Overall Attendance and Survey Response Rate

There were 25 attendees at the New Faculty Orientation (NFO) on Tuesday August 16th, 2022. The qualtrics survey link was sent out to all attendees on August 17th. A reminder was sent to attendees that had not completed the survey on August 24th. A survey closing email was sent on August 31st. 12 attendees opened the email and started the survey, while 11 attendees completed the full survey. This gives a completion rate of 92% and an overall response rate of 44%.

New Faculty Demographics

The fall 2022 new faculty cohort includes members that are just begininng their academic careers to experienced academics that are joining UMSL. The majority of respondents to the feedback survey are in Non-Tenure Track teaching roles at UMSL.

Attendee Feedback

The goals of New Faculty Orientation are:

1: Foster development of active and engaged learning

2: Introduce and reinforce connections with campus partners to support new faculty as you begin your work at UMSL

3: Create a rich network across the disciplines and across campus as part of a cohort

Attendees were asked to think about the orientation sessions they attended and to let us know how well we met each of these goals. The sessions at NFO included:

Q1: Building Relationships through Inquiry

Q2: Meeting UMSL students

Q3: Lunch with campus partners

Q4: Partners in Learning: Supporting Students

Q5: Optional: individual consultation with CTL

Attendees overwhelmingly agreed that they were very satisfied with the majority of the sessions offered during New Faculty Orientation. There was no N/A option available in the qualtrics survey when asking about the helpfulness of the sessions of NFO, therefore, those that did not attend the optional consultation with CTL session may have marked neutral if they did not attend.

Open-Ended Responses

Attendees were asked several open-ended questions. The first open ended question was “UMSl’s orientation compares to orientations you have attended on other campuses in the following ways (positively or negatively)”.

Eight faculty answered this question and of those, seven commented positively. The remaining individual replied that they had not attended other orientations.

“I thought this was much better than previous campus I was at. I walked away feeling like I had new insight and direction.”

“This was amazing!!! I am teaching at a sister institution this year as well. This orientation superseded all of my expectations set from my orientation exposure with our sister institution.”

“UMSL students participated in round table discussions to introduce life on campus from their perspectives. What messages from the students stayed with you?”

Nine faculty members responded to this prompt. Three respondents commented on student’s potential hesitation or fear to speak with their professors one on one.

“It was quite insightful to hear a student’s perspective. The fear of talking to faculty one on one. It is easier for student to e-mail than come to office hours.”

Two respondents mentioned the desire of students to have a more active classroom pedagogy.

“Students really like active, open-ended inquiry-based learning projects for their class assignments in which they can explore their own ideas and produce their learning paths in many different creative ways.”

Four respondents had other take away messages from the students including:

“be willing to learn from the learners.”

“Their schedule of class and student participation on campus”

“Adding flexibility to classes where possible”

Suppose that you have a new colleague joining the faculty next year who questions the utility of attending New Faculty Orientation in August. What would you say?

Eight faculty members responded to this prompt. Seven respondents indicated that they would tell their colleague to attend:

“This is worth your time!”

“The information is invaluable and networking with your coworkers is incredibly important for your individual and group success at any institution, but especially important at higher education institutions. I would also joke with them for being a grump, but I realize that is not the point of this question.”

“come with an open mind and be prepared to listen.”

One faculty member indicated that they would tell their colleague they do not need to attend:

“I would say that they do not need to attend, except for the reception at the Chancellor’s house. I would not have attended this meeting myself, if I had known what the meeting would look like.”

What topics or sessions should we absolutely keep in next year’s program? Nine faculty members responded to this survey question. Four respondents said we should retain the student round table discussions. Three respondents said we should retain all of the sessions for the next program. Two respondents indicated that we should keep the session on student services. One wrote:

“Partners in Learning, supporting students. I am a very new faculty member and I had no idea those programs existed, I also loved all the information about the CTL, again, it was new material to me.”

What changes do you recommend for next year’s program? Nine faculty members responded to this question. Answers were more variable to this question. Two faculty members commented on wanting more support or time to work on Canvas. A selection of other responses are included below.

“While I very much enjoyed being in the Chancellor’s house, it was a hard environment to talk to everyone. I don’t know that I would do it differently, but I viewed that as a networking event and it turned out to be very hard to network.”

One faculty member was particularly concerned about the lack of opportunity to network with others about research

“Let’s talk about the three goals the CTL described. 1. Foster development of active and engaged learning 2. Introduce and reinforce connections with campus partners to support new faculty as you begin your work at UMSL 3. Create a rich network across the disciplines and across campus as part of a cohort

The first two are fine. But the puzzling piece is the last one. What did you mean by creating “a rich network across the disciplines and across campus as part of a cohort”? Specifically, a rich network of “what?” Did you mean a rich network of “teaching capacity building” or a rich network of “research capacity building”? I am sure we should strive for both. But different strategies should be adopted to achieve the goals. Before the session, I was very excited. I was eager to have in-depth and focused conversations about specific research agendas and potential mutual research interests. Unfortunately, I do not think the session was not well designed to support my aspiration because of two different types of the constituency.”

When I happened to ask someone next to me, “what is your research area?” the answer was, “Oh, I don’t do research; I don’t have research agenda.” What’s more, I was the only one with that question on my table. I felt right away I am in the wrong place and I felt very isolated because no one was talking about research.”

We would like to know what you’d like us to include in our on-going extended program for new faculty orientation (monthly) to tailor the program to your needs. Please let us know what topics you’d like us to include in the extended program:

“–Learn about places where we are not as strong as other universities so we, as new faculty, can focus our energy there. I loved the stats you gave us on our majors, so something like that.” –How to make tough decisions about struggling students”

“Maybe organize monthly meetings for new faculties who do not have prior experience in teaching to discuss different teaching methods and approaches that they can adopt”

“Maybe a discussion of recommended policies for handling student absences post covid? I would like to know what options are deemed favorable and preferred by UMSL.”

We welcome additional comments about your experiences during New Faculty Orientation. Thank you for your participation! Three faculty members thanked the organizers.

“Thank you! The food was good and so was the content. I appreciated the chance to meet other new faculty.”