Skip to content Skip to main navigation Report an accessibility issue

Discussion on Undergraduate Research in Workload, Promotion, and Tenure at UT

“Integrating High-impact Practices into Faculty Workload and Tenure & Promotion: With a Focus on Undergraduate Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity (URSCA)”

Date & Time: Thursday, March 30, 2:00 – 3:30 pm

Location: TBD (Main UT Campus)

RSVP: Complete form below

Join us for a facilitated discussion on the inclusion of undergraduate research into workload, promotion, and/or tenure.

Many institutions have embraced engaged learning and high-impact educational practices (or related phrases) into their documents and promotional materials, but moving from such language to comprehensive adoption of practices, policies, and cultural change presents a series of institutional challenges and opportunities. Critical to such a transformation is re-thinking traditional definitions of faculty role, work, rewards, and recognition. This presentation will explore strategies and issues associated with institutionally aligning faculty work with curricula that embrace engaged learning and the use of high-impact pedagogies, especially undergraduate research, scholarship, and creative activity (URSCA). The discussion will focus on innovating mainstream pedagogies to include URSCA; re-conceptualization of the faculty role as engaged teacher-scholar; re-definition of faculty work to include a full array of high-impact experiences within workload; and right-sizing curricula to achieve essential learning outcomes. If students, faculty, and institutions are to realize all of the salient outcomes and potential gains from an undergraduate education, institutions need to identify mechanisms to shift from traditional teaching load systems to more holistic faculty workload systems.

Speaker Bio: Jeffrey M. Osborn is Dean of the School of Science and Professor of Biology at The College of New Jersey. Dr. Osborn is an administrator-teacher-scholar. His teaching has covered a range of areas, including biology, botany, and interdisciplinary courses such as Understanding Biology through Art. He employs an array of pedagogical methods, directly incorporates authentic research into his courses, and has contributed to major curricular reform efforts at his own institutions and at the national level.