Lessons From the Field

Online education has opened new spaces for faculty development and collaboration. On paper, remote faculty are part of their department's community. Physically, however, they are often removed from course development, faculty governance, obtaining professional growth opportunities, and developing professional relationships. Digital teaching models shift the overall faculty culture. However, there are small and simple interventions that can be implemented to help connect remote faculty to students, other faculty members, and their academic departments. Using intergroup contact theory and ideas from the community of practice theory, the cases highlighted show methods of engaging faculty. The cases also explore simple, yet practical, interventions such as virtual and face-to-face faculty meetings as well as “the micro interview,” which aims to help connect remote faculty to their departments.

Merit, Academic Freedom, Scholarship and Culture

Affirmative action and the decline of merit-based admissions was the beginning of the decline at Harvard University, as it was at most universities. This essay seeks to determine what has happened to the rest of academic first principles as a result, to academic freedom, scholarship, and student/faculty culture. To determine this progression requires decades of observation. The results of this investigation between 1969 and 2019 is that all of these university functions, in succession, were severely compromised, and that the token Asian student lawsuit that was heard against Harvard in 2018 has had no effect on this progressive decline. Recovery may have to come from outside the university. A beginning solution would come from a definitive ruling from the U. S. Supreme Court on the appeal of the Asian student lawsuit. Other areas that the present Harvard system of “social justice” are vulnerable to are the growing financial dependence on global executive education, the increasingly contradictory professorial and departmental policies regarding academic freedom, and, ultimately, the selection of other educational forms produced by “diversity."

Examining the Effects of Sustainable Organizational Culture on Academic Achievement

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of faculty culture perceptions of students on their academic achievement. Within the scope of the study, academic achievement was measured only with the Grade Point Average (GPA). Cultural perceptions were measured through organizational structure, commitment, symbols, power distance, and communication/relationship dimensions. The data was gathered from senior students in a business school operating in a public university in Turkey. Participants consist of the students who study in 2011–2012, 2012–2013 (questionnaires were completed before graduation), and 2018–2019 periods. A total of 359 valid questionnaire forms were obtained. 42 of the questionnaire forms were eliminated by the control questions included in the questionnaire. Within this scope, 111 questionnaire forms from 2011/2012, 163 from 2012/2013, and 85 from the 2018/2019 period were obtained as valid questionnaire forms. The data was collected by the random sampling method using convenience sampling. According to research findings, only the commitment dimension of the organizational culture positively predicted students’ academic achievement. Conversely, it was found that other dimensions of organizational culture didn’t predict students’ academic achievement. Findings were discussed and suggestions were presented for practitioners and future research.

Faculty Beliefs about the Nature of Intelligence

Educators shape the learning experiences of students in the classroom. Their views on intelligence influence the beliefs students have about their own abilities to learn. Astin (2016) cautioned, "The faculty culture regards smartness in an almost reverential fashion" (p. 4). Research on academic mindsets has focused mainly on secondary education (e.g., Dweck, 2016; Yeager & Dweck, 2012). There is a gap in the literature about educator views about intelligence in higher education. The purpose of this study was to measure the beliefs that faculty from various academic disciplines hold about the nature of their own intelligence and the intelligence of their students. Faculty at one land grant institution participated in an eight-term Mindset survey. Position was the only statistically significant demographic factor.