Revamping faculty workloads and incentives, building a sense of community among faculty members, and developing a new center for teaching and learning are among the strategies presidents are using to sustain and encourage the work of the faculty in ways that foster excellent undergraduate experiences for students. During a Presidents Institute session, three presidents shared some of the ways they are rethinking their relations with the faculty.

Richard Guarasci, president of Wagner College (NY), described activities that are part of a ten-year renaissance for the college. The administration and faculty members have “renegotiated the social contract” on campus to achieve a productive workload, a system of incentives, and a series of faculty development initiatives that support the college’s mission and strategic plan. The faculty course load has been “rebalanced” from four to three courses each semester, and several programs have been developed to support excellence in teaching and scholarship. One program, a series of open forums held at the provost’s home for different groups of faculty members (such as department chairs, untenured faculty members, or science faculty) every Thursday evening begins with a question: What have you heard and what do you want to know? The evening ends with the provost’s question, “What don’t I know about what is happening at the college?” Both administrators and faculty members have found that these forums have led to greater mutual trust and confidence in the quality of community on campus.

Faced with being a small college in a large city with a highly diverse faculty, Spelman College (GA) has to compete with a vibrant urban environment for faculty members’ attention. President Beverly Daniel Tatum found that she had to be very deliberate about building a sense of community among faculty members. The Faculty Council had set a goal of developing community on campus, but these efforts were not working as effectively as she and the faculty would have liked. Therefore, Tatum arranged for a series of three dinners at the president’s home for a diverse group of faculty members. The same group of faculty members attended each dinner and talked about ways they could build community. These “dinner and dialogue” sessions have continued for four years, and several successful all-campus projects have emerged from the relaxed and convivial conversations.

Representing presidents who are in the beginning stages of rethinking relations with the faculty, Ralph Hexter, president of Hampshire College (MA), discussed how he will use recent internal and external reviews of the college in his work with the faculty to address concerns that emerged from those reviews. Believing that faculty members may have to think differently about their teaching and scholarship in the near future, he is working with them to develop a new center for teaching and learning that will become a centerpiece of the academic program.