Being a professional educator requires staying up-to-date on the latest teaching and learning scholarship in one's discipline, contributing to one's field, and providing service to both the college and wider community. In addition, full-time faculty who are hoping to advance in rank (AiR) towards full professor will need to demonstrate their competencies in these areas. This page is therefore intended to provide beginning support for both scholarship as well as AiR. 

Be sure to check back here often as we will continue to develop these supports. Thanks!

Are you looking ahead to preparing to advance to the next level of rank as a faculty member? There are a number of resources that are available to help support you in your Advancement-in-Rank (AiR) journey. Typically, advancement is based upon one demonstrating certain levels of proficiency in the areas of teaching, scholarship, and service. To help you to prepare for AiR, this site hosts the following opportunities for each of these areas (click on the image to be taken to a page that has an overview video of the AiR process):

• Teaching - The Learning Modules & Opportunities and the Resources to Support Teaching & Learning pages provide support and ongoing professional development to help you to continually improve as a professional educator. Earning badges and CEUs for these programs can help to demonstrate your commitment to excellence in this area. Similarly, the Evidence-Based Course Development Resources page can help you to ensure that your courses are being developed in accordance with the latest evidence-based recommendations for quality courses. In addition, there are resources that will help you with faculty peer evaluations, which include evaluation forms for classes and clinical observations and a recommended timeline. 
• Scholarship - The Resources to Support Teaching & Learning page contains information about journals that you can submit articles to as well as conferences that you can present at and/or attend. The Funding Opportunities page contains information on how to receive money to support scholarship projects that are related to teaching and learning.
• Service - On the Resources to Support Teaching & Learning page, you will find journals and conferences that you can provide service to as a peer reviewer, editor, organizer, etc. The The NMC Guide to College Governance and Administration also lists a number of committees that you can be a part of thereby further demonstrating your service to the college.

Finally, be sure to visit our Recognition & Awards page to learn more about opportunities to be recognized for the great work that you are already doing in each of these areas. These awards can provide evidence of your competencies as an educator, scholar, and contributing member of the college and society.

As you prepare for AiR, creating a portfolio to demonstrate your competencies in the AiR areas (i.e., teaching, scholarship, and service) is important. As you work on developing this integrative resource, you might consider building an ePortfolio. Some of the advantages to ePortfolios over a print/binder version include the following:

• Include images, videos, and links to important sites (e.g., your courses, conferences you have presented at, articles you have published, etc.) to showcase different parts of your portfolio and more clearly demonstrate your competencies
• Provide links to documents on an internet drive (e.g. Google drive, One drive, etc.) so that the portfolio is automatically updated each time you alter these documents on the internet drive.
• Present your AiR areas in visually appealing ways that help to focus AiR reviewers attention to the most important aspects of your work

So, what might an ePortfolio look like and how might you go about setting one up? Dr. Harsha Sharma has graciously agreed to share the ePortfolio that she used for her successful advancement to the rank of full Professor. Click on the image above to be taken to her ePortfolio. If you have questions about the AiR process or creating an AiR portfolio or ePortfolio, please contact either members of the Faculty Development Committee or CREATE! Staff (visit the Overview page for contact information).

Good Luck!