adjunct guidance?

[Gary Peterson]

I wonder if others (adjunct or full time) might have some suggestions
for the following query.  I have a hard time finding qualified adjunct
faculty--masters is a minimum.  We have many fine adjuncts, but it is
difficult to find those who appreciate science, critical reasoning skills,
and also have real Knowledge of basic areas of psych, classic research, etc.
When we bring them on board, they are observed by faculty and, of course,
class evals are done for us all in each class.  We have some general topic
outlines of what we want covered in General and Child psych, but I am
thinking of some kind of guideline to help adjuncts present critical
thinking, emphasize a science perspective, and advise them in covering
research studies with these goals in mind.  Do any of you have something
like this for your adjunct?  Or heck, for any of the faculty?  Many are
masters level counselors, clinicians, and motivational speakers who bring in
some nice anecdotes that make students happy, but they also are more
comfortable talking as therapists than as educators, and the kind of topics
discussed suggest their difficulties may be due to their acquired mental
problem of CPD (see Ricker post).   Just wonderin' Gary Peterson

Gerald (Gary) L. Peterson, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Psychology
Saginaw Valley State University
University Center, MI 48710
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
1-517-790-4491

Re: adjunct guidance?

[Annette Taylor]

Associated with this problem is a lack of rigor--and I think that
what is happening quite often is that we pick up very junior people
who are trying to get a tenure-track position someplace and so their
evals need to be strong. Well, critical thinking, challenging classes
and scientific evaluation are not the kinds of things that get "good"
evaluations. I have talked to some of our part-timers who clearly
have voiced such concerns over the evals, and who see the evals as
being important to eventually 'landing' a position. So it is not
a big stretch to think that they would try hard to do whatever it
takes in the classroom to get the good evals.
annette

Annette Taylor, Ph. D.
Department of PsychologyE-mail:  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
University of San Diego Voice:   (619) 260-4006
5998 Alcala Park
San Diego, CA  92110

"Education is one of the few things a person
 is willing to pay for and not get."
-- W. L. Bryan

Re: adjunct guidance?

[Miguel Roig]

At 10:46 AM 4/26/00 -0400, you wrote:
I wonder if others (adjunct or full time) might have some suggestions
for the following query.  I have a hard time finding qualified adjunct
faculty--masters is a minimum.  We have many fine adjuncts, but it is
difficult to find those who appreciate science, critical reasoning skills,
and also have real Knowledge of basic areas of psych, classic research, etc.

Gary, I think that you should start by having a strong department course
syllabus that clearly articulates which ever goals you would like faculty to
follow.  My experience, however, shows that department syllabi are often
somewhat vague about such goals.  In addition, faculty (full- and part-time)
should be 'gently' reminded that they have a professional responsibility to
follow the general guidelines contained in department course syllabi.  Too
often the guidelines and recommendations made in these documents are simply
forgotten.  Think about it, folks: Except for those of you who routinely update
syllabi (usually for accreditation purposes!!!), when was the last time that
you reviewed a department course syllabus to make sure that you are following
it to the best of your ability?  As your course outlines evolve over the years,
have you checked that they are 'in line' with the department syllabi?  (shhh
... I haven't!  ;-)  )

Good department syllabi should also make specific textbook recommendations to
help meet the department's goals.  As you know, some intro. texts (e.g., Kalat;
the one we currently use at our campus) lend themselves better for the type of
approach that you advocate.  Finally, one issue that I believe contributes to
the type of problem you point out is the dilemma of breath vs. depth of
coverage which we have previously discussed here.  I am often uncomfortable
with the apparent freedom with which faculty, even those within a single
department, drop chapters/topics from coverage.  Of course, I recognize the
value of academic freedom and that covering material that one is not
comfortable with can make for tough teaching.  But, I just wish the profession
had a better grasp on these problems. 

My 2 cents.

Gee, it's been nearly a month since my last post and I didn't even comment on
Elian!

Miguel 


 
Miguel Roig, Ph.D.  Voice: (718) 390-4513 
Assoc. Prof. of Psychology  Fax: (718) 442-3612 
Dept. of Psychology [EMAIL PROTECTED]
St. John's University   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
300 Howard Avenue   http://area51.stjohns.edu/~roig
Staten Island, NY 10301