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STANDARD SIX
Unit Governance and Resources
The Unit has the leadership, authority, budget, personnel, facilities,
and resources including information technology resources for the
preparation of candidates to meet professional, state, and institutional
standards.
1.0 UNIT LEADERSHIP AND AUTHORITY
The Associate Dean for Teacher Education and Director,
School of Education, is the Head of the Northern Michigan University
Professional Education Unit. The Associate Dean for Teacher Education in
the University assumes leadership for the teacher education programs
throughout the University, including the secondary education programs in
the other colleges in the University such as in the College of Arts and
Sciences, as well as the School of Education in the College of
Professional Studies. The Unit Head is the recognized leader within the
University to speak for the program relative to the Unit’s direction,
for example:
- Responding to national and state standards for
accreditation and program approvals as well as certification changes
and reciprocity,
- Enhancing collaboration within the Unit as well as
with other University units,
- Continuing the partnership with the schools for the
preparation of candidates and the advanced education of teachers and
other school personnel,
- Monitoring the Unit staffing and budgets, e.g., the
professional development of faculty, faculty assignments and loads.
Supporting the administering of the Unit and the Unit
Head’s leadership are:
- The Director of Field Experiences;
- The Director, Teacher Education Student Services;
- The Certification Counselor.
The three support positions report to the Unit Head.
See Exhibit
# 6.1 for position descriptions for: the Unit Head, the Director of
Field Experiences, the Director of Teacher Education Student Services,
and the Certification Counselor. See Exhibit
# 6.2, the organization chart of the Unit.
Three secretaries assist in administering the Unit: 1)
Muriel Kangas, assigned to the Unit Head and to the faculty in the
School of Education; 2) Marcia Gronvall, assigned to the Director of
Field Experiences; 3) Cindy Robare, assigned to the Director, Teacher
Education Students Services. Two graduate assistant positions are
assigned to the Unit, one to the Unit Head and the other to the
Director, Field Experiences. The Unit’s two graduate assistantships
have non-teaching duties, e.g., assisting with field placements prior to
practice teaching, newsletters, special reports, scheduling, and
correspondence.
Unit committees assist the leadership of the Unit in
formulating, implementing, and refining policies and practices in the
Unit: 1) the Selection and Retention Committee which handles the appeals
of the decisions made by the Director, Teacher Education Student
Services and the Certification Counselor, about admitting and retaining
candidates and decisions made by the Director of Field Experiences,
about field placements, particularly practice teaching placements and
performance; 2) the Unit Program Development Committees (elementary and
secondary) which are chaired by Dr. Rod Clarken, Director of Field
Experiences. See Exhibit
# 6.5 for sample minutes of past meetings of the two committees.
Candidates may appeal the decisions of the Selection and Retention
Committee to the Unit Head; however, the appeals are limited. See
Exhibit
# 6.3 for the Bylaws of the Selection and Retention Committee.
The Unit Head has exercised leadership within the
University’s Unit and articulated the need for curricula changes as
well as improving performance of faculty in the Professional Studies
Program. Examples are:
- The presentation of defense before the Committee on
Undergraduate Programs (CUP) and the Academic Senate (12/00) for the
addition of required courses for all elementary science education
candidates;
- The mentoring of the performance of secondary
methods faculty and supervising teachers as needed. To preserve
confidentiality, documentation is available upon request;
- Resolving of the design and delivery of integrated
arts requirements for all elementary candidates. A review is
available upon request.
The above are examples of how the Unit Head has
demonstrated leadership to accomplish important curricular changes as
well as to monitor the quality of instruction.
2.0 UNIT BUDGET
The primary accounts assigned to the Unit Head are:
- The School of Education Account (2-13010) for
supporting the School of Education faculty and programs that are
within the School of Education, e.g., salaries and fringe, work
study help, graduate assistants, professional development study and
travel, duplication, and
- The Professional Laboratory Experience Account
(2-13011) for the Unit-wide field experiences program, e.g., travel
of faculty to supervise the candidates who are in the Practice
Teaching Phase III and the reimbursement of classroom teachers for
supervising practice teachers (the graduate tuition reimbursement
and the stipend honorarium).
The above primary accounts receive supplements from
tuition revenues earned from special programs, including professional
development programs/institutes for teachers and school administrators,
course offerings in the field as part of faculty load, and the summer
session programs for educators.
Secondary accounts that support the work of the Unit
include, for example, an account for accreditation and State of Michigan
program approval reviews for content endorsements, and specific accounts
for grants, to cite two examples.
Other sources of monies converge to support the
Unit’s accounts:
- The departments with secondary education methods
instructors and supervisors of practice teachers have the salary and
fringe dollars for the secondary education faculty and the monies
for their professional development study and travel and for any
special curricular resources and support. For example, the
Department of History has the professional development, salary and
fringe, and curricular resources dollars for the secondary teaching
methods professor for the social studies field as well as economics,
cultural geography, history, and political science.
- Special centers and offices in the University
support through their budgets many collaborative initiatives with
schools that are central to the Unit’s efforts to develop practice
sites for advancing the preparation of candidates. For example, the
U. P. Center for Educational Development’s accounts are providing
the primary financial and non-financial support for the new teacher
induction and mentoring program. The collaborative participation of
Drs. House and Dawson is through the Seaborg Center for Teaching and
Learning Science and Mathematics budgetary funding.
- Preparing teacher candidates to use teaching and
learning technologies receives outstanding budgetary support through
the University offices assigned to implement University’s
educational technology initiatives: 1) requiring candidates to have
IBM ThinkPads; 2) providing faculty (including adjunct faculty
teaching more than 3 semester credits) with IBM ThinkPads; and 3)
providing educational technologies support services to faculty and
candidates.
3.0 PERSONNEL
The Unit Head provides leadership in developing and/or
implementing equitable policies and practices for serving all personnel
in the Unit. Examples are:
- The faculty load is 12 semester credits per the
NMU-Faculty Master Agreement. See Exhibit
# 6.4 specifically Section 6.1.1.1.
- University supervision of candidates in practice
teaching is 1.5 candidates per semester credit hour of faculty load;
therefore, 18 candidates is equivalent to 12 semester credits.
- Credit hours at the ED 500 and 600 graduate level
receive an additional. 33 semester credits of full-time faculty
load; therefore, 9 graduate credit hours are equivalent to an
undergraduate 12 semester credit hour load. The “.33 graduate load
factor” is restricted to courses and thereby not applicable to
graduate level practica, internships, etc.
- Faculty overloads in the Unit are limited and
awarded primarily in situations in which faculty positions are
vacant or sudden increases in numbers and adjunct faculty
expertise is unavailable to assure a quality program. For example,
the School of Education has two vacant positions during the
2000-2001 academic years and thereby some members of the school have
exceeded the 12 credit hour load limit. Recruitment is in progress
for the vacant positions. The University-Faculty Master Agreement
provision that requires overload credit to be proffered to the
faculty bargaining unit members has an exception for those who
administer programs in the University such as those in the
Professional Education Unit that have accreditation faculty load
guidelines. See the AAUP-NMU Master Agreement
Section
9.1.4.1.
- The University’s administrative and faculty
policies and/or practices support the Unit’s needs: 1) to retain
vacant positions, 2) to secure full-time faculty as often as
possible, and 3) to have and assure that adjunct have specialized
expertise and experience. Part-time adjunct faculty members are very
important to the Unit as the Unit in accord with its Conceptual
Framework seeks to learn from educational practice and provide
candidates insights into the ethics and art of practice. Adjunct
faculty have, therefore, a very unique role in the Unit, namely, to
contextualize with the full-time faculty researched-based practice
and to more effectively focus programs on practice and performance
of the Unit’s candidates. All candidates in basic and advanced
programs, after all, must demonstrate the content, skills, and
attitudes to successfully teach, counsel, or administer schools that
assure all diverse students learn and receive respect. Thus, three
full-time, adjunct (one-year term) positions are requested for the
2001-2002 academic year, accommodating increases and important
conceptual/programmatic direction.
- The University provides abundant opportunities for
the faculty to develop expertise in the use of technology for their
research and development, for advancing their teaching and the
learning of their candidates, etc. Support dollars are available
from various offices on the campus to support faculty in developing
on line courses or support components for courses. The Unit
contributes supplemental funds for special projects developed by
faculty in the Unit or important for the School-University
partnerships.
- Faculty, secretaries, and administrators, having
electronic access to information essential to their work, receive
advice, counsel, and guidelines regarding the circumstances that
compromise the rights of privacy of all members of the University
community - faculty, candidates, and others.
4.0 UNIT FACILITIES
The Unit’s facilities on campus are befitting both
faculty and candidates. The physical and electronic updating of those
facilities continues to follow a schedule to assure that classrooms are
“wired” to support the University-wide IBM Thinkpad teaching and
learning technology initiative, classrooms equipped for power-point
presentations, and classrooms that support many laptops to access the
internet concurrently or permit candidates to link their laptops for
assignments, problems, etc. in the classroom.
The many area schools afford facilities that match the
number of candidates in the various phases in the program. Thus, faculty
and candidates have maximum opportunities for advancing their practice
by observing and working together with students, reviewing curricula,
conducting lessons, assessing work samples of students, and so forth.
For example, Unit faculty and/or candidates have field experiences
and/or classes in: 1) Whitman Elementary School, 2) Sandy Knoll
Elementary School, 3) Superior Hills Elementary School, 4) Vandenboom
Elementary School, 5) Bothwell Middle School, 6) Graveraet Middle
School, and 7) Marquette Senior High School. Other area school
districts, for example the Diocese of Marquette Roman Catholic Parochial
Schools, Negaunee Area Public Schools, and NICE Community School
District, permit faculty and candidates to work in these schools. These
schools serving as practice sites present to the candidates and the
faculty updated facilities, different school cultures, diverse modes of
instruction, students who come from diverse socio-economic and religious
backgrounds, and communities with different demographics and
economic/business bases. All the partnership schools serving as practice
sites are within commuting distance for the faculty and candidates.
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