Recent calls to reform undergraduate biology education, including Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education, have led biology departments to examine their curriculum to determine the extent to which it aligns with Vision and Change content and competency recommendations. The recently released BioSkills Guide translates the broad Vision…

This report, prepared by the Association's staff, concerns the case of Dr. Jane Harty, a part-time faculty member with forty years of service in the Department of Music at Pacific Lutheran University (PLU). In November 2018, Dr. Harty was suspended from her teaching responsibilities for the remainder of her one-year contract and informed that she…

This Special Issues Brief from the Collaboration for Effective Educator Development, Accountability and Reform (CEEDAR Center) and the Center on Great Teachers and Leaders (GTL Center) outlines essential features for providing high-quality, structured, and sequenced opportunities to practice within teacher preparation programs. This brief is…

Competency-based education (CBE) refers to online and hybrid courses and programs that offer credit or degrees based on evidence of student learning, or competencies, rather than on the amount of time spent in a course. Students work at their own pace, receive personalized academic support, and demonstrate mastery as they progress through their…

Higher education institutions need to be able to adapt to changes, which requires flexibility and learning. Researchers have questioned whether higher education institutions are learning organizations, a concept of which university faculty have been traditionally skeptical. This article describes a study of faculty perceptions about their…

Statistically and historically speaking, most women's studies departments are headed by women. So when Dr. David G. Allen, a psychosocial and community health professor at the University of Washington (UW), was appointed chair of that institution's women's studies department last summer, it ruffled a few feathers. Dr. Nancy J. Kenney, an associate…

Examines the relationship between community college faculty members' departmental affiliation and their curricular choices. States that data were collected from a random sample of community college instructors at the State of Washington's community and technical colleges during the 1999-2000 academic year. Reports that faculty teaching in…

Strategies to address the problem of work and family balance have begun emerging in recent years. Many American college and universities have begun to adopt this "family-friendly policies," such as tenure-clock extensions. Each of the policies to enable work and family balance, however, is situated within the broader academic culture.…

This report addresses Washington State's historical and current information regarding salary increments for college faculty, salary disparity among postsecondary institutions and within institutional departments, and performance-based compensation plans for college faculty. Included among the report's findings are the following items: (1)…

Seventeen collective bargaining agreements between the boards of trustees and faculty associations of selected community colleges in Washington are presented, representing contracts in effect in 1987. The following colleges are represented: Peninsula College, Olympic College, Skagit Valley College, Everett Community College, Shoreline Community…