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Forward to Maryland Redesign Addendum |
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Forward to Maryland Redesign Addendum |
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.
The Education Department, housed in the College of Arts and Sciences, is the unit that has full responsibility and authority over the planning, delivery, and operation of programs for the preparation of teachers and other school personnel at Loyola College in Maryland (G.2). The basic structure of the department is depicted in the chart contained in exhibit 6.1. The new Education Department Policy Handbook (G.5) contains the policies and procedures that guide the coordination of all activities and ensure that candidates in all programs are prepared to be effective professionals.
Direct responsibility for the functions of each program rest with the faculty of that program. Program faculty work under the direction of the program coordinator. Coordinators conduct meetings as appropriate to facilitate the work of the faculty. The chair provides oversight and is ultimately responsible for ensuring that all candidates are meeting appropriate standards and achieving the outcomes set forth in the unit's conceptual framework. Minutes of general department meetings document these roles (6.2).
Coordinators work with advisory groups, faculty from other departments, and various offices of the college as appropriate to ensure that candidates are being prepared to work effectively in school roles. Most programs have advisory or consultative groups to help support their activities (6.3). Teacher Education faculty have worked with faculty from various CAS departments to define appropriate curricula and to match the content offered to Loyola candidates with the national standards required by specialty organizations (6.4). Teacher Education faculty also have extensive interactions with principals, administrators, and faculty from PDS sites for the planning of curriculum, assessment, and field-based activities. (6.5).
Faculty committees have been developed ad hoc to prepare for various activities related to NCATE review, standards alignment, and assessment strategies (6.6). Similar committees have been established to identify and interview potential faculty members as part of searches for five new tenure-track faculty (6.7). Collaboration within and across programs of the department has been a hallmark of the past two years of reevaluation and preparation for this first NCATE review.
As emphasized in the conceptual framework, the Education Department at Loyola views itself as part of a broad learning community that reaches far outside the confines of the department and even the college. Program faculty collaborate extensively with other faculty in the college and with schools and school systems. The science courses in the elementary education program are the result of years of carefully monitored work by faculty members from the Physics, Biology, Chemistry, and Education Departments (6.8). The undergraduate mathematics sequence was also developed through collaboration between Education and the Mathematical Sciences Departments (6.9). The Collaborative Futures document, which contains many of the seminal ideas now present in the PDS standards being promulgated by the state, was developed over several years of intense discussions between school personnel and Loyola representatives (3.1). Each PDS that is affiliated with Loyola has a steering committee that is composed of representatives from both institutions.
The department also has a long history of collaboration with county school systems and the Archdiocese of Baltimore. Current examples include teacher cohort programs at the M.Ed. level in middle school mathematics, earth science, physics, and school counseling that are planned, conducted, and funded cooperatively by Baltimore City, Baltimore County, Prince Georges County, and Anne Arundel County (6.10).
The core budget for the Education Department (personnel and operations) was approximately $2,483,000 for fiscal 2000. Approximately 90% ($2.232,000) was allocated to faculty salaries and benefits, 5.5% ($138,000) for administrative salaries and benefits, with the remaining 4.5% ($113,000) for operational expenses. Additional funds are budgeted to the CAS Dean to fund faculty professional development, faculty and staff searches, accreditation fees and expenses, graduate assistants for departmental faculty, and payments for school-based faculty mentors. Eighty 50% tuition scholarships (one course each) are awarded each semester to graduate students in the Education Department who teach in Catholic schools. Detailed budget figures and comparative data will be available at the time of the site visit (6.11).
Over the past three years, the department has been given three new tenure-track faculty lines and has had searches approved to replace two faculty who have resigned or retired. A new administrative line was approved to support the development of the practicum experience in special education and two new staff positions were approved, one to serve as a course assistant for the elementary course in the Montessori Program and an administrative assistant to assist with accreditation and assessment tasks. The college approved an increase in the stipend for program coordinators in the department last year. While faculty salaries have not reached the targeted levels from the last strategic plan, the new plan maintains a goal of bringing faculty salaries into better alignment with salaries at peer and benchmark institutions.
Clinical faculty have been successful in obtaining grants to support the growth of professional development schools, service learning, and performance assessment systems in teacher education over the past five years (6.12). As soft funding for these essential activities becomes less available, the department will look to the college for increased funding in those areas in order to allow it to keep this component of the program in compliance with NCATE and Redesign standards.
The standard workload for regular faculty is 3 courses per semester. Undergraduate and graduate courses are counted equally. Regular faculty are also responsible for research and professional activities and service to the college as part of their full-time assignment. Regular faculty may be appointed as program coordinators. Program coordination carries an annual stipend and counts toward the service portion of the regular workload. Advising is also a part of the service workload for all regular faculty.
Teaching loads vary both in number of courses taught and total number students served. Three to five regular faculty members teach a fourth course, under a separate contract, during one or both semesters of the academic year (6.13). Some take on one or more students for independent study projects in content areas when there is a need but no current course offering. Regular faculty may also supervise one or more sections of practicum or internship for their program area. A number of regular faculty also accept a separate summer contract to teach three courses, attend meetings, and participate in departmental activities from June through August. The average class size for regular, 3-credit courses, undergraduate and graduate combined, is 17 students, with a range of 6 to 26 students for full-time faculty (6.14).
Currently, advising loads are unevenly distributed and range from 21 to 226 students per full-time faculty member (6.15). The department began to redistribute advising assignments during the current academic year, especially for undergraduates. Undergraduate advising had become the job of one administrator over a number of years. For fall 2001, undergraduate majors were reassigned by cohort based on the projected year of graduation. This distribution will give more faculty undergraduate advising assignments, but will prevent any one individual from becoming overburdened. Graduate advising is distributed among the faculty associated with each program by the program coordinator. Because of high enrollments and few faculty in some programs, the graduate student advising load has become unbalanced. Success in hiring 5 new faculty members for the 2002-2003 academic year will alleviate this problem.
The standard workload for a full-time, non-tenure-track faculty member is 4 courses per semester plus service to the department. Faculty in this type of time-limited position are not required to contribute research or professional service and teach a fourth course in lieu of that requirement.
The standard workload for clinical faculty is three courses per semester. One section of internship with 5 to 6 students is considered a full course for workload accounting. In addition to their teaching/supervisory responsibilities, clinical faculty also typically have significant administrative responsibilities (e.g., coordination of 3 Professional Development Schools) and are expected to provide service to the department such as service on committees.
The standard workload for core faculty is three courses of teaching per semester plus service to the department. Core faculty are appointed into .8 FTE positions. The department currently has only one core faculty member who serves as the practicum/internship coordinator for the School Counseling Program.
A supervisory load of 5 - 6 students enrolled in a 12 credit Internship is considered the equivalent of one course. Other types of supervision are prorated and the total supervisory load for an individual faculty member is capped at 18 students. In teacher education, a typical clinical faculty member who serves as a PDS coordinator will have, over the course of a year, students in the one credit Phase IA (one-half day per week), the one credit Phase IB (one full day per week), and the 12 credit Phase II (five days per week). The teaching workload, averaged over the entire year, amounts to the equivalent of a three course load with an 18 or lower FTE supervisory responsibility. Document 6.16 shows supervisory loads for PDS coordinators during the 00-01 academic year.
Based on fall 2000 figures, the Education Department had the largest ratio of student credit-hour production to tenure-track faculty of any department in the college (70% above the average across all CAS departments), suggesting that the proportion of adjunct faculty is too high. Approximately 56% of all undergraduate course sections in the department are taught by full-time faculty, compared with an average of 67% across CAS departments. At the graduate level, 43% of all sections in the department are taught by full-time faculty; this figure is slightly higher than the 38% average across the 5 CAS departments that offer graduate programs (G.95, pp. 31-32). These ratios will be reduced significantly if the five searches for tenure-track faculty members currently underway are successful, as approximately 15 sections per semester that are currently taught by adjunct faculty would then be covered by full-time faculty.
The Education Department has 13 budgeted support staff lines, including an office manager who oversees the functioning of core departmental staff, three office assistants who perform basic clerical duties for a variety of departmental programs, three academic administrative assistants who provide support to faculty and specific program areas, a coordinator for graduate records, three program assistants (one currently vacant) who provide direct administrative and academic services, and two course assistants for the Washington Montessori Programs. One of the academic administrative assistant positions was funded two years ago for the specific purpose of developing and maintaining information and records for NCATE accreditation requirements, including maintenance of assessment data. As new policies and procedures are put in place, some positions and job descriptions may be restructured, but the number of support positions is considered adequate for current needs.
Professional development of faculty is supported in a variety of ways. Funding (100%) is available through the dean and the department for travel to and attendance at national and international conferences where peer-reviewed papers are being presented by faculty. Funds are also available for attendance (without presentations) at selected conferences and workshops on a case-by-case review. Faculty teaching workshops are offered by the Office of the Academic Vice President at the beginning of each semester. Workshops on curriculum infusion ad other topics are offered regularly. Faculty are encouraged and allowed time to attend in-state workshops and professional development activities offered throughout the year by the Maryland State Department of Education and other groups.
Office and classroom space is of good quality and is adequate for the needs of the department currently. Counseling faculty have moved their offices to the Timonium campus during the past year, opening up several offices for potential new hires for AY 2002-2003. All full-time faculty have individual offices and current space should allow new faculty to be housed in offices in Beatty Hall. There is no permanent office space available for adjunct faculty on the main campus and there is no gathering space for students and faculty of the department. There are drop-in office areas for adjunct faculty use at the Timonium campus. Space for curriculum materials is not available at this time, although a small area for use of the Education Society has recently been made available.
Classroom space is assigned through the records office each semester. While there are generally no problems in this process, the limited space allocated to Education at the Columbia Center often causes scheduling difficulties. The college is exploring alternative space for purchase of lease in the Columbia area at this time.
Loyola College provides extensive support for the use of information technology in instruction on the main campus as well as at the two graduate centers in Columbia and Timonium. Detailed descriptions of the classroom facilities can be found in the booklet entitled Technology Services Reference Guide (G.59). Among the highlights of the instructional technology available are Hi-tech classrooms that are fully linked to the college network and that seamlessly integrate videotape, internet, computer, and document projection for instructor use. Blackboard courseware is available to every instructor for every section taught at Loyola. Extensive video resources are available through the library. An extensive collection of K-12 software is available in the department's Macintosh laboratory in Beatty Hall. E-mail and internet access is available in all dorms, most classrooms, and all faculty offices. There are also distance education classroom available at all three campus locations and there is videotaping and closed circuit TV available in the counseling laboratories on the Timonium campus.
Unit resources are allocated across programs based on enrollments, programmatic need for course coverage and candidate assistance, and applicable national standards. The Chair files formal requests for new resources according to the procedures and timelines established by the Vice President for Academic Affairs and the Dean (6.17). The unit assessment plan described in the response to Standard 2 outlines specific data requirements and procedures that will be put into place for unit decision making concerning resource allocation, including annual reports from each program and consideration by the Committee of Coordinators.
Currently, data that will be required for implementation of the unit assessment system is gathered from a variety of sources in a number of offices spread across campus on an as-needed basis. Reports on enrollment and grades are received from the Records office, applicant inquiry data from the Admissions office, and so on. Standard reports are issued by each office and specialized reports can be obtained upon request. The Office of Institutional Research provides assistance in gathering data for required state and federal reports.
Full implementation of the unit assessment will require some restructuring of the workload of administrative personnel and staff in the unit as well as more and better collaboration amount the various offices of the college that are responsible for data collection and reporting. Part of the unit's implementation plan, described in the response to Standard 2, involves establishing needed committees and procedures that will facilitate access and reporting of college-wide data. Need for additional material and human resources will be identified and requested as a result of the implementation planning over the next year.
The information technology available at Loyola is extensive and is described in the introductory section of this report as well as in a detailed booklet published by Technology Services (G.59). Department faculty and staff have access to the central student records and budget system as needed. The college catalogues, which are updated annually, are processed online via the Loyola College Publishing System (LCPS). This system is also used to publish the course offerings each semester. All faculty and candidates have access to Internet, e-mail, and other technology services via individual access accounts. The Department has recently set up a local network and server, currently in the pilot phase, to facilitate the production of the course schedule for each semester.
The Loyola/Notre Dame Library, opened in 1973, is a unique
facility that provides information services and resources to support
the educational programs and needs of both Loyola College and
the College of Notre Dame of Maryland. The library contains approximately
425,000 volumes (including bound periodicals), over 2,000 periodical
subscriptions in print format (approximately 500 of these titles
are in education and psychology) with many additional titles available
electronically, and over 10,000 units of media in CD, VHS, and
DVD formats. The library also houses a juvenile collection to
support the planning needs of education students.
The library website (http://www.loyola.edu/library)
is a gateway to a wide variety of information sources, including
the library catalog and over 60 citation and full-text databases,
all of which are available remotely.
Among others, the Loyola/Notre Dame Library subscribes to the ERIC database through Cambridge Scientific Abstracts, with links to selected full-text journals as well as full-text ERIC documents through EDRS E*Subscribe. In addition, the library provides access to PsycINFO and PsycARTICLES, Mental Measurements Yearbook, Dissertation Abstracts, and the Social Science Citation Index.
The library is open 110 hours per week with hours until 2am Sundays through Thursdays and Saturday hours until 8pm. The library provides reference service and research consultations to students and offers instruction, by request of faculty, in information and research skills. Library instruction has become an integral part of the required ED600 Foundations of Research in Education course.
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Last Modified: March 13, 2002 based on the February 25, 2002
Institutional Report
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