Professor in the ClassroomEmpower a Faculty for the Future

Drawing on the knowledge and experiences faculty members gain through engagement in their disciplines, scholarly activities, and industry interactions, they will enhance our students’ learning environment, and continue our focus on student-centered learning in and outside of the classroom. Maritime College will monitor the incentives and rewards it offers faculty and provide the administrative support necessary for faculty to focus on their primary roles as teachers, mentors, and scholars. The College will facilitate faculty connections with industry and will support professional development to advance faculty careers.

 

A Objective:

Develop a diverse and consistently high-quality faculty, deeply engaged in and across their disciplines

We will build a faculty for the future by examining the ways in which disciplines are changing and by identifying what these changes mean for our faculty and our academic programming. We will sustain and develop our faculty by making investments to ensure their advancement, strengthening their teaching and research, and broadening the interdisciplinary nature of the academic programs.

Action:

Strategically recruit, develop, and retain talented faculty

  • Create and implement a strategic faculty recruitment and development plan that defines clearly desired faculty characteristics, along with strategies for attracting talented faculty who are accomplished in their disciplines and who will also help infuse technology throughout the curriculum.

  • Invest in support and mentorship for new faculty, including training to help develop potential mentors.

  • Maintain consistent, pertinent, and predictable expectations for promotion and tenure and a structured process for documenting successes.

  • Increase opportunities for ongoing faculty development, including those for non-tenured faculty.

 

B Objective:

Cultivate a faculty of scholar-teachers for whom research and teaching are mutually reinforcing

Students benefit from faculty who are actively pursuing their own scholarship and use the results of their scholarly activities to directly impact students in the classroom and lab. We will define the forms of research and scholarship that are most relevant to the College’s mission, including discovery, integration, application, and teaching and learning processes. We will identify the processes and resources that are necessary catalysts for such work. By encouraging the combined pursuit of scholarship and teaching, we will bring faculty research into the classroom, encouraging faculty to hone their scholarship in dialogue with undergraduate and graduate students and engaging students in the process of knowledge production in ways that complement their classroom experiences.

Action:

Incentivize and facilitate faculty scholarship, creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship

  • Support our faculty’s creative, intellectual spirit in ways that build interdisciplinary approaches to teaching and scholarship.

  • Catalyze innovative research and scholarship through greater grant support.

  • Extend the impact of Maritime College by identifying external commercial, public, and nonprofit partners that are interested in helping faculty translate their research into applications.

  • Facilitate ways in which faculty introduce their scholarship to students as active and engaged participants both inside and outside the classroom.

 

C Objective:

Empower active, multifaceted faculty engagement with the maritime and other industries

We will enhance the interaction of Maritime College faculty with the industries that hire our graduates. Doing so will allow our faculty to keep abreast of the challenges confronting these industries and bring this knowledge into their classrooms. This interaction will also benefit maritime and other industries through access to faculty expertise and research as well as to a pipeline of well-prepared students and alumni.

Action:

Encourage and support faculty-industry interactions

  • Establish incentives and opportunities—such as a well-articulated faculty sabbatical policy—that will encourage significant faculty participation in the industry.

  • Identify other ways to help faculty keep current with challenges facing the maritime industry, such as creating observer roles on commercial ships for licensed faculty.

  • Promote faculty expertise that is relevant to industry needs and challenges.