Resources For Teaching

Even though you are new to campus, students will ask you many technical questions about registration, graduation requirements, major requirements, transferring credits, etc. We have many rules about such things, far too many rules for any one faculty member to know, especially those who are new to campus. Thankfully, we can get accurate answers to these questions by calling just two important phone numbers: The Registrar - x6200, and the Academic Programs Office - x6036. Friendly, knowledgeable people will answer your questions. And if they don't know the answer, they know who does.

The Academic Tab in 1600Grand, provides a wealth of information to faculty about the students at Macalester, including your advisees and students in your classes. Navigating this system effectively takes a small amount of exploration and practice, but once mastered, it can provide a very easy way to get important information you will find useful in teaching and advising.

A number of courses at Macalester use course webpages that provide interesting examples of course design. See below for information on creating your own course webpage.

The College supports the course management system called Moodle. Your account and course are automatically created moodle and your students will be automatically added to your classes. The username/password for this system is the same as your regular network account. Information Services holds workshops for faculty before each semester. If you would like any help in using Moodle in your classes, please contact your Academic Information Associate.

We have noted in recent years that many students now come to College without a clear sense of what plagiarism is and how it can be avoided.  Thus, the incidence of plagiarism has increased quite dramatically.  The College provides a number of resources that offer faculty advice about how to detect and deal with plagiarism.  Our colleague, David Moore (International Studies) has written a helpful guide for faculty, and the MAX Center provides a wealth of resources on the matter.

The College maintains a written policy on the steps a faculty member should take in dealing with a suspected case of plagiarism.  Disciplinary measures are handled by Ellen Guyer, Dean of Academic Programs (x6036.)

Fall book orders are due by mid-April.
Spring book orders are due by early November.
Books can be ordered by contacting Carey Starr at 651.699.0587 651.699.7190 (fax) or starr@macalester.edu.

You will need to provide the following information: Your name, course name, course number, enrollment limit, your contact information, book title, author, publisher and ISBN (if available).

The library will process material for electronic reserve and make them available to students through their website.  The College's copyright policy and the copyright compliance form, as well as instructions for submitting reserve materials are on the library website.

To get multiple copies of syllabi, schedules, assignments, exams, etc, you can physically walk a hard copy over the Document Services in the Lower Level of the Campus Center (x6226), or even more conveniently, you can attach the documents you wish copied to an e-mail to documentservices@macalester.edu.  Tell them how many copies you need, whether back-to-back copying is okay, and give them any other special instructions (e.g. do not staple, print on pastel green paper, etc)  Tell them when you need the copies, whether someone will be by to pick them up, or if you want Document Services to deliver the copies to your office or department office.  These folks are very fast, service-oriented and dependable.  If you hand-deliver, you can frequently wait for the copies.

Teaching students how to use research methods that are specific to your discipline or course can be very time consuming. Macalester is fortunate to have a talented and dedicated library staff who can provide assistance on several levels. At a minimum, a reference librarian can use one of your class periods to go over course or discipline specific research methods with your students. They can also create excellent, web-based course or discipline specific research guides that will support your students' research efforts. The library also maintains an excellent general guide to research. To schedule class time, or work on a research guide, contact Beth Hillemann (x6704)

If you are teaching a course that has connections to the urban community, you may wish to incorporate a community engagement component. The Civic Engagement Center can provide ideas, support and information on Macalester's relationship with community partners. Contact Paul Schadewald (x6747) at the Civic Engagement Center for more information

To the extent possible, you should try to make course resources easily accessible to students outside of class. Electronic resources can be linked to a course webpage. Once you create a webpage for your course, you can upload it to several different places on the web. Each faculty member has a public.www folder on the academic server (accessed through the local Novell Network) at ACADEMIC/FACSTF/USERS/yourlastname. If you upload your pages to this folder, the URL to give your students is www.macalester.edu/~yourlastname. Be sure the homepage for your course is called "index.html". In addition, each academic department has a public.www folder at WEB/DATA/WEB/docs/acaddept/yourdepartmentname. If you upload your webpage to this folder, the URL is www.macalester.edu/yourdepartmentname/yourcoursefoldername. Again, make sure your course homepage is called "index.html". You can access these files from off campus through http://webfile.macalester.edu. If you want your course webpage displayed in the Directory of Course Webpages, contact Sara Suelflow, Macalester's Webmaster. She can also provide advice if you need help learning how to create a webpage.

The Macalester electronic "portal" is 1600Grand. This site provides a single, web-based location at which you can store course materials such as syllabi, schedules, announcement, electronic handouts and links to electronic reserve readings (students can access these materials through their 1600Grand portal - the access is automatically activated when they register.) You can also store favorite search engines and protocols, news up-dates, scheduled events on campus, and other useful information. The Information Services staff runs workshops on 1600Grand over Fall and Spring Breaks and January.

The Center for Scholarship and Teaching provides workshops, books and other print resources, reference websites and individual assistance to faculty seeking to improve their teaching. Opportunities are announced on the website and through the weekly e-mailing, CST-News. For individual assistance, contact Jan Serie (x6372)

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Macalester supports an excellent software package called RefWorks™ that can manage bibliographic citations and display them in several standard formats. You can use this resource for your own research, and students can use it for your course or independent research. Contact the reference desk (x6618) or contact the library through the "Ask Us" feature on their homepage.

Each Academic Building has an Academic Information Associate (AIA), most of whom work for Computing and Information Technology, but are housed in your building. The AIA's are there to help you more successful incorporate electronic information resources into your teaching and scholarship. They can be consulted on anything from small technical problems to more global issues concerning the academic use of information technology.

The College offers several opportunities for internal funding to improve your teaching and/or scholarship, and for research engagement with your students. Contact Jan Serie (x6372) for more information.

Through the Corporate and Foundation Relations in the Development Office, you can also receive support in obtaining funding from outside agencies. Contact Helen Warren (x6071) for more information.

Two different mechanisms are used for reimbursements, one for reimbursements from your FTR allocations, and a second for all other types of expenditures.  Each full time faculty member has $1,500 allocated for expenditures related to travel and research. These funds are managed by Brenda Piatz in the Associate Provost's Office.  In addition, FTR can be granted to you for your participation in various kinds of workshops, reading groups, steering committees, etc.  These funds are managed by the granting entity (e.g. the CST), but reimbursement requests can also go through Brenda Piatz for forwarding to the appropriate office.  To be reimbursed for FTR expenses, fill out this form and send it to Brenda.

If you need to be reimbursed for expenses that are not related to FTR (e.g. expenses associated with your classes that are reimbursed through your department budget), fill out this form, have it signed by the person in charge of the budget (e.g. your department chair, a program director) and send it to Business Services.

Whether you are have a tenure-track or term appointment at Macalester, the Center for Scholarship and Teaching can provide career advice, including assistance in preparing CVs and letters of applications for other jobs. Contact Jan Serie (x6372) for more information.

The College definitions, policies and procedures for incidents of sexual or racial harassment are outlined in the Faculty Handbook.  Contact Jan Peterson to identify the College Grievance Officer for faculty.

Macalester has a rather byzantine system of notification about campus events.  Campus events are announced in several different ways including fliers, mailings, posters, in the tri-weekly Bulletin, on the Campus Events Calendar, through the weekly e-mailing from the Center for Scholarship and Teaching called CST-News, and on the CST Website.  Because we don't have a central place where all events are logged, our events tend to conflict with one another quite frequently.  We are looking for a way improve this system.

The most reliable way to leave an "extended absence" message on e-mail is to have the e-mail server reply directly to incoming e-mail.  To set this up, go to http://www.mail.macalester.edu and click on the "Vacation Monkey."  Then follow the directions.  Upon your return, the message can be removed through the same route.

To record an "extended absence greeting" on your voicemail, get into the voicemail system and enter your password.  Then press 4, then 3, then 2 and follow the directions.

The faculty meets on the second Wednesday of the month from 4:40-6:10, usually in the Weyerhaeuser Board Room.  An agenda is sent out to all faculty in advance.  The meeting always includes updates from the administration and elected faculty committees, and we frequently conduct business.  The first faculty meeting is always set aside for the introduction of new faculty.

The Employee Handbook details many aspects of the relationship between faculty members and the College.