Tool URL: http://tinyurl.com/LCCCFHandbook
Institution URL: http://www.lccc.wy.edu/
The Faculty Handbook is housed in our secure campus portal and also in our secure LMS. In order to make it widely accessible for the Toolkit is has also been compressed for download. At the link above select download, save the .zip file to your own computer, extract and preview with any .pdf reader.
SETTING:
LCCC is a full-service, comprehensive community college with campuses in Cheyenne and Laramie, and additional outreach. The College offers academic, career/technical and community education programs.
Appropriate for two-year: Institutions
Two-Year Institution Size:
Appropriate for four-year: Institutions
Four-Year Institution Size:
We live in the information age yet communication challenges are consistently cited by CEOs as an organizational deficiency. LCCC needed a structure to assure that adjunct and full-time faculty have current and relevant information about expected practices. A handbook has served this need in the past, however printed documents quickly become outdated. An online handbook was envisioned as a singular, authoritative, up-to-date reference for all LCCC faculty that is easily maintainable.
GOALS / EXPECTATIONS:
- Create a comprehensive online faculty handbook that provides reference to all expected practices necessary to fulfill expectations of all faculty members, i.e., posting grades, redline attendance, referral to the CARE team, department chair contact information, and class cancellation.
- Collaborate with faculty and instructional support services across the College to identify important organizational practices and timelines.
- Determine the optimal location for the handbook to assure ready access to all faculty.
- Develop a systematic process for regular review of the contents to assure a current resource is available at the start of each new semester.
The LCCC Faculty Handbook guides all faculty in carrying out the expected practices that pertain to the faculty role at the College. The Handbook was developed to replace the previous inconsistent practice of providing a printed manual that served as a general “how to” for classroom management but lacked the responsive, comprehensive, and collaborative structure to meet faculty’s needs. The Handbook is meant to provide timely assistance for the successful accomplishment of faculty responsibilities whether they are carried out by a long-term and full-time faculty member, or by a newly-hired adjunct faculty member with only superficial knowledge of the faculty role at LCCC.
MAJOR CHARACTERISTICS:The Handbook is a standalone and dynamic reference with embedded hyperlinks to campus resources and important forms and documents housed within the secure campus portal.
FEATURES:
NA
PERFORMANCE MEASURES:
- Quality
- Efficiency
ACHIEVED OUTCOMES:
The Handbook was developed in the current academic year and we have yet to quantify our progress towards the targeted outcomes. Faculty feedback was used to revise the Handbook after one semester and we anticipate the need to do that regularly as it becomes used more broadly. It is our hope that each of the outcomes identified below will come to bear as we focus our attention on referencing the Handbook as a comprehensive tool and as we continue to include our faculty in the improvement process.
Outcomes to indicate Quality:
1. Clear, single-source communication and therefore consistent execution of tasks required of faculty.
2. Increased purposeful communications between remote faculty and on-site resources.
Outcomes to indicate Efficiency:
1. Improved accuracy and timeliness of required faculty reporting (i.e., roster maintenance, mid-term and final grades, conduct concerns, etc.)
2. Improved orientation of all new faculty to College processes.
IMPACTS:
The Handbook creates a single reference for all faculty and helps to establish consistency in many of the expected practices of the faculty role.
- Budget twice the time you think you need to develop a comprehensive tool; it will reflect positively on the final product.
- Be transparent in acknowledging that the new tool will need revision; welcome all inputs in your process of improvement.
RESOURCES AND COSTS NEEDED:
RESOURCES NEEDED
Collaborative working team to include faculty, administration, student services personnel. Word Processing software was used; volunteer readers helped refine the content and enhance the overall presentation of the finished product.
COSTS
No external costs incurred; savings were realized in the change from a printed to an online Handbook.
The Handbook will be revised each semester to reflect procedural changes and to incorporate suggestions for inclusion and/or improvement.
LINKS:
NA
Kari Brown-Herbst
Director, Center for Teaching & Learning
Laramie County Community College
1400 E. College Drive
Cheyenne, Wyoming 82007
Phone: 307.778.1336
kherbst@lccc.wy.edu
SUBMITTED BY:
Kari Brown-Herbst
Director, Center for Teaching & Learning
Laramie County Community College
1400 E. College Drive
Cheyenne, Wyoming 82007
Phone: 307.778.1336
kherbst@lccc.wy.edu