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Top Ten Reasons to Become a New Faculty Teaching Scholar

NFTS can help you with

 1. Networking
 2. Reflecting
 3. Teaching
 4. Researching
 5. Funding
 6. Presenting
 7. Writing
 8. Serving
 9. Forming friendships
10. Enjoying your life as a faculty member at MU

10. Networking. It can help you become part of the community of scholars here at MU and allow(s) you to tap into a whole universe of people and opportunities to learn about, and start contributing to the scholarship of teaching, service and discovery that goes on at MU.

9. Reflecting. It can help you carve out structured times to reflect on your experience and your teaching. The retreats are called retreats for good reason. You get away from the usual day-to-day interruptions and focus on doing a piece of work with colleagues who are engaged in the same activity. You exchange ideas and get feedback on what you are doing and writing.

8. Teaching. The classroom visitations and the mid-semester electronic evaluations help you improve your teaching by providing expert coaching and anonymous feedback when it is most helpful. The people, books and ideas garnered in the monthly NFTS seminar support you in implementing new ideas in the classroom. Your department can also benefit as ours did by having the director present on academic integrity and plagiarism.

7. Researching. If you want to know if what you are doing in the classroom is getting the results you intend, NFTS can help. Two seasoned staff members helped me design and carry out an action research project with 3 other faculty on measuring the cultural competency of our respective students following a series of peer-learning exchanges.

6. Funding. NFTS is a great place to learn about grants for discipline-specific and classroom research projects. Funding is now available to NFTS alumni for travel and seed money to start new research projects. This year two students were funded to travel and present with me at a research conference thanks to an NFTS grant.

5. Presenting. Involvement with NFTS gives you the opportunity to participate in the regional Teaching Renewal Conference and encourages you to become a presenter. You learn from and interact with the best teachers from all four campuses as well as national keynote speakers. One of our teaching renewal panel presentations from 2003 was accepted at a national conference.

4. Writing. Presentations can lead to publications. I co-authored my first article in a journal outside my field with the PET director. NFTS can also be a resource in writing grants or your dossier. I began preparing my 3 year tenure review document at an NFTS retreat designed for that purpose. Meeting and reading the work of Robert Boice, the keynote speaker at one Teaching Renewal Conference, helped me establish the regular habit of writing as a new faculty member.

3. Serving. NFTS helps you build a network across campus and provides opportunity to work with interesting committees. I’ve served on two campus wide committees and also helped review grants applications as an NFTS alum. These experiences help me learn about innovative and interesting research and teaching being done by colleagues on this campus.

2. Forming friendships. Getting to know the NFTS directors and scholars is a way to form friendships that expand beyond your own department. You can make many great connections both personally and professionally. The NFTS staff brings food, fun, and fundamental information useful in transitioning into being comfortable and “at home” at MU.

1. Because you’ll enjoy it! People who are integrated into their academic community stay and thrive in that community. NFTS gives you the unique opportunity to do things that stimulate and encourage your own motivation and thinking about your work and your relationships in fresh ways. On the NFTS retreat, my roommate was a faculty member from China who worked on the opposite side of campus. After working together all day on our teaching portfolios, she helped me improve my ping-pong and a friendship formed. NFTS helps you become a valued member of the MU family who can function effectively and enjoyably in this environment. If none of these reasons convince you, do it for the fun of it…

“What you have to do, you have to do with play. Opportunities to find deeper powers within ourselves come when life seems most challenging.”
J. Campbell

Contact
Melinda Markham
NFTS
Office of Undergraduate Studies
128 Jesse Hall
University of Missouri-Columbia 65211-1090
phone: 573-882-4066
fax: 573-882-0080
email: mssvxf@mizzou.edu