Faculty Development Plan
Educational Leadership and Foundations
1998
I. Teaching
In 1998 so far I have taught EDLF 999 and EDLF 999. For these courses I utilized the Faculty Center's Student Observer program and worked closely with them on goals I raised and on any suggestions they had. Their observations helped me in many ways. I have not yet received back the formal evaluations from my students but because my course syllabus was on a web page and I encouraged them to use the e-mail button to send me input on my teaching I got many good suggestions and evaluations on my teaching. I have begun to incorporate more strongly in my teaching those areas that students said they appreciated.
B. I was not able to have a formal evaluation in my 1997 courses, but XXX said that several of her students mentioned my session on education law positively in the comments included in the formal course evaluation of her class.
C. I attended the courses listed in A above to broaden and strengthen my teaching.
D. I will plan on having a colleague observe my teaching in at least one course in the next year so I can get input on how to improve my teaching skills from a faculty colleague.
II. Scholarship
A. Scholarly Writing:Published Book Reviews:
One book review begun in December of 1997 but not published until 1998 in School Business Affairs, the journal of the Association of School Business Officials International. The review was of the book, Ghetto Schooling: A Political Economy of Urban Educational Reform, by Jean Anyon. A copy is attached since there are no other completed evidences of scholarly writing in 1997.B. None to report in 1997.
C. Scholarly Presentations.
I presided at a session of the Education Law Association in November in Seattle having to do with school fees and waivers and presented at the Education Law Association's midwinter conference March 8, 1998 on: Rights, Research, and Regulators: Language Policy in Public Schools. I presented a similar paper at the 1998 Utah Education Law Institute, May 15, 1998.D. Editorships.
Together with XXX I edited the Winter Edition of the National Rural Education Association's Journal, The Rural Educator, although it wasn't completed and printed until 1998.E. None to report.
F. None to report
G. Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations:
I have been a member of several committees, and chair of several. The only Dissertation so far that I have been involved with that has finished and defended is that of XXX, although he didn't defend until 1998. Although I was a minor member of the committee, I spent quite a bit of time working on the historical portions of his dissertation and making rather extensive editing on evidentiary suggestions.
H. None of significance to report.
I. In progress:
XXX, Children in Like Case.- The Native American Languages Act and "Appropriate Action to Overcome Language Barriers. Submitted to the Harvard Education Review.
XXX & XXX, Transformation From Religious to a Secular System of Public Schools in Newfoundland We do not yet know where we will submit this article. We are considering Education and the Law, a U.K. international journal. I am co-author with XXX, and we may bring in another co-author, perhaps XXX. This article is still a work in progress.
J. Research focus and agenda:
All aspects of school and Constitutional law, including church & state issues, politics and policy, language policy, leadership issues including relations higher education to primary and secondary education and governance issues in higher education.
K. Overall Evaluation- 7 in 1997, 8 in 1998 but too soon to tell really.
III. Citizenship
Department:
External Relations and Development Committee
Doctoral Committee
Faculty Search Committee
1998 Utah Education Law Institute (Chair)
Faculty Advisor for Law School and Education School to the BYU Education
Law Journal
School:
Scholarship Committee
Graduation Open House Committee
University:
I serve on the BYU Utah County Alumni Committee providing service and
development programs to benefit the university and its alumni.
B. Community and Church Assignments or positions:
Member of the Utah Courts Committee on Racial and Ethnic Fairness
C. Not applicable.
D. Professional Organizations and positions:
E. No trips in 1996.
F. Projects or consultant services for local school districts.
G. Overall Evaluation- 8.5
IV. Other accomplishments, etc. None of significance to report.
V. Overall Evaluation
A. Rank of overall performance in 1997 as a faculty member-7. I'm just getting started, but I am trying to be a valuable colleague. I also wind up giving quasi legal advice on varied issues to a number of colleagues in and out of the department. I am working to help doctoral students be successful, and so I spend significant amounts of time counseling with them re: research and process issues involved in successfully completing their dissertations. I have attended a number of my colleagues' courses to help strengthen myself and enrich the department and have worked to forge links to the important outside institutions including the Education Division of the Bar, the Law School, and others in my field of specialty. (This has born fruit in 1998 as I have been named as the law school's faculty advisor to the Journal of Education and Law in 1998. During 1997 1 worked toward developing a summer Law Institute at BYU by gathering consensus on needs, and putting together the important institutions and parties that needed to collaborate to bring off such an ambitious undertaking. (This has born fruit in the 1998 Education Law Institute which will be held May 15th at BYU. I am a co-chair with colleagues at the U of U and the Law School, although frankly I am doing almost all the work and direction of the program to get it off the ground quickly for this first year.)
B. My most significant contributions to the department and school of education are enthusiasm for my field of specialty, for education, and for our continuing push for excellence in teaching, research and methodology. I also would consider those factors in A above as significant.
C. CV attached.
D. Disclosure Statement attached.
VI. Faculty Development Plan
A. Teaching–Although I taught no courses in 1997, I have taught two courses in 1998 already and taught a school law course as a tutorial to a Palestinian educator. I have involved the Faculty Center and their Student Observers Program. I have had an observer in each course session and in some cases two as they have brought colleagues. I then meet with these observers and discuss my progress towards goals, etc. including ways to have rich class discussions, etc. This has been very valuable. Recently one of the observers came to me and said I'm going to bring in another observer because your class is going so well, and you are doing everything right, etc., so that I don't have anything else to offer you in the way of observations and suggestions. I asked her to continue to attend and work with me on other areas to improve, and to bring someone else in also if needed. This is a continuing area of Development I will follow throughout 1998.I believe that there is no need for a certain percentage of my students to receive poor grades in my classes. I approach the awesome responsibility of teaching with humility and the burdensome responsibility to grade my students with both humility and desire to see all students succeed. If I choose to organize my classes so that an extraordinary amount of my time is expended in things that ensure student success like providing preliminary grades and comments on papers from me and from student peers before the final draft is returned for a final grade (very labor intensive), and if this produces many great papers in final form I want to be able to reward students for that performance. I'd rather take on a challenging work load and have a high rate of success and concomitant high gpa's in my class than just work as a sorting mechanism dooming some students to mediocre grades and others with natural talent at the end of a class.
B. Scholarship–In 1997 1 was working to establish my scholarly platform and those areas of interest to the Department and my colleagues in it. I identified an emerging area that was ripe for study in the transfer of schools from religious control to secular control in Newfoundland and worked with a colleague to develop facts and background. In 1998 we are writing an article on the issue-most of the writing so far has been done by my colleague. In 1997 1 have been writing an article on language policy in schools and have included a member of the Bar, a BYU Grad, a BYU Asst. Prof. of Teacher Education, and a Doctoral Candidate in our Department in preparing to present a paper at a national conference on the subject. It was presented Mar 22 1998 at Winter Conference of the Education Law Association and a related paper was presented at the 1998 Utah Education Law Institute.
C. Scholarly Goals
a. Short-term goals. (three years or less) I intend to publish in national or international refereed journals three or four articles in the next three years as lead or sole author-one on language policy, two on the use of in-house lobbyists in education. I also plan to co-author three or four articles in the next three years. These include one in progress with a departmental colleague, XXX on Newfoundland schools' shift from a sectarian to a public secular school system. I will also publish perhaps two articles in other journals that are not peer reviewed. I have been asked to write an article by next year for the International Association of School Business Officers on the American With Disabilities Act (ADA) as it relates to employees with problems of substance abuse. I will probably involve a colleague in this article with me. The other topic for a non-peer reviewed journal will be identified in the future. I plan to co-author an article on "When Teachers Sue Students" with XXX.b. Long-term goals. (three to five years or more.) I would like to help one of my dissertation students finish his dissertation and together write an article or two on how legal services are provided to rural school districts. (This may turn into a short-term goal if the student moves more quickly on his dissertation than he is currently.) I'd like to work on receiving a grant or seed money to have research funded at the "young investigator" level or so to develop a consortium or center on legal and policy issues focusing on public schools. I'd like to have the Education Law Institute continue as an annual conference and develop into a more pro-active conference that chooses an area or theme and tries to present best practice in an area. I would also like to see it include more academics from outside the state of Utah. I hope to continue to build the ties with the law school on the Education and Law Journal. I'd like to change it to be published twice a year, and I'd like to see the submissions to the journal triple in the next year through my efforts to have my colleagues and national contacts submit articles.
D. Citizenship
1. I have served on several committees and worked to lift and contribute and learn from my colleagues in the department, school, and university. I serve on a Statewide committee on racial and ethnic fairness in the courts. I think that I understand and am committed to the service and citizenship that are vital to true membership in a university community that seeks to serve the outside world.2. Goals-I'd like to be able to help, through active engagement in the larger community, our department and school reach out and engage bright scholars in educational issues. This can be through offering honors program classes, through fora, and through sponsoring speakers and conferences that involve the university and outside community.