Faculty & Staff

Teaching excellence is a cornerstone of any great academic institution. At the Mailman School, the Valuing Teaching and Teaching Quality (VTQT) task force has been working since April to create recommendations for policies, structures, processes, and expectations to ensure quality teaching. The task force is eager to share the results of its work and its proposed policies, which it believes will help improve teaching across the School.

This project is motivated by a number of commitments:

Fulfilling Our Promise. Excellent education is our promise to our students. We have a responsibility to create structures and processes that promote and support quality teaching. Developing faculty who are exceptional teachers, mentors, and educators is an inherent part of our School's mission and a part of our promise to our faculty.

Supporting Our Strategic Initiatives. We must create structures and processes to ensure the successful rollout of the Curriculum Renewal effort. By providing the necessary pedagogical support, the School will help faculty transition to teaching the curriculum's new courses.

Responding to External Competitive Pressures. With the co-occurrence of the Curriculum Renewal effort, we have an opportunity to build our capabilities and distinguish ourselves from other Schools of Public Health in the dimension of education.

For our students, we want to ensure that we are fulfilling the promise of excellent education. For our faculty, we wish to pledge that junior faculty will not be placed in the classroom without having the time and the support needed to teach for the first time, and that all faculty will have access to resources that help develop teaching skills.

Click this link for a pdf of the presentation delivered at the October 12, 2010 School Assembly. Committee representatives will also visit departments in the upcoming months to share more details and solicit faculty feedback. We look forward to hearing from you.