minded (in the sense of reserving judgment), and responsive and appropriately flexible. She or he will be sensitive and compassionate, and respectful of people.

I. Professional Competence

1. Subject Knowledge—has and acquires the knowledge and skill that is sufficient to meet and challenge students appropriately in the relevant field.
2. Pedagogical Range—informed by an understanding of adolescent development, anticipates the needs of students and employs appropriate approaches to further understanding.
3. Group Dynamics—demonstrates an awareness of different or changing group dynamics and makes adjustments appropriately to meet students’ needs and achieve goals.
4. Expectation Setting—establishes and maintains clear standards of conduct and achievement consistent with the values of the school community.

II. Professional Responsibilities

A.

1. Timeliness—is punctual to commitments and responsive to deadlines, and provides feedback to students and colleagues within an appropriate timeframe.
2. Reliability—honors commitments and fulfills responsibilities toward the students and the community with consistent and dependable judgment and performance.
3. Impartiality—responds with deliberate fairness to students and colleagues in routine and special situations.
4. Upholding rules—respects, maintains, and enforces guidelines set by the school to preserve standards in the classroom and the community.

B.

1. Providing constructive feedback—candidly but tactfully evaluates performance or conduct of students and, where appropriate, colleagues, to recognize and promote improvement.
2. Communicativeness and collaboration with adults—willingly participates in collegial give and take, to create a professional atmosphere of sharing and to achieve outcomes valued by all.
3. Self-evaluative—reflects on performance critically, acknowledging strengths and opportunities for growth.
4. Initiative-taking—recognizes institutional, community or individual needs and takes appropriate and effective action.
5. Persistence—perseveres with students of diverse backgrounds, skills, and levels of motivation.
6. Commitment to ongoing learning—seeks and appreciates professional and intellectual growth through identifying and participating in a range of relevant learning experiences.
7. Awareness of one’s example—recognizes the influence of her or his actions on adolescent girls and professional colleagues and uses that influence judiciously.
8. Informed engagement in community—understands the complexity of boarding school life, embraces the vitality of the school community and chooses to participate broadly.
9. Parent communication—communicates as necessary with parents in a timely, diplomatic, and honest way to inform them and to seek their support.
10. Guiding students—helps students—through listening, questioning and explaining—to think more broadly and thoroughly about the effects of their choices and actions.
11. Good judgment—weighs, advises, and makes decisions with sufficient awareness of related circumstances, consequences, obligations, and goals.