Standard III -- FacultyStandard III.1
The school has a faculty capable of accomplishing program objectives.
Full-time faculty members are qualified for appointment to the graduate
faculty within the parent institution and are sufficient in number
and in diversity of specialties to carry out the major share of the
teaching, research, and service activities required for a program,
wherever and however delivered. Part-time faculty, when appointed,
balance and complement the teaching competencies of the full-time
faculty. Particularly in the teaching of specialties that are not
represented in the expertise of the full-time faculty, part-time faculty
enrich the quality and diversity of a program
GSLIS currently has 18 tenured or tenure-track faculty with full-time appointments in GSLIS and 3 with split appointments in the Institute of Communications Research in the College of Communications. All are members of the Graduate Faculty. Several faculty have 0% appointments in other campus departments: Bioengineering (Bruce); Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies (Bruce): Computer Science (Gasser, Schatz, Twidale); Curriculum & Instruction (Bruce); English (Unsworth); Library (Unsworth); Neuroscience Program (Schatz): Sociology (Estabrook); Women’s Studies (Jenkins); and Writing Studies Program (Bruce). Given the success in promoting and tenuring faculty over the past four years, GSLIS has shifted from having a large proportion of untenured faculty to having only two untenured faculty. The distribution across ranks is as follows: Professor (10): Bertram (Chip) Bruce, Susan Davis (25%), Leigh Estabrook, Elizabeth Hearne, Robert McChesney (25%), Boyd Rayward, Bruce Schatz, Dan Schiller (75%), Linda Smith, John Unsworth Associate Professor (9): Ann Bishop, Les Gasser, Caroline Haythornthwaite, Bryan Heidorn, Christine Jenkins, Carole Palmer, Allen Renear, Michael Twidale, Terry Weech Assistant Professor (2): Stephen Downie, Fernando Elichirigoity All faculty advise MS students and teach some courses in the MS program in their areas of expertise. They also serve as advisors for practicums, independent studies, and MS theses. Many faculty divide their teaching efforts between the MS program and the undergraduate minor and/or doctoral courses. All faculty are expected to teach in LEEP, with frequency varying from twice a year to more occasionally depending on their other teaching commitments. All faculty have active research programs and some involve MS students in those projects. Faculty serve on the Admissions Committee (4) and Curriculum Committee (4), the two GSLIS committees with important responsibilities in relation to the MS program. The student chapters of professional associations (ALA, ASIST, SLA) each have a faculty advisor from the full-time faculty. GSLIS does depend on a range of part-time faculty to teach in areas that complement the teaching competencies of the full-time faculty, enriching the quality and diversity of the MS program. Some part-time faculty have an ongoing relationship with GSLIS (emeritus faculty, visiting faculty, doctoral students, academic professional staff). Other part time faculty (UIUC Library faculty, other UIUC staff, staff from the Urbana Free Library) are drawn from the local area. A few other part-time faculty commute to teach on-campus, but a much larger proportion contribute to teaching online in LEEP. They make the trip to campus each semester along with the students enrolled in LEEP courses. Where part-time adjuncts have the time and interest, and prove to be successful in teaching GSLIS courses, we work to reappoint them on a regular basis so that they have an ongoing relationship with the School. As the list below demonstrates, many specialized courses have been offered by part-time faculty teaching in LEEP—these courses are often ones that we could not otherwise offer and are open to on-campus students on a space-available basis once demand from LEEP students is satisfied. We have had several faculty on sabbatical leave for part of the past two years, which has temporarily increased our dependence on part-time faculty in areas normally covered by full-time faculty. Part-time faculty who have taught MS courses for us in the period fall 2002-summer 2004 are listed below in groups reflecting the nature of their affiliation with GSLIS or UIUC as well as their other employment. Courses offered via LEEP are coded (L). The list includes 5 emeritus faculty, 4 visiting faculty, 8 GSLIS staff, 8 GSLIS doctoral students, 2 UIUC staff, 11 UIUC Library faculty, 4 Urbana Free Library staff, 6 faculty from other ALA-accredited programs, 3 faculty in other subject areas, and 32 adjuncts employed in different types of libraries or working as consultants. Part-time faculty are selected based on domain expertise and teaching ability; many are accomplished alumni of our MS program. GSLIS emeritus faculty GSLIS visiting faculty GSLIS academic professional staff GSLIS doctoral students [assignment to teach MS courses
requires permission of the Graduate College, based on special expertise
of the student] UIUC staff UIUC library faculty Adjunct faculty, Urbana Free Library staff Adjunct faculty, Other ALA-accredited programs Adjunct faculty, Other universities Adjunct faculty, Public librarians Adjunct faculty, Academic librarians Adjunct faculty, Archivists & Records Managers Adjunct faculty, Special librarians Adjunct faculty, Consultants Adjunct faculty, School librarian The following table illustrates the proportion of MS courses taught by full-time (tenured or tenure-track) faculty vs. the proportion taught by all categories of part-time faculty over the past ten terms (with summer I and summer II combined). A very high proportion of summer courses are taught by part-time faculty because full-time faculty generally devote summers to their research and publication efforts. The proportion of courses taught by full-time faculty has temporarily declined in the past 12 months relative to earlier years because an unusually high number of faculty have been on leave (Heidorn, Jenkins, Palmer, Twidale in spring 2004; Bishop, Bruce, Elichirigoity, Heidorn in fall 2004). The distribution by enrollment option demonstrates that full-time faculty contribute to the teaching in all enrollment options, though proportionally more in the on-campus option. The table does not reflect the contributions of full-time faculty to supervision of MS student practicums, independent studies, or theses or to the teaching of undergraduate and PhD courses which can include some MS students. [See II.6 for a table showing the number of courses offered each term in each enrollment option.] Percent of MS Courses Taught by Full-Time vs. Part-Time Faculty
* Summer includes both the 4-week Summer I and 8-week Summer II sessions. We recognize the desirability of increasing the proportion of courses taught by full-time faculty, particularly the value of having full-time faculty with responsibility for core areas of the curriculum. The percentage of courses taught by full-time faculty should return to earlier levels by FY05 when the current round of sabbatical leaves is complete. We expect the proportion to increase further as we add full-time faculty lines (a search for two new faculty is under way in FY04) and adjust the level of faculty release time devoted to performing administrative tasks within the School. For example, Dean Unsworth will begin teaching one course per year in FY04. The two priority areas for hiring are organization of information, where we have depended on part-time faculty (visiting, emeritus, adjunct) for many years, and youth services, where demand from students has increased in the past few years. Standard III.2The school demonstrates the high priority it attaches to teaching, research, and service by its appointments and promotions; by encouragement of innovation in teaching, research, and service; and through provision of a stimulating learning and research environment.
We understand our field to be interdisciplinary. This has shaped our faculty appointments and our activities both across campus and beyond. We are committed to a leadership role not only in the field of library and information science education and research, but also on our campus. Candidates for faculty positions are evaluated in terms of their potential for success in teaching, research, and service. The GSLIS Guidelines for Promotion and Tenure clearly spell out the criteria considered for promotion, with high expectations for research (strong evidence of research productivity; significant impact on the field of LIS; an intellectual and professional identity and a cohesive body of research), teaching (including classroom teaching, mentoring, and course and curriculum development), and service (including evidence of the quality and impact of service activities, with particular attention to relation to research and teaching in the case of public and professional/disciplinary service). Faculty are encouraged to be leaders through innovation in teaching, research, and service. LEEP is a tangible example of innovation in teaching, as are the development of new courses and revision of existing courses. The range of projects underway in the Information Systems Research Laboratory is one indicator of the innovation that characterizes the research undertaken by GSLIS faculty. A review of resumes of GSLIS full-time faculty demonstrates the range of expertise and activities that contribute to making GSLIS a stimulating learning and research environment. Sources of Evidence: Standard III.3The school has policies to recruit and retain faculty from multicultural, multiethnic, and multilingual backgrounds. Explicit and equitable faculty personnel policies and procedures are published, accessible, and implemented.
As part of each faculty search, the School has actively sought applicants with multicultural, multethnic, and multilingual backgrounds. While we have succeeded in making the faculty more international (two from Canada , one from the UK , one from Australia ), we have been less successful in broadening ethnic diversity. We currently have one Hispanic faculty member, but two African American faculty members hired as assistant professors in the past few years subsequently resigned and currently hold positions in the Atlanta area. The University is committed to increasing the diversity of its faculty and has made funds available for this purpose (Targets of Opportunity Program) as well as monitoring progress through its annual Affirmative Action Departmental Faculty Status Report . During Chancellor Nancy Cantor's tenure (2001-2004), the campus placed particular emphasis on diversity. This is also a priority of Interim Chancellor (formerly Provost) Richard Herman: “At Illinois , we are committed to the principle that a diverse community adds to and enhances our educational environment.” ( http://www.provost.uiuc.edu/diversity ) Retention and promotion of faculty is always a goal, but it has been essential in a period when campus budget constraints precluded hiring new full-time tenure-track faculty. Seven GSLIS faculty members have been tenured in the past four years: Ann Bishop, Christine Jenkins, and Michael Twidale in 2001; Caroline Haythornthwaite and Carole Palmer in 2002; Bryan Heidorn in 2003; and Allen Renear in 2004. All guidelines are published and made available to faculty from the beginning of their employment. These include GSLIS Guidelines for Annual Review of Faculty, Third Year Review Procedures, and Guidelines for Promotion and Tenure. Campus level review guidelines (Provost Communications 9, 13, 21) are available at the Provost’s web site. In addition the University’s Academic Staff Handbook thoroughly covers policies and procedures applying to all University faculty. More details on the review processes that apply to all faculty are discussed in section III.8 below. Sources of Evidence: Standard III.4The qualifications of each faculty member include competence in designated teaching areas, technological awareness, effectiveness in teaching, and active participation in appropriate organizations.
Specifics on teaching assignments are given in Section III.7 below. Faculty are recognized experts in the areas in which they teach. Faculty have knowledge of technology as it relates to the content of their designated teaching areas as well as with respect to its use in instruction. With regard to the use of technology in teaching, faculty have access for all courses to the infrastructure initially developed to support LEEP courses and to instructional technology staff who can aid them in its effective use. There is a strong emphasis on quality of teaching. All instructors are required to use the Instructor and Course Evaluation System (ICES) or Evaluation Online (EON) forms developed by the Center for Teaching Excellence as a tool for student feedback on instruction. (GSLIS faculty and LEEP students were key participants in the piloting and improvement of the EON system). Results of these course evaluations are reviewed each semester by the Dean and the Associate Dean for Academic Programs. Faculty ranked highly are included on An Incomplete List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent by Their Students, a campus-wide list compiled by the staff of the Division of Measurement and Evaluation of the Center for Teaching Excellence. These lists are now maintained on the Web and demonstrate that each term several GSLIS faculty are so recognized. UIUC now expects all colleges to have programs in place to enhance the abilities of faculty as teachers. In response to this requirement, GSLIS and the University Library have established an Alliance for Teaching Excellence, a partnership to enhance the abilities of those teaching in these two units. For each of its first four years, the Teaching Alliance has received funding on a competitive basis from the Provost’s Initiative for Teaching Advancement (PITA) to support a variety of programs (see the Alliance web site for more details). Alliance programs have attracted participation by GSLIS and Library faculty, GSLIS doctoral students, and GSLIS MS students who have instructional responsibilities as part of their duties as graduate assistants in the University Library (more than 80 GSLIS MS students hold assistantships in the Library). GSLIS faculty are active in a variety of professional associations related to their areas of teaching and research. Review of current faculty resumes demonstrates the interdisciplinary character of this activity. One or more full-time faculty members are active in the American Library Association, American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Library and Information Science Education, Illinois Library Association, Illinois School Media Library Association, International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, Medical Library Association, Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals, and Special Libraries Association. Other associations in which one or more faculty members participate include: American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Educational Research Association, American Medical Informatics Association, Association for Computers and the Humanities, Association for Computing Machinery, Association for Integrative Studies, Association of Internet Researchers, IEEE, International Communication Association, International Board on Books for Young People, International Foundation for Multi-Agent Systems, International Reading Association, International Research Society for Children’s Literature, Internet Society, Modern Language Association, National Council of Teachers of English, National Reading Conference, Social Studies of Science Society, and Society for the History of Technology. Sources of Evidence: Standard III.5For each full-time faculty member the qualifications include a sustained record of accomplishment in research or other appropriate scholarship.
The University of Illinois is a major research university and all of the full-time GSLIS faculty are actively engaged in research and publication. At a retreat in January 2001 the faculty articulated a series of research themes that characterize clusters of interest: distributed communities; historical studies; Internet studies; managing heterogeneity and diversity in large information systems; readers, writers, and texts; technology and scholarship. Faculty resumes provide more detail on individual programs of research and publication. In spring 2004 GSLIS sponsored the first of what we anticipate will be an annual Research Showcase, highlighting the research activities of several of the faculty and doctoral students. Also noteworthy are Professor Betsy Hearne’s creative accomplishments as a prize-winning author of books for children. GSLIS has two research units: the Library Research Center (LRC), directed by Professor Leigh Estabrook, and the Information Systems Research Laboratory (ISRL), home to a variety of research groups and project teams. The LRC supports the work of libraries, library associations, library vendors, and foundations. The LRC specializes in social science approaches to data collection and analysis. Staff members work with clients in all steps of the research process from sampling and survey design through data analysis and presentation of results to governing boards. Noteworthy are the recent studies on Public Libraries and Civil Liberties. ISRL supports research into and about the design, impacts, analysis, and evaluation of information technologies, including information and its properties, information services and access, and the creation/management of information content. Along with focused, single-area efforts, ISRL supports and facilitates multidisciplinary and collaborative research that involves GSLIS investigators across differing subject areas, as well as GSLIS collaborations with researchers in other academic and organizational units at UIUC and elsewhere. Over the past few years, GSLIS faculty have been successful in competing for major grants from a variety of federal agencies and foundations. The number of principal investigators has increased steadily over the past 5 years. In 1998-1999, GSLIS had 9 faculty (60%) serving as principal investigators on funded projects; by 2002-2003 that had increased to 16 faculty (94.1%). The agencies funding faculty research are diverse, including: several divisions of the National Science Foundation; Institute of Museum and Library Services; Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; American Library Association; Special Libraries Association; Library of Congress; Illinois State Library. GSLIS faculty frequently are invited to serve in roles that draw on their research expertise. For example:
Sources of evidence:
Standard III.6The faculty hold advanced degrees from a variety of academic institutions. The faculty evidence diversity of backgrounds, ability to conduct research in the field, and specialized knowledge covering program content. In addition, they demonstrate skill in academic planning and evaluation, have a substantial and pertinent body of relevant experience, interact with faculty of other disciplines, and maintain close and continuing liaison with the field. The faculty nurture an intellectual environment that enhances the accomplishment of program objectives. These characteristics apply to faculty regardless of forms or locations of delivery of programs.
The faculty profile has become more interdisciplinary as new hires and joint appointments introduced new areas of expertise to supplement the School’s traditional strengths in core areas of library science. This has enabled new courses to be introduced to the MS program and has enhanced interdisciplinary linkages across the campus. Current tenured and tenure-track faculty include the following:
A major emphasis on campus is participation of units in cross-campus initiatives. GSLIS faculty are represented on the advisory groups for these initiatives and related programs: Ethnography of the University (Chip Bruce); The Seedbed Initiative for Transdomain Creativity: Exploring Human Experience Through Art and Technology (Chip Bruce); Food Security (Bryan Heidorn); Center on Democracy in a Multiracial Society (Susan Davis); and Institute for Genomic Biology (Bruce Schatz, Genomics of Neural and Behavioral Plasticity). In preparation for the Cross-Campus Initiatives Retreat in spring semester 2002, GSLIS faculty outlined potential contributions to campus themes of biotechnology/bioengineering in a “nano” world, the humanities in a globalizing world, American institutions in a demographically-changing world, and arts in a technology-intensive world. The report articulates the GSLIS perspective on each theme, provides examples of relevant GSLIS activities, and lists existing cross-campus contacts. The report also notes an area of particular interest to GSLIS—the changing role of information in everyday life—that could also be a focus for cross-campus activities. Sources of Evidence: Standard III.7Faculty assignments relate to the needs of a program and to the competencies and interests of individual faculty members. These assignments assure that the quality of instruction is maintained throughout the year and take into account the time needed by the faculty for teaching, student counseling, research, professional development, and institutional and professional service.
The standard teaching load for full-time GSLIS faculty is two courses in the fall and spring semesters, with the option of teaching for additional compensation in either of the summer sessions (four weeks or eight weeks). Reductions in courseload may occur if a faculty member has certain administrative assignments. In addition, faculty are eligible for sabbatical leave according to University guidelines and GSLIS typically grants junior faculty one semester off from teaching to allow focused attention on research and publication as the faculty member prepares for tenure review. Associate Dean Linda Smith coordinates scheduling in consultation with each faculty member and Dean Unsworth. The size of the faculty and the reasonable courseload make it possible for faculty regularly to teach in their areas of expertise. In addition many adjuncts have taught for us on a regular basis over several years in their areas of expertise, providing an assurance of quality. Full-time faculty carry a substantial portion of the teaching load in the fall and spring semesters, both on-campus and online. In summer we are much more heavily dependent on adjunct faculty as GSLIS faculty generally reserve the summer months to concentrate on research and writing. A faculty member’s teaching load may include courses in the undergraduate information technology studies minor or doctoral seminars in addition to courses intended for MS students. The table presented in section III.1 illustrates the contribution of full-time faculty to teaching courses in each of the MS enrollment options. Supervision of practicums, independent studies, and theses is an important role of the full-time faculty over and above their regular course load. Courses taught to MS students by tenured or tenure-track faculty include the following: Ann Bishop Chip Bruce Stephen Downie Fernando Elichirigoity Leigh Estabrook Les Gasser Caroline Haythornthwaite Elizabeth Hearne Bryan Heidorn Christine Jenkins Carole Palmer Allen Renear Bruce Schatz Dan Schiller Linda Smith Michael Twidale Terry Weech Sources of evidence:
Standard III.8Procedures are established for systematic evaluation of faculty; evaluation considers accomplishment and innovation in the areas of teaching, research, and service. Within applicable institutional policies, faculty, students, and others are involved in the evaluation process.
GSLIS guidelines for annual review, third year review, and promotion and tenure review are consistent with the campus-level guidelines as specified in a series of Provost Communications (9, 13, 21). All tenure-track and tenured faculty prepare annual reports and are subject to annual review according to criteria that provide an explicit statement of the high priorities attached to teaching, research, and service. These annual reports are reviewed by the Executive Committee (three elected faculty members and the Associate Dean for Academic Programs) and the Dean, who provide feedback regarding strengths and areas in need of improvement. For junior faculty there is an established third-year review procedure to provide more detailed feedback on progress towards tenure. The annual review and third year review procedures have ensured regular and systematic feedback to junior faculty as they work toward promotion and tenure review. Student evaluations of teaching are an integral part of all levels of review. One indicator of faculty performance are the external recognitions of quality, whether at the campus level or from professional associations. Several GSLIS faculty have received recognition at the campus level for outstanding scholarship, teaching, and service (noteworthy, given that there are 2800 faculty at UIUC):
The excellence of GSLIS faculty has likewise been recognized with awards from professional associations:
Sources of Evidence:
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The Graduate School of Library and Information Science
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 501 E. Daniel Street, Champaign, IL 61820 (217) 333-7197 voice, (217) 244-3302 fax |
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