Evolution of Department Chairs – Analysis of Academic Chairperson’s Conference Proceedings

The Academic Chairperson’s Conference has been provided guidance to chairs for 34 years. Coding of titles and descriptions of presentations given at the first 34 ACCs provides trends in topics which are of interest to chairs. This session explores continual themes, cyclical topics, resolved issues, and emerging trends

Competency Map of the Academic Chair

The growth of Competency Based Education (CBE) has led to the strengthening of programs in many fields. This trend has introduced new opportunities to assess student progress and program outcomes. Competency Based Chairing uses these same tools to develop stronger chairs. This interactive session explores ways of getting the most out of professional competencies in our growth as chairs

Leveraging What Online Offers in Evaluating Courses and Instructors

At most institutions of higher education COVID-19 forced the delivery of courses on-line. This has required department chairs to re-think traditional, on-ground, faculty evaluative strategies. This session explores the benefits of applying readily available, on-line course methodologies and metrics to enhance chair support and evaluation of departmental faculty teaching efforts

Giving Up the Chair Role and Rejoining the Faculty

Chairpersons often return to faculty with little planning or preparation. For many, this transition can lead to role confusion, performance issues, loss of relationships and feelings of inadequacy. This interactive presentation, informed by research, will equip chairs and administrators with critical planning components in support of successful return to faculty

Working Professionals and Subject Matter Experts in the Classroom

Integrating real world expertise is a positive and growing trend in higher education. Building positive relationship with working professionals and subject matter experts has benefits and pitfalls. This session explores the pros and cons of using working professionals and subject matter experts in the classroom and in course development

Title IX Compliance, Clery Act, VAWA, and the Department Chair

This interactive research based workshop will review findings regarding expectations of Chairs in facilitating compliance efforts by the University in both traditional and distance learning environments. Chairs will explore through case study analysis how compliance with Title IX, Clery Act, and Violence Against Women Act serves their department

Life cycle assessment of waste prevention

Waste prevention is part of the solution towards circular economy and sustainable consumption. Electronic equipment is known for containing scarce resources and the recycling of these is seen as important. Long lifetime of some electronic products leads to energy consumption during use phase being the most important process for the total impacts from the life cycle. By preventing waste and extending the lifetime of electronics, resources are kept in the loop for a longer period saving the extraction and use of virgin resources. It should be considered if, keeping scarce resources in the loop, will lead to keeping products having low energy efficiency in the loop. A case study was carried out, assessing the environmental impacts from the use and consumption pattern of refrigerators as the electronic product. The study compared two scenarios providing the same functional unit: Cooling of food (5 degrees Celsius) by a 240L refrigerator for 30 years in Denmark during the period 2015-2045. The full lifetime of the refrigerator was assessed including production, use and waste management. The two scenarios assessed were: 1) use of a refrigerator for 10 years and 2) use of a refrigerator with an extended lifetime of 5 years being in total 15 years of use. Both scenarios were assessed for an old refrigerator with a low energy class and a newer refrigerator with a high energy class. Both scenarios were also assessed with substituting the refrigerator in use with one with the same energy class or with one with a more efficient energy class. The assessment showed that the use phase becomes less important, and the production phase becomes the main contributor to the potential environmental impacts when choosing an electronic product with high energy efficiency. Meaning the extraction and production of materials and the assembling of the refrigerator becomes more important when the energy efficiency during use is high. During the life time of electronics the sealing of refrigerators gets worn and the compressor becomes less efficient. Thereby increasing energy consumption is seen for all kinds of electronic devices during the lifetime. It is described in literature that refrigerators tends to have larger energy loss over time than other electronic devices. Therefore the change of energy consumption of scenario 2 was assessed for the two scenarios to have equal potential environmental impacts. For an old refrigerator with low energy efficiency the energy consumption should only increase by ~15% over a period of 30 years consumption time. For the newer refrigerator the change should be ~49% for the two scenarios to have equal environmental impacts. From the assessment it was concluded that it leads to lower potential environmental impacts to replace an old refrigerator with low energy class after 10 years use by a new refrigerator, and again change this to a more energy efficient one after 10 years use (Scenario 1 with substitution to more efficient energy class), than to reuse an old refrigerator with low energy class (Scenario 2 with substitution to same energy class). The study also concludes that it leads to even lower potential environmental impacts to reuse an old refrigerator and replacing it at the end of life with a new one with high energy efficiency, which is also reused to have an extended lifetime (Scenario 2 with substitution to more efficient energy class). The lowest environmental impacts were found by extending the lifetime of refrigerators (Scenario 2) with high energy efficiency. In this way as less energy as possible is used during the use phase, and resources are kept in the loop for as long as possible

Effectively Evaluating Online Faculty

Online courses and instructors require administration to use innovation to create valid faculty evaluations. This session examines why teaching evaluations need to be adjusted and how to make those adjustments to in order to effectively evaluate the faculty and therefore, keep administration, promotion committees, and faculty content

How to evaluate a syllabus for an online course.

This session explores how to determine strengths and weakness of an online course by examining the syllabus. Presenters and participants will move beyond the technical aspects such as alignment of content and into the flow of the online course. For this workshop participants are welcome to provide a syllabus for review