Purdy
Crawford Centre Mission Statement
Mission
Statement
The
Purdy Crawford Teaching Centre (PCTC), in collaboration with other
units and individuals, offers programmes, services, and resources to
encourage, enhance, and reward teachers, teaching, and the scholarship
of teaching and learning at Mount Allison University. As a corollary
of this mission, and in harmony with the University’s mission “to creat[e]
and disseminat[e] knowledge in a community of higher learning, centred
on undergraduate students,” the PCTC is committed to
providing opportunities and support for Mount Allison teachers to publish
and share that scholarship in traditional and non-traditional ways:
at local, regional, and national conferences; in the peer-reviewed
pedagogical literature; in the educational development literature;
through the PCTC newsletter, web site, and programmes.
Vision
Statement
In
the November 2003 issue of University Affairs, Dr. James Downey, former
President of the Universities of New Brunswick, Waterloo, and Carleton,
calls teaching "the heart of the university enterprise." The
vision for the Purdy Crawford Teaching Centre, therefore, is to play a
vital role in the health of that heart by providing services, consultations,
resources and programmes that support and encourage teaching excellence.
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The
PCTC Will Achieve This Vision In Two Ways
1.
Advocating for the importance of teaching and learning and ensuring
that they remain integral to the university culture:
- Creating
and nurturing partnerships with individuals, committees, and units
on campus to reinforce our shared responsibility for teaching excellence
and student learning outcomes;
- Identifying
potential supporters and agents of positive development and change;
- Encouraging
the scholarship of teaching and learning;
- Emphasizing
the importance of teaching and learning in the recruitment and
retention of faculty;
- Ensuring
that the PCTC has sufficient resources to fulfill its goals.
2.
Delivering programmes and services, including where appropriate the
allocation of grants, that develop and support the scholarship of teaching
and learning:
- Offering
workshops and sessions on topics such as teaching portfolios, academic
integrity, formative evaluation of teaching;
- Responding
promptly to requests for programming or resources;
- Providing
opportunities for Mount Allison teachers and other experts to publish
and present on their teaching innovations and successes;
- Increasing
our focus on one-on-one consultation while maintaining the confidentiality
of those who seek PCTC assistance, mindful that they do so voluntarily
and for the enhancement of their teaching;
- Working
with our partners to ensure that instructional technology is used
judiciously in teaching and learning.
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Six
PCTC Priorities In The Achievement Of Its Vision
- Maintain
the distance between the PCTC, which offers formative and developmental
programmes for teachers, and the formal teaching evaluation process.
While eager to act in an advisory capacity about best practices of
teaching evaluation, the PCTC will not be involved in decisions related
to promotion or tenure, nor will the names and nature of teachers'
consultations be revealed.
- Facilitate
the spread of information about effective teaching practices by building
on our rapport with other teaching and learning centres, especially
those in the Atlantic region, to exchange information, resources,
and ideas.
- Support
and participate in strategic University initiatives whose goal is
the enhancement of teaching and learning.
- Promote,
recognize, and reward good teaching by establishing strong associations
between PCTC and award-winning teachers and by promoting the scholarship
of teaching and learning.
- Provide
information, resources and programmes to assist individual teachers
to develop their instructional skills for the benefit of their students
and by using a variety of ways to deliver our services and programmes.
- Support
teachers in their judicious use of educational technology to enhance
student learning.
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