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Core Component 3b
The organization values and supports effective teaching. Faculty Qualifications and Curricular Role
Most ranked faculty have appropriate terminal degrees; moreover, 66.5 percent have doctorates, according to the 2006 Fact Book.138 Adjunct instructors, however, may be hired without terminal degrees, and experience in the field sometimes is counted as a qualification, particularly in departments such as AIM, Exercise, Health Promotion, and Recreation (EXHPR), Mass Communications, and Nursing. Most faculty are members of appropriate professional organizations in their fields, some in leadership roles, and many regularly attend appropriate regional and national conferences. Additional information about CSU-Pueblo faculty qualifications is included under Criterion Four.
In all departments, faculty determine the curricular content of their courses. Their decisions may be driven by the requirements of accrediting bodies or input from advisory boards, as for example in Computer Information Systems (CIS), Nursing, and Social Work. Other units (e.g., HSB) have curriculum committees that review the content of various courses. In some cases, there is a difference in how that works for core courses vs. upper-level elective courses. That is, core courses that prepare students for upper-level courses may be more controlled by the departmental faculty as a whole than the upper-level courses. In all cases, faculty communicate with each other about content as well as pedagogical methods for teaching that content. Finally, each college has a curriculum committee, and the university has the Curriculum and Academic Programs Board (CAPB) that reviews and approves all curricular changes. Both the college committees and the university board are composed almost entirely of faculty, although administrators participate ex officio on the CAPB, along with a student representative.139
The process is a little different for Continuing Education courses. In those cases, instructors, who are often adjuncts, may not have terminal degrees, but their qualifications and syllabi are reviewed by department chairs or program coordinators for initial employment and annual renewal in a process supervised by Continuing Education staff. Ongoing interaction between the faculty teaching Continuing Education courses and the departments where these courses reside, as well as the oversight of these courses and faculty by those departments, is expected but varies greatly across the university. More interaction and oversight may be needed in some departments. The STS-CORE Quality Task Force has been meeting for the past three years to promote closer oversight and collaboration between campus faculty and instructors in the high schools. Regular faculty members oversee the BSW program in Colorado Springs and often participate as instructors in the sociology/criminology major and business minor programs there.
138 See http://www.colostate-pueblo.edu/ir/factbook/
139 For the current membership of the CAPB, see http://www.colostate-pueblo.edu/facultysenate/BoardsAndCommittees/SenateBoardsAndCommittees.asp ; for additional information about the board, see http://www.colostate-pueblo.edu/capb/ , and under Core Component 4c below.
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