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Darden School

The Darden School is known for and proud of teaching excellence. In the 1996 Business Week rankings of graduate business schools, the Darden School's class of 1996 placed Darden #1 in the national rankings based on this constituency's responses to a variety of questions about their graduate business school learning experiences.

The teaching process integrates the conceptualization, design, development, delivery and appraisal of learning experiences that embraces concerns for context and content, methods and materials, debate and discussion, along with inspiration and enlightenment. The Darden School is anxious to seize this opportunity for our own renewal and recommitment to the teaching craft, and we welcome the University-wide teaching conversations initiated by the Faculty Senate.

In response to the Faculty Senate's call to start a teaching conversation, the following Darden professors met:

Robert Landel - Associate Dean, MBA Program James Freeland - Associate Dean, Faculty William Rotch - Chair, Appointment Committee Sherwood Frey - Chair, Required Curriculum Committee William Sihler - Chair, MBA Policy Committee Patricia Werhane - Chair, Doctoral Committee and Faculty Senator Mark Haskins - Faculty Senator

Summarized below is a brief summary of our "views about our current culture of teaching," organized under the same three headings used in the document titled, "Self-Study Recommendations and Selected Practices for the Evaluation and Improvement of Teaching at UVA" issued Fall 1996 by the Faculty Senate's Academic Affairs Committee. The group has committed to another meeting to discuss "next steps."

  1. Evaluation of Teaching

      2. Do Well:

    • An instructor receives qualitative and quantitative feedback on a variety of dimensions regarding the course and his/her instructional capabilities in the course. Each course is judged on the same dimensions by students (response rate is about 95%) and students have access to these data.
    • Frequent colleague observations occur due to: an interest in that day's class; joint teaching of classes; cross-course integrative planning; junior faculty development; and/or the appointments process.

      Improve:

    • Find a proper weighting of numerical teaching ratings.
    • Develop a more unified view on the dimensions and standards for colleague-observational coaching and reporting.
    • Encourage and provide means for faculty reflections on teaching.

  2. Development of Teaching

      3. Do Well:

    • For new hires we provide: appropriate teaching and administrative loads; teaching group meetings; individual coaching; and mentoring.
    • For all faculty we provide: forums to discuss issues such as technology, communication, diversity, and listening; a culture that discusses teaching improvement opportunities; regular teaching group meetings; an emphasis on development of teaching materials (e.g. case writing and their accompanying teaching notes) that fosters good thinking about teaching; and we encourage team teaching.

      • Improve:

    • For new hires we need to: provide greater consistency in the mentoring process and separate evaluation from development.
    • For senior faculty we need to find ways to: consider new technologies as another pathway to teaching excellence; encourage stretch; and preempt burnout.
    • For all faculty, we might look at ways to: share insights on course design and classroom practices; use designated listeners in a class for more timely feedback; institutionalize workshops on such things as learning styles, critical thinking, and various classroom situational vignettes.

  3. Incentives for Superior Teaching

      4. Do Well:

    • Recognition by colleagues for development of outstanding course materials and recognition by students for outstanding teaching (e.g., faculty marshall selection and distinguished faculty awards).
    • Annual compensation takes into consideration teaching excellence.
    • Summer support available for course development activities.

      • Improve:

    • The debrief and dissemination of things to learn from our award winning colleagues and cases.