The academic department: Locus for leadership in enhancing the status and quality of undergraduate teaching

This study examines the potential for enhancing the status and quality of undergraduate teaching in the four year college or university. The framing premise is the proposition by a number of prominent scholars in the literature of higher education reform that the best hope for renewed emphasis on undergraduate teaching lies with the individual academic department and the leadership of the department chairperson. The study explores the ramifications of that proposition: What, specifically, might constitute a departmental effort to focus new emphasis on undergraduate teaching, and how might the chairperson take the lead in promoting it?; The study is in four parts. The first two are literature reviews. Part I, Making the Case for Departmental Leadership, reviews the recent body of literature (editorial, prescriptive, and empirical) holding that it is crucial to the quality of undergraduate education that institutions view the position of department chair as a leadership role upon which their success in providing a vital curriculum, promoting teaching effectiveness, and supporting faculty professional growth depends. Drawing on concepts and ideas from the contemporary literatures on faculty hiring, development, evaluation, and reward, Part II, A Model for Departmental Action, illustrates how conventional departmental activity might be transformed into opportunities for promoting and strengthening undergraduate teaching.; The fieldwork component, Part III, Conversations with Faculty, examines existing departmental culture, practices with respect to the four domains of the Model, and faculty attitudes and values with respect to teaching. This examination derives from secondary analysis of 340 interviews with faculty conducted by the Stanford Institute for Higher Education Research. The design for data reduction, analysis, and narrative presentation is based in the literature of qualitative research.; Part IV, Realizing the Model for Departmental Action, discusses the data against the framework of the Model, considering the questions: Where in departmental culture and practice are there opportunities for leadership to pursue aspects of the Model, and wherein lie the barriers? Conclusions explicate opportunities among the plethora of variables and identify central issues that must be addressed if the role of department chairperson as academic...