Mission/Vision/Goals
The FACET Mission Statement
FACET is a community of faculty dedicated to and recognized for excellence in teaching and learning. FACET advocates pedagogical innovation, inspires growth and reflection, cultivates the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning and fosters personal renewal in the commitment to student learning.
FACET Vision and Goals
The Faculty Colloquium on Excellence in Teaching was founded as and continues to be both a teaching award and a teaching "academy." It is a dynamic and vital state-wide community of distinguished faculty at Indiana University.
FACET's goals of recognizing and promoting excellence in teaching across campuses, schools, and disciplines shape our objectives for program planning. They also provide the direction for a wide-ranging program of faculty development, pedagogical exploration, and university service.
The following text articulates the vision of the FACET Director, David J. Malik, and was submitted to the FACET Directorship Search and Screen Committee as part of his applicaiton in 2006.
Vision for FACET
FACET is a remarkable organization composed of faculty dedicated to teaching excellence, effective student learning, and motivated to catalyze students to become lifelong learners. While in its origins FACET is a teaching recognition organization, we now need to continue to broaden its visibility and impact beyond our own state. Our faculties’ ideas, innovations, and accomplishments can inspire others to transform students’ lives while continuing our successes in discovery scholarship and creative activity in our disciplines.
My priorities would be the following:
- Broaden disciplinary representation across campuses, especially in science, engineering and medical fields which have been long underrepresented in FACET. These disciplines take the teaching mission seriously and we should more effectively identify those successful practitioners for inclusion in FACET. This is especially difficult in those disciplines where the classroom model is not the “rule”, but FACET groups are continuing to explore improving the expectations for those faculty. FACET must represent the broadest cohort of faculty in the university and strive to create opportunities for exchange and reflection with more of our colleagues.
- Increase visibility of SOTL across campuses and strengthen support of that scholarship through more programming available to all faculty. We need to improve perception and reality that FACET is also an organization focused on enhancing the scholarship in teaching and learning. We should continue to include training for lecturers and part-time faculty, but ensure that real learning opportunities are available to all faculty. The changing demographic of students nationally will have a significant impact on how we educate students and how we prepare them for contributing to society and the world. We are primed for the emergence of external proposals to support many of these initiatives.
- Further develop strong ties with Mack Center to promote increased awareness of faculty scholarship in improving teaching and learning. We need to encourage increased participation of FACET colleagues in the publication and presentation of their work in pedagogy. We need to encourage collaboration between campuses to ensure that best practices can be propagated into other areas and venues. The potential for the Mack Center to emerge as a national leader in the scholarship of teaching and learning must be nurtured and supported by close collaboration with the motivated faculty in FACET. Together, the opportunity for attracting major funding is a distinct possibility and will strengthen both of our missions.
- Advocate the premise and successes of the FACET organization to a wider audience: nationally and internationally. FACET needs to facilitate presentations and publications more widely, and develop ties with other IU entities with similar interests, for example, International Programs Office and continue strengthening ties with campus teaching and learning centers. We need to increase awareness of awards and distinctions that focus on pedagogical commitment, for example, NSF Distinguished Teaching Scholar Awards and other national awards. In addition, organizational distinctions would also be considered, such as the Hesburgh Award. Overall, we should continue to raise the visibility of faculty commitment to teaching and learning to outside the Midwest.
-David J. Malik
