No, not that kind. Not one of the one of the policy laden, awash in lawyerese filled jargon that you skim through like a privacy notice made so small you cannot actually read it. No, not that kind.
Not one of the handbooks that is printed and has all kinds of phone numbers and links in it. You know, the full 37 character URLs that someone imagined you might take the time to type into your browsers address bar. No, not that kind.
What do you want to know that is in a faculty handbook?
When is payday! When are the paid vacation days? How many sick days will you accrue after three years of service? How many personal days? Do you get tuition waivers for your kids?
Well, not that kind either really.
How about some stories about being a teacher at the very school you are working for and one written entirely by your colleagues! How about some advice and ideas about teaching written just for you by your colleagues? Yes, the kind of handbook for faculty about being a faculty. About teaching. About learning.
Well, I have one in my hand. Right now.
Back in Arizona, my awesome colleagues at Yavapai College have been running the faculty writing challenge we started back in 2013. Up until last year, the “9x9x25 Writing Challenge” was pretty loose and had few prompts for faculty to write about. That generated a lot of diverse and wonderful writing. This last year we talked about a new direction the project might take. Maybe try a year with a clear focus of the writing.
We thought that perhaps if they were tasked with writing a faculty handbook, they might share some of the things they wish they had known that first year of teaching. We decided to poll them to see what kind topics they might address for new faculty. I think new teachers were included in that initial poll. I don’t know.
At any rate, most of the posts were targeted at new teachers. Or at least that was the idea. You can see all of the posts written here.
Awesome gift arrived in the mail today. The faculty @YavapaiCollege created this book for first year teachers from 9x9x25 blog posts. Nice work @thatchmo and @yctels pic.twitter.com/mnxaPzovku
— Todd Conaway (@Todd_Conaway) December 24, 2019
I suggested that they add some information about the faculty writers, including a photo and some welcoming language for new faculty. Some of that happened in the book.
The handbook ended up being 31 pages long. There are 15 faculty authors.
You can order a copy of the book here.
Or you could have the faculty at your school share some thoughts about the first year of teaching, or about improving online teaching, or active learning, or improving lecturing skillz, or maybe community based activities. Or….