Called to Teach. Группа авторов
to see effective teaching as foundational to our students’ significant learning, moral development, and spiritual growth. Thanks to the university’s commitment, as well as extensive faculty engagement, the ATL has become a vital mechanism for the ongoing development of Baylor instructors. It is also a tangible expression—to alumni, potential students and faculty, and other stakeholders—of the institution’s on-going recognition that teaching excellence is a way of life at Baylor.
Virtually every university constituency endorsed the strategic proposal for the creation of the ATL.13 Jon Engelhardt, former dean of the School of Education, believed so strongly in the proposed center’s value that he offered funding from his own budget to help launch it. Larry Lyon, Senior Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School, authorized stipend funds to create the ATL’s Graduate Fellows program. Former provost, Elizabeth Davis, convinced that the time had come for a center for teaching and learning, presented the proposal to the Board of Regents, who approved the ATL for operation beginning in 2008. W. Gardner Campbell, Vice Provost for Learning Innovation and Student Success and Associate Professor of English at Virginia Commonwealth University, served as the inaugural director of the ATL 2008-2011. Campbell encouraged Baylor faculty to re-imagine what great teaching might look like in a digital age. Today, members of the Office of the President, Office of the Provost, directors, deans, chairpersons, and other campus leaders champion the work of the ATL and find ways to integrate teaching development into the fabric of Baylor. Perhaps most significantly, Baylor faculty have taken ownership over the ATL, investing their expertise, time, and energy to breathe life into the ATL’s mission “to support and inspire a flourishing community of learning.” We are immensely grateful.
The strategic proposal identified a need for faculty members, departments, and program leaders to have a central resource to help develop meaningful and effective long-term plans for enhancing student learning. Research supports the belief that efforts made on behalf of effective teaching development need infrastructure, resources, and integration into institutional systems. A multi-year study published in 2015 concludes that faculty involvement in centers for teaching and learning depends on “whether or not the centers are integrated systematically into the expectations, support, and reward structures of the institution, and whether this emphasis on teaching excellence is reflected in the level of respect it is accorded by peers.”14
We believe that whatever future mechanisms exist for teacher support, great teaching and significant learning will endure. Why? We believe Baylor is loyal to her core values, including teaching. But our faith in the future of teaching is rooted in something that is both more elusive and more palpable: That Good Old Baylor Line. Since 1845, generations of Baylor students and teachers have marched together in and out of classrooms. These students and teachers, supported by dedicated academic leaders, have forged a bold vision that unites Baylor’s historic tradition of teaching excellence with a renewed commitment to teaching development, a vision realized in the Academy for Teaching and Learning and vibrantly attested in the essays of this collection. Sometimes, we need to fling our Green and Gold far and near. Sometimes, we teachers, like our students, need transformation as we hold that Good Old Baylor Line.
References
Baylor University, “Baylor Mourns the Death of President Emeritus Herbert H. Reynolds.” May 25, 2007. https://www.baylor.edu/MEDIACOMMUNICATIONS/news.php?action=story&story=45872.
———. “Looking Back with Dr. Robert Baird.” Baylor Arts and Sciences. April 23, 2014. http://blogs.baylor.edu/artsandsciences/2014/04/23/robert-baird/.
———. “Remembering Dr. Pennington and Dr. Hanks as They Retire.” Baylor Proud. July 17, 2017. https://www2.baylor.edu/baylorproud/2017/07/remembering-dr-pennington-dr-hanks-as-they-retire/.
Bruffee, Kenneth A. Collaborative Learning: Higher Education, Interdependence, and the Authority of Knowledge. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999.
Keirns, Tracy A., Chad S. Novak, and Andrew E. Smith. “Baylor University Alumni Survey 2012.” The University of New Hampshire Survey Center, December 2012. https://www.baylor.edu/alumni/doc.php/193441.pdf.
Luther, Martin. “An Appeal to the Ruling Class of German Nationality as to the Amelioration of the State of Christendom.” In Martin Luther: Selections from His Writings, edited by John Dillenberger, 403–88. New York: Anchor, 1962.
Lyon, Julie S., Hilary J. Gettman, Scott P. Roberts, and Cynthia E. Shaw. “Measuring and Improving the Climate for Teaching: A Multi-Year Study.” Journal on Excellence in College Teaching, 26 (2015) 111–38.
Tranvik, Mark D. Martin Luther and the Called Life. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2016.
Palmer, Parker. Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000.
Schultze, Quentin. Here I Am: Now What on Earth Should I Be Doing? Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005.
Schuurman, Douglas J. Vocation: Discerning Our Callings in Life. Grand Rapids: Eerd-mans, 2004.
Smith, Gordon T. Consider Your Calling: Six Questions for Discerning Your Vocation. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2015.
1. Luther, “Appeal to the Ruling Class,” 407–12.
2. For example: Palmer, Let Your Life Speak; Smith, Consider Your Calling; Schultze, Here I Am. A more Reformations-grounded treatment appears in Schuurman, Vocation; although Schuurman also focuses on “discernment” of one’s calling.
3. Cited in Tranvik, Martin Luther and the Called Life, 97.
4. Bruffee, Collaborative Learning.
5. Dr. William F. Cooper has been affiliated with Baylor University for over fifty years. Cooper also became supportive of the Baylor Interdisciplinary Core in its early years and provided funding for BIC faculty development through his dean’s office discretionary account. He continues to advocate for teaching development.
6. Baird served as Summer Teaching Institute leader for several years before transitioning to facilitator of the “microteaching” component of the Institute, a role he performed for approximately thirty years.
7. The STI/SFI is now a fixture of the University and ATL. Former and current leaders, based on available records, include the following: Bill Cooper, Bob Baird, Fred Curtis (deceased), Gustavo Morales, Bert Williams, Paul Rosewell, A. A. Hyden (deceased), James Nowlin, Tom Proctor (deceased), Jeter Basden, Tom Hanks, Anne-Marie Schultz, Laine Scales, Lenore Wright, Andy Arterbury, and Keith Schubert.
8. Keirns, Novak, and Smith, “Baylor University Alumni Survey,” 1.
9. Cooper subsequently became Dean of Arts & Sciences and Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus. Vardaman recently retired as Associate Dean for Engaged Learning in A & S and Senior Lecturer in English. Baird served as Chair of the Department of Philosophy for eighteen years (1987–2005), University Ombudsperson, and Faculty Senator. Baird also directed a university self-study 1984–86 and chaired the committee that developed the Baylor Interdisciplinary Core (BIC) in the early 1990s. He earned the designation of Master Teacher and received the Piper Professor of Texas Award, the Robert L. Reid Award for Outstanding Teaching in the Humanities, the Herbert H. Reynolds Award for Exemplary Service to Students, and the Cornelia Marshall Smith Professor of the Year Award. Baird is now Professor of Philosophy and Master Teacher, Emeritus.
10. For the complete interview, see Baylor