Abstract is available to download.

Abstract is available to download.

This project study addressed nurses' perceptions of supports and barriers in transitioning from a clinician to a faculty role in a 3-year diploma nursing program located in Eastern Pennsylvania. This problem is significant at both the local and national level due to the shortage of qualified nursing faculty members. A qualitative case study design using in-depth interviews was used. The framework to guide the study was Schoening's Nurse Educator Transition (NET) Model. The guiding question addressed perceptions of new nursing faculty members regarding supports and barriers of transitioning to the faculty role. Interview questions focused on participants' identification of their current NET phase, description of an ideal transition into the faculty role, and perceived supports and barriers to role transition. Purposeful sampling was used to obtain 8 new nursing faculty members who had 5 years or less of teaching experience. Interview data were analyzed and coded using a priori codes based on the NET model. The themes identified from data analysis were: being thrown in with no orientation to the role, supportive colleagues, lack of support from administration, formal orientation, assigned resource person, time in the role, and asking questions. Based on findings from the study, an orientation/mentorship program was developed to help support clinical nurses' transition into the nursing faculty role. The orientation/mentorship program could lead to a positive social change by having nursing faculty members remain in their role long term, decreasing both the nursing faculty and registered nurse shortage.

If nurse educators do not teach students to function in interprofessional teams, students may lack communication and teamwork skills, which can result in patient harm; however, nurse educators do not always understand the concept of interprofessional collaboration (IPC) and may, therefore, fail to teach it to students. The purpose of this multiple case study was to understand how undergraduate nurse educators prepared to teach IPC and how their preparation informed their teaching. The theory of transformative learning and the Interprofessional Education Collaborative core competencies of IPC framed this study. Data included semistructured interviews and associated documents from 9 nurse educators representing 3 different schools of nursing. Transcribed interviews and associated documents were coded for emergent themes. The 5 key themes that emerged related to nurse educator preparation to teach IPC were academic IPC preparation was limited, lack of formal preparation and an incomplete understanding, interprofessional communication: positive perceptions and perceived barriers, previous IPC exposure influenced instruction, and educators taught IPC informally. The results of this study may influence positive social change by inspiring educational leaders to consider the possibility that nurse educators may need IPC-specific faculty development. Research suggests that when educators know how to teach IPC, they can prepare students to practice in interprofessional teams. Most importantly, when new nurses know how to work in interprofessional teams, this may result in a decrease in the incidence of unintentional patient injuries.

The general attitude of the faculty and staff was assessed through the questionnaires distributed to all fulltime employees of Utah State University. Their feelings regarding supervision, work recognition, communication, physical facilities, job satisfaction and their attitude toward the administration were reflected by their response. The over-all campus attitude seems to be good. The areas of supervision and work recognition received the moat favorable replies. Downward communications, or communicationa from the administration to the employee. received more negative responae than reactions to upward channels of communication. The personal comments and opinions submitted contain valuable insight into t he general attitude of the Utah State University staff. The positive feeling regarding apparent academic freedom is evident in this study. Fringe benefits have been steadily improving over the last few years1 this seems to be a source of considerable employee satisfaction. A need exists to reduce "red tape" in financial procedures . It is evident that the faculty desire that the service areas become more conscious of their role as it relates to the academic function in supporting and serving student and faculty needs.

This qualitative study inquired into the personal experience of three engineering professors and one associate dean who participated in an engineering education coalition—the Foundation Coalition—a National Science Foundation-funded project which attempted to reform undergraduate engineering curricula at six U.S. institutions of higher education. Through analysis of occupational life histories, and data from a larger study of curricular change processes, two dominant social narratives emerged. Cultural attributes of academia were conceptualized as a master narrative. The reform effort emerged as a counter-narrative by calling for a “culture change” in engineering education. I describe five areas where the counter-narrative challenged the master narrative: the rationale and need for educational change, the nature of faculty work, disciplinary relationships, relationships among faculty, and the incentive and reward system. The counter-narrative of reform promoted curricular and pedagogical change, more interdisciplinary and integrated foundations for engineering education, and encouraged partnerships and community over faculty isolation and autonomy. The counter-narrative challenged faculty complicity with the master narrative and offered alternative ways of viewing their role as faculty in higher education. The master and counter-narratives clashed over the nature of faculty work in research universities, fueling the ongoing debate about the relative value of research and teaching and the associated reward system. This study found that the four participants used different strategies to navigate the conflict between the two social narratives. One participant was informed by an ideal vision of engineering education, and never relinquished the quest for an opportunity to realize that vision. Another professor, energized by the collaborative environment created by the Coalition, continued to find creative avenues to partner with others to improve engineering education. A third participant worked, through compromise and accommodation, to craft an improved curriculum that worked within the local institutional culture. And finally, an associate dean, who rejected the duality of the master/counter-narrative worldview, reframed the reform effort by encouraging faculty working in educational change to view their work as scholarship. The findings from this study support faculty engagement in the scholarship of teaching and learning and encourage faculty developers to find ways of supporting faculty in that effort.

In his recent book, Moral Minds, Marc Hauser claims that humans are genetically endowed with a moral faculty operating in much the same way as our linguistic faculty, and that this faculty delimits normative moral systems. Further, he states that this work represents the beginning of what will become a science of morality. These claims contrast sharply with the conception of human nature presupposed by many of the dominant Western moral theories. For the most part, these conceptions of human nature are not flattering: they suggest that our natural instincts, in large part, or in whole, are not conducive to living a moral life. Given these presuppositions, such theories typically call for setting aside our natural instincts when determining the basis upon which normative moral theory should be established. This thesis seeks to show that there is a middle ground between these two views. On my account, recent scientific learning about innate traits impacting our behaviour towards others can be employed to construct a conception of human nature that is at odds with that used by a number of the dominant Western moral theories. As the impact of such innate traits is constrained by our analytic intellect, however, I argue that views such as Hauser’s overstate the implications for normative moral theory.

Providing instruction using different instructional delivery methods allows the learner to absorb content in a way that fits the individual learner. Today’s students have grown up immersed in digital technology. However, many higher education faculty are still not speaking the same digital language as their students. The issue may be that the pedagogical and epistemological beliefs of faculty who are “digital immigrants” affect the teaching methods used in the higher education classroom today. The purpose of this mixed methods study was to explore design college faculty perceptions of the adoption of virtual world technology into the classroom. Diffusion and adoption theories, adoption models, and patterns of adoption provided a conceptual framework for this study. This mixed methods study collected data through a survey and post-survey interviews administered to faculty of 21 design colleges. The quantitative survey instrument included questions about the usage of technology, including virtual world technology, in the higher education classroom. A total of 309 faculty completed the survey. Descriptive statistics, including frequencies, means, and standard deviations were used in the analysis. A correlation analysis was performed to determine if there was a relationship between selected variables and the survey responses. Post-survey semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 faculty participants who volunteered for the interviews after participating in the survey. In this study, I used the constant comparative open coding hybrid method for the interview analysis. The specific research question posed in this study was: What are the perceptions of design college faculty regarding the use of virtual world technology in their courses? Guiding questions included: (a) What are faculty perceptions about virtual world technology that potentially affect its adoption into the classroom? (b) What are faculty perceptions of the affordances of using virtual world technology in the classroom? (c) What are faculty perceptions of the challenges of using virtual world technology in the classroom? In general, the results of this study indicate that while higher education faculty perceive that virtual world technology has the potential to be a useful teaching tool in the classroom, the faculty also perceive that they do not have the essential software and hardware support from their colleges to adopt this type of technology as a teaching tool in their courses.

In his recent book, Moral Minds, Marc Hauser claims that humans are genetically endowed with a moral faculty operating in much the same way as our linguistic faculty, and that this faculty delimits normative moral systems. Further, he states that this work represents the beginning of what will become a science of morality. These claims contrast sharply with the conception of human nature presupposed by many of the dominant Western moral theories. For the most part, these conceptions of human nature are not flattering: they suggest that our natural instincts, in large part, or in whole, are not conducive to living a moral life. Given these presuppositions, such theories typically call for setting aside our natural instincts when determining the basis upon which normative moral theory should be established. This thesis seeks to show that there is a middle ground between these two views. On my account, recent scientific learning about innate traits impacting our behaviour towards others can be employed to construct a conception of human nature that is at odds with that used by a number of the dominant Western moral theories. As the impact of such innate traits is constrained by our analytic intellect, however, I argue that views such as Hauser’s overstate the implications for normative moral theory.

This study measured the current characteristics of faculty development in public two-year colleges in Texas. Current characteristics were determined by an electronic questionnaire completed by the responding staff or faculty member designated by each Texas two-year college as the person most responsible for faculty development. In the case when faculty development responsibility was divided by technical and academic faculty, both designees at the college were sent electronic questionnaires. Of the 78 colleges, 6 colleges, or 8 percent, divided faculty development responsibilities between two individuals at the college. Those six identified colleges were sent two questionnaires each for the two selected representatives. Of those 6 colleges, 4 responded or 67 per cent. Overall, of the 78 colleges sent electronic questionnaires, 57 responded, yielding a 73 percent return. The major results of the study indicate: 1. The majority of colleges studied do not designate a faculty development space at the college.2. A large percentage of two-year public colleges in Texas, 49.2 percent of the total respondents, had no staff member responsible for faculty development who spent more than 51 percent of the time on faculty development duties. 3. Two-year public colleges budget relatively few funds for faculty development. 4. Of all respondents 42.6 percent report that they did not perform a needs assessment. 5. Most Texas two-year public colleges, 92.7 percent of respondents, claimed that their colleges evaluated faculty development activities. However, almost 25 percent of those respondents did not use an evaluation instrument. Of those respondents using an instrument, the most selected area of measurement was participant satisfaction. Performance outcomes measure was the least selected category at 5.8 percent.