Scholarship of Teaching

The most significant development in promoting the scholarship of teaching at Iowa State University occurred in 1998 with the development of a new Promotion and Tenure policy based on Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate (Boyer, 1990). This policy was adopted in 1999 and is now in effect for all promotion and tenure cases. The definition of scholarship is the lynchpin of the policy. Broadly conceived, the policy defines scholarship as “creative, systematic, rational inquiry”, its applications and products. It invites interdisciplinary and collaborative work. The distinction between scholarly teaching and the scholarship of teaching continues to be worked out. The university is active in the AAHE cluster group of research universities working on issues of SoTL.

While the new Promotion and Tenure policy represents a significant development, it is not the only activity focused on the scholarship of teaching. Throughout the 1990s, the Faculty Senate and the Office of the Provost sponsored faculty conferences on teaching scholarship. These included “Approaching the 21st Century: Emerging Challenges and Opportunities in Teaching and Learning for Iowa State University,” 1994; “ISU: An ‘Education I’ Institution?” 1998; and “Striking a Balance: Rewarding Different Types of Scholarship at a Modern Land Grant University,” 2003.

The faculty development center at Iowa State (originally called the Center for Teaching Excellence or CTE) connected in 1993 with the Wakonse Foundation on College Teaching. Groups of faculty, staff, and graduate students have attended the Wakonse Conference annually since then. Currently, Iowa State has over 100 active Wakonse teaching fellows. In 2001, a CTE task force on the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) sponsored two campus-wide forums to discuss relevant teaching-learning issues, and in 2004 the position CTE Assistant Director was established to coordinate these issues across campus. Also in 2004, Barbara Cambridge, AAHE Vice President for Fields of Inquiry and Action, and Pat Hutchings, vice president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, led two days of campus discussion on “Fostering the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.”

University administration has supported teaching-based research since 2002 with an ongoing series of grant-writing workshops focused on the scholarship of teaching and learning. In 2004, the Center added a third assistant director for SoTL.

Iowa State joined the Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (CASTL) and the Research University Consortium for the Advancement of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (RUCASTL) two years ago. The University’s participation in and development of SoTL opportunities will continue to develop in the future. In an effort to enhance SoTL at Iowa State, CELT staff are helping faculty design classroom-based research. CELT staff has met with members of the Institutional Review Board to clarify the Human Subjects Research process.

One clear example of successful efforts to promote the scholarship of teaching and learning at Iowa State is the collection of publications, presentations, and theses/dissertations related to learning communities. Another example is the scholarship on learning outcomes assessment in the College of Agriculture. Presentations at the 2005 International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning highlighted, “The Role of the Provost’s Office in Integrating SoTL into the Work of a Research University” and “Strategies for Cultivating a SoTL Campus Culture.” Additional information on the history of SoTL can be found at this link.