Mission, Program and Values: Public Draft 1

Mission

The Center for the Advancement of Teaching (henceforth, the Center) is an academic, University-wide resource for Xavier University's faculty and others whose goal is to advance and make public the art and science of teaching and learning.

Program

The intellectual work of faculty, staff, and students in teaching, scholarship, and service is the means by which the art and science of teaching and student learning are advanced and made public. Thus, the Center's faculty development program must enable this work.

Enabling the work requires that the Center have an infrastructure comprised of an expert staff; sufficient funding; a set of creative, comprehensive, and relevant initiatives and projects; channels of meaningful and effective communication within and outside the University; and advanced, comprehensive, and relevant facilities and resources.

Values

The Center, in its commitment to creating a more just and humane society and to achieving effective teaching and deep and lasting student learning, is an organization that:

promotes a nonjudgmental, safe, collaborative, and supportive environment for faculty to experiment, learn about pedagogy, think and work in creative and diverse ways, and explore all aspects of faculty development
models and promotes life-long learning and development
values the teacher as scholar
provides constructive, confidential feedback to faculty to improve teaching and student learning
values assessment as a means to improving teaching, student learning, and the work of the Center
values and promotes an effective and substantive academic support system
values opportunities for students to explore academic and teaching careers
fosters collaboration among Xavier faculty, students, staff, and the broader educational community
values broad-based involvement of Xavier faculty and Center staff in its decision-making process
promotes effective programmatic and fiscal planning, implementation, and assessment
values making public, inasmuch as possible, its policies, processes, and outcomes of its work.

Last, the Center adopts, as part of its ethos, the guidelines of the Professional and Organizational Development (POD) Network in Higher Education, the premier faculty development organization in the U.S. The POD Network's guidelines — the Ethical Guidelines for Education Developers¹ — were established "...to inform the practice of professionals working in educational development roles in higher education."

June 2004
Public draft 1

¹ "Ethical Guidelines for Education Developers." 26 Aug 2003. Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education. 5 Feb 2004. <http://www.podnetwork.org/development/ethicalguidelines.htm>