“We are looking for somebody who is really specializing in pedagogy rather than people who are bringing their scholarship into the classroom.”

In the aftermath of LEO negotiations, Whitman believed that comparing lecturer salaries with those of tenure-track faculty was impossible because of different skill.

While not disputing the importance of lecturers in a classroom, Whitman elucidated that professors are constantly expected to think and work outside of their business hours in ways “outside-the-box.”

Teaching that is influenced by and incorporated with a faculty member’s research is crucial to professorship, Whitman explained.

“When we are looking to make a permanent commitment to someone, like tenure, we are looking for people whom we think have the confidence that all of the things that they do will build on the other things that they do,” Whitman said. “We think their teaching should benefit from their research and their research should benefit from their teaching.”

University spokesman Rick Fitzgerald said teaching and research were homogeneous in a tenured-professors portfolio. This “blending together” of research and teaching defines a professor at the University, he said.

“We’re actually trying to encourage more of that experiential, hands-on learning,” Fitzgerald added. “That’s likely to be more and more a part of the educational component, more than just sitting in a classroom.”

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But when it comes to raising the bar in the classroom, all forms of faculty can turn to the University’s Center for Research on Learning and Teaching, where research focuses on teaching itself and a common goal to succeed in the classroom exists.

The CRLT is the first of its kind in the country. With its origins in the Office of the Provost, the CRLT works with all 19 schools and colleges to teach teachers how to better improve their classroom skills.

Comprised of a core group of 12 Ph.D. graduates with extensive experience in teaching and working with other teachers, CRLT brings together tenured, tenure-track, lecturers and graduate student instructors on a common platform to learn from one another’s practices.

Matt Kaplan, managing director of the center, explained that one of the core functions of the CRLT is to research ways to increase the effectiveness of teaching at the University.

For example, when the University decided to shift some internet infrastructure to Google, CRLT realized that the majority of teaching faculty would limit themselves to generic Google services, such as Gmail and Calendars, without realizing the potential utility of other applications.

“We realized that there was a lot of possibility to promote collaboration between students and teachers,” Kaplan said. “We went to ITS with the idea that it would be a pity if people didn’t realize the applications that they could make use of for their teaching.”

As a result, the CRLT invited a group of 25 faculty members from across the University to a learning community, where members were given the opportunity to explore the applications in their own classes, later sharing their experiences in monthly meetings.

This teaching goes hand in hand with research. To avoid limiting the findings to only those in the learning community, CRLT summarized their findings in a formal paper and shared it with the Office of the Provost and other University faculty to develop the ideas further.

“It’s easier to think about how we can implement things in our own classroom when we hear about a colleague,” Kaplan explained. “Michigan is really a national model for having centers like ours to improve the teaching of faculty and graduate students.” Mark Moldwin, associate chair and professor of Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Space Sciences, said the University’s research in the field of teaching is helpful.

“What’s helped me in my career is knowing that there is an entire community of education researchers who study how people are teaching and the most effective way to help students learn,” Moldwin said.

Though the CRLT is operated under the Office of the Provost, Kaplan assured that its evaluations of teaching faculty are never disclosed to the Office for use during tenure review.

Kaplan added the CRLT never report their findings to administrators since they work directly with faculty. Nevertheless, he said that many faculty members chose to report their involvement with CRLT to administrators to demonstrate their commitment to teaching.

“They want to be able to be straight with the professor and (make the CRLT) a safe place to talk about teaching problems,” Whitman said.
Simultaneously, Whitman confirmed that association with CRLT could work in favor of tenure-track faculty during tenure review.

“It is a big plus if somebody has worked with CRLT, especially if they’ve had some problems in the classroom,” Whitman added.