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tremendous impact the university’s faculty members arehaving on young lives. Ozarks’ faculty are not just followingthe lead in higher education, but they are among the trendsettersin areas such as classroom innovation, assessment andproviding their students with real-world experience.One of the strongest indicators of the success of Ozarks’faculty is an independent, national survey called the NationalSurvey of Student Engagement (NSSE). The surveyinterviews both first-year students and seniors at 649 collegesand universities throughout the country. The survey examinesareas such as level of academic challenge, active andcollaborative learning, student-faculty interaction, enrichingeducational experience and supportive campus environment.In every category of the 2003 NSSE study, for both firstyearand senior students, Ozarks scored above both thenational level and its peer group. In many areas, such assupportive campus environment and student-facultyinteraction, Ozarks scored well above its peers.“Across the country, results from NSSE are reviewed asgood indicators of quality because this survey measures ‘bestpractices’ in the education of students,” said Vice Presidentfor Academic Affairs Dr. Daniel Taddie. “The focus issquarely on what helps students learn. We’re proud of the factthat Ozarks measures up so well on this national indicator ofquality because it means that we are effectively fulfilling ourmission, which states that ‘our first priority is the educationof students.’ ”Dr. David Strain, chair of the Division of Humanities andFine Arts and a Harvard alumnus, said Ozarks’ small campusenvironment fosters innovative thinking among alldisciplines.“We don’t have the real structured departments here, andI think that helps faculty members get together, eitherformally or informally, and talk about teaching techniquesand what they have found works or doesn’t work forstudents,” Strain said. “One of the greatest gifts Ozarks has,in regard to sharing ideas, is the campus mall. Thearchitectural design of the campus makes it necessary foreveryone to walk by everyone else and that promotes gettingto know other faculty members.At Ozarks, there is really asense of sharing ideas andbouncing different techniquesaround that you don’t find atlarger campuses.”Dr. Sean Coleman, aprofessor of biology who cameto Ozarks in 2000 right out ofthe Ph.D. program at theUniversity of Iowa, said hiscolleagues helped make his transition to the university mucheasier.“The other faculty members, both in my division andthroughout campus, took the time to help me get acclimated toteaching at the college level,” Coleman said. “One of the firstthings I noticed about Ozarks was the collegial environmentthat is here and how much other faculty members are willingto help you. I’ve learned so much, not only from faculty inmy own division, but from my friends and colleagues in theDivision of Humanities and Fine Arts as well as the otherdivisions on campus.”Dr. Sharon Gorman, professor of music and a Stanfordgraduate, has helped organize more formal sharing of teachingideas through monthly teaching forums. Usually there arespecific topics and presenters, but often the forums are opento whatever faculty members want to discuss.“Faculty love to talk about teaching — we chat about itin each other’s offices, on the way to classes, in the hallwaysand over meals,” Gorman said. “But traditionally there hasbeen no formal setting for sharing these ideas widely acrosscampus and that’s how the teaching forums came about.We’ve talked about learning styles, collaborative learning,supplemental instruction, how to lecture, understandinglearning disabilities, classroom behavior and a variety of otherissues. U of O has a wonderful, collegial faculty who enjoysharing ideas and helping one another with problems. It’sbeen a good experience.”Strain believes the academic environment at Ozarksencourages “outside-the-box” thinking by faculty members intheir approach to classroom teaching. He cites, as an example,two language “immersion” classes in French and Italian thatContinued on Page 16Today, SPRING/SUMMER 2004 17