CIS Cohort Leadership May Be Shared

Instructional and curricular leadership is provided for each cohort, by course or sequence of courses, by CIS faculty coordinators. The faculty coordinator provides oversight, is responsible for the following, and they may work with a faculty coordinator assistant (FCA) or team to cover these responsibilities.  

A faculty coordinator assistant may take on a portion of these FC responsibilities and the responsibilities may vary given the prior expertise and experiences one brings to the position.  An FCA role description is created, discussed and documented as they begin the leadership position and you may work together to make changes to the description on an annual basis. 

A Quick View of Three Primary Responsibilities

Develop and lead a cohort of CIS instructors in required discipline specific, ongoing professional education.  Provide and center engagement and discipline specific investment opportunities for required professional development workshops (PD) and wellbeing in the field. Because professional development events are our primary way of knowing an instructor, their course, and their experience, regular and ongoing connection is built into CIS programming.

1. • Offer a minimum of three required professional development workshops or activities, once each term (fall, spring, summer), and the annual meeting time totals vary from 8-24 hours depending on the content.  They may be conducted in-person and online, and may meet more frequently given the mode of delivery.

   • Review and accept new instructors; provide new instructor course-specific overview workshops; and ongoing mentoring for all teachers.

   • Offer professional participation opportunities as is possible (such as connecting with industry, experts, conferences, research, etc.)

Ensure equitable UMN course teaching and learning experiences for CIS instructors and CIS students. UMN resources are available to support you, instructors, and students. 

1. • Oversee UMN syllabus development and approval

   • Conduct Site visits to CIS sections at partner schools (once every three years)

   • Update and sustain UMN curricular changes for CIS instructors

   • Regular and ongoing participation and reflection on curriculum content, pedagogies, evaluation and impactful developments in the field and in society

   • Offer Student Field Days as is possible and as required for CI 3901/3902, Writ 1201, and ANSC 1101

Serve as CIS Liaison with the UMN Department and CIS Team.

CIS Supports Cohort Leadership

CIS staff members support partnership, cohorts, and faculty coordinators and faculty coordinator assistants with development and any issues as they arise. 

• A CIS liaison is assigned to each cohort.  We work with you and the instructors to support CIS practices, policy developments, navigate sticky situations, and provide administrative support and data.  

• CIS event specialists assist with CIS event preparation, "on the day" support, and follow-up activities such as speaker payments.  This applies primarily to Professional Development Workshops and Student Field Days. 

FC Responsibilities Detailed

• Select and Orient New CIS instructors

  • Participate with a CIS liaison in the review of instructor applications and in the interviewing of applicants. Faculty coordinator makes final decision about the acceptance or denial of each instructor application. 

  • Orient instructors new to CIS to the University course the summer prior to teaching the course. This preparation includes a holistic overview of the UMN course philosophical, pedagogical, curriculum and assessments, and introductions to the cohort and workshop participation.  Formats may include meeting individually with new instructors or as a formal workshop.  You may include experienced CIS instructors to assist in covering the content.  New instructor course orientations are held in addition to the summer professional development that faculty coordinators organize for all instructors in the CIS cohort.  

  • If appropriate and desired, create a CIS peer-mentoring arrangement for new instructors. 

  • CIS faculty coordinators have asked CIS instructors to complete a variety of assignments or forms of supportive studies.  Examples include: keeping a reflective teaching journal their first term teaching the course, writing a short paper pertinent to the UMN course, hosting a one-one discussion of a key articles, or reflecting on a specific lesson of interest to the instructor.  

• Develop and lead a cohort of CIS instructors in required discipline specific, ongoing professional education.  

  • Provide and center engagement and discipline specific investment opportunities for required professional development workshops (PD) and wellbeing in the field.  

  • Offer a minimum of three required professional development workshops or activities, once each term (fall, spring, summer), and the annual meeting time totals vary from 8-24 hours depending on the content.  They may be conducted in-person and online, and may meet more frequently given the mode of delivery.  Visit the Professional Development page for additional explanation.

• Provide ongoing support to CIS instructors

  • With the Course Advisory Committee and/or cohort, instructors and CIS staff plan and implement a minimum of three professional development days each year for CIS instructors on topics related to the content, pedagogy, and assessment of the CIS course and instructors’ intellectual development in the field. Typically at least two activities will be workshops held on week days during the academic year (one in the fall and one in spring); workshops are ordinarily five to six hours in length. Summer workshops or other professional development activities are scheduled at the convenience of the coordinator and the CIS instructors. CIS recommends that summer professional development activities not exceed five days; most summer CIS workshops run one to three days. Because CIS tracks and monitors professional development activities, please ensure that you plan activities with your liaison and that you report all professional development activities to the CIS office. CIS generates documentation for instructors for each professional development activity, which instructors may use to meet continuing education requirements. 

  • Maintain contact with CIS instructors as needed throughout the year.  Some examples include: periodic newsletters, virtual office hours, email or making a second site visit to support their teaching of the UMN course. 

  • Consider options for absent instructors to gain PD topics.  For example, distribute minutes of workshops, report policy and/or practice announcements, and/or adding materials to the cohort archive.

  • If appropriate and desirable, work with CIS instructors and your CIS course liaison to create a Canvas or Google site for sharing teaching resources among the instructor cohort. 

  • Mentor and connect one-one with instructors by visiting and observing them in their classrooms through CIS Site Visits at least once every three years.  Instructors new to your cohort must be visited during the instructor's first year in CIS.  Complete the school visit form and submit site visit reports through MyCIS.

  • Consult with CIS staff and instructors on an occasion of student academic misconduct or scholastic dishonesty. 

• Ensure that sections taught through CIS follow campus practice related to course content, pedagogy, and assessment

  • Review CIS syllabi from instructors each term (CIS office will post them as we receive them, in an online folder that only you and the office staff can access.); determine if content, pedagogy, and assessment are congruent with campus course-specific practice. 

  • Evaluate teaching by conducting site visits with all instructors in their classrooms at least once every three years; all instructors new to your cohort must be visited in the first year. Complete school visit form and submit to CIS office. 

  • Review course evaluations. 

  • Review grading in CIS sections to ensure consistency with UMN standards. (Some cohorts organize professional development around grading, asking instructors to bring examples of papers or other assignments that they consider worthy of an “A”, “B”, “C”, etc.).

• Support student learning 

  • If a student field day is not required for your cohort, decide if you will offer an on-campus student field day. If you decide to have one, work with your Course Advisory Committee and/or CIS instructors and CIS staff to plan and oversee the implementation of the field day. 

  • Write supporting letters for students encountering difficulty in securing recognition of their UMN credits earned through CIS.

• Fulfill administrative responsibilities 

  • Work with CIS staff to keep course information published on the CIS web site updated. 

  • Represent CIS within the University, especially as liaison to the academic department that owns the course. 

  • Advise the CIS staff and liaison to your cohort, as needed, on issues pertinent to your cohort or to the CIS program as a whole. 

  • Provide CIS events specialists with timely and essential information regarding student field days, workshops, and other professional development activities, including agendas. 

  • CIS primarily communicates via email and we value and need your voice and responses.  Please inform CIS personnel of your preferred modes of communication to facilitate smooth and timely planning and support.  

  • Participate in biannual faculty coordinator meetings. 

  • Participate as needed in event and program evaluation. 

The Faculty Coordinator as Liaison

Faculty Coordinators have opportunities and responsibilities to carry out liaison work with their home department, Department Chair, and with College in the Schools team members.  

1. Participate in two Faculty Coordinator meetings during the academic year 

1. • Share successful practices, explore policy implications, update us on research of interest to CIS, share accomplishments, provide feedback on CIS development, etc.

2. Submit annual updates for CIS website and materials regarding:

   • Course: class size limits, textbooks, textbook rotation frequency, class description (and one for the high school catalog if it’s more detailed)

   • Instructor qualifications; any changes to processes, submission requests, or new requirements

   • Instructor attendance requirements

3. Ensure CIS partnership sustainability with respectful and meaningful ongoing dialogue with CIS instructors.

   • Faculty coordinators have held CIS instructor office hours, invited them to contact you directly with questions or discussion, connected by email with Department Newsletters, discussion regarding individual student situations, and more. The goal is availability for ongoing communication.

4. Support CIS in periodic department meetings with the Chair to provide CIS updates and highlights to the department, sign updates, MOAs, review changes, etc.

   • Consider providing CIS student education and advising around UMN degrees, majors, minors, and careers in the discipline.

   • Share information regarding department happenings, such as events and announcements, with CIS instructors.

5. Provide CIS with documentation of your terrific work!

   • Discipline specific professional development workshop agendas:

     • agendas are used by CIS instructors to document content for license renewal and vita or resume' updating.  CIS letters document the number of PD hours for instructors 

     • CIS submits PD agendas for each cohort when applying for NACEP reaccreditation

   • NACEP and HLC documentation:  

     • Faculty coordinators provide documentation regarding the ways CIS meets or exceeds NACEP and University standards regarding curriculum, instructor qualification review and teaching, and discipline specific professional education for NACEP and HLC accreditation requirements.  These occur regularly every 6-9 years for each type of re-accreditation.  Details are provided in the Accreditation module.

   • Write and file Site Visit reports in MyCIS.  

6. Work with CIS Event Specialists

   • Provide Professional Development Workshop and Student Field Day planning details.

   • Participate as needed in event and program development, identity dates, may assist with room and AV arrangements, identify and invite speakers, document events with discipline specific agendas, outline of activities, and evaluation, as needed.

7. Recommended program evaluation:

   • Survey teachers and students regarding topics of interest for PD and student field days, and conduct surveys following participation in CIS events.   CIS also conducts regular student and impact surveys to inform partnership development.

FC Instructional and Curricular Support Options

Co-faculty coordinators

Sharing the position with a colleague or a “team” is possible.  Co-faculty coordinators may share the position. 

Faculty coordinator assistants

As cohorts grow, CIS provides options to assist larger cohorts in supporting faculty coordinator responsibilities with a faculty coordinator assistant. (Faculty coordinator assistants are often provided when cohort membership is at 20 instructors)

• Faculty Coordinator Assistants (FCA) provide support to this leadership role and their responsibilities may vary depending up on the expertise of the person and any particular projects needed for cohort development.  A 25% Graduate TA Assistantship or FCA position will be created.  

• Faculty Coordinators develop annual plans for and with the FCA to ensure responsibilities and roles are covered.

• CIS knows that as a cohort grows or as the complexity of the course changes, sharing responsibilities may be valuable.  New "complexity" may look like: schedules that impact making site visits, new course requirements that require added infrastructure, or a need to support instructors differently.  Arrangements may be short or long term.

Graduate teaching assistants

Appointments are available if the department support is valuable to supporting the CIS partnership and to the student experience. See the Appointments section on this page for more information.

Instructional or special projects for curricular and cohort development

FCs may request funding for instructional projects that support CIS in new ways, work outside of the regular CIS position responsibilities, or in the case of transitions. These arrangements need to be approved by the CIS program director.

For example: 

• Projects may be beyond the current FC responsibilities or current resources

• Technological development

• Planning time to work together may be necessary to create a smoother role transition

• Access to resources needed for teaching or learning.  

• Work with CIS staff on CIS program development.  Examples include: editing or other support of the overall CIS NACEP Accreditation application, developing CIS research or survey questions, developing models for partnership agreements, site visits or professional development.  

• A CIS instructor providing mentoring to a new instructor for the first term teaching.  This option may be especially helpful for instructors that are accepted late in the summer or during a leave.

Issues that may need consideration when requesting occasional stipends or augmentations

• Graduate students may need permission from their advisor to work more hours, and they’ll need to check with the Graduate Assistant office to be sure their status will allow them to earn additional compensation.

• CIS will need to check with CCAPS HR regarding the options for lump sum or biweekly payments.

• Contact the CIS program director for questions regarding compensation.

Other supplements

• CIS will pay a substitute instructor in order for you to be at or conduct a CIS event (e.g. professional development or Student Field Day) or make a site visit.

• If a site visit scheduling requires an overnight stay CIS will support the cost and per diem according to UMN travel policies.

Appointments

CIS faculty coordinator and faculty coordinator assistant roles serve CIS as instructional and curricular leaders to develop, oversee and implement ongoing professional educational opportunities for CIS instructors to invest in discipline specific professional development.  You'll notice below, CIS offers some flexibility in leadership configurations to accommodate long term sustainability.

Letters.  Appointed CIS faculty coordinator and faculty coordinator assistants are provided with an appointment and letter documenting the role and salary during the academic year and summer terms.  Letters are typically sent mid-late August.

Faculty Coordinator (FC) Appointments

Appointments with CIS are renewed annually.  CIS requests faculty coordinators to commit to working with the program for a minimum of three years as CIS wants you to have time to learn the job and have time to build relationships with CIS instructors.  And we (and CIS instructors) love it when you love the CIS position and want to continue!

Faculty Coordinator Assistant (FCA) Appointments

FCAs may be a graduate student, retired CIS instructor, colleague on campus, or other personnel.  They possess the experience and expertise needed to assist you and the CIS cohort of instructors.  Generally, CIS faculty coordinators recruit from their department.  Occasionally, an appointment will be posted to find candidates with special expertise.

Faulty coordinator assistants may be added once the cohort is sufficiently large (20 instructors or more) or you may prefer to create co-faculty coordinator shared role or a leadership team.  Many cohorts have faculty coordinator assistants that assist with site visits (in particular when on campus faculty have tight teaching schedules or large cohorts.)

Graduate Teaching Assistants may also serve as a FCA

CIS appointments for graduate students are 25% academic year appointments and include tuition benefits costs.  We understand this may be more expensive, however if the department support is valuable to supporting the CIS partnership and to the student experience, we’d like to offer the opportunity.  

Compensation

CIS provides an instructional salary for annually appointed faculty coordinators, faculty coordinator assistants and supportive personnel to fulfill these roles.  There are two different arrangements for compensation.

In all cases, talk with Emily Hanson, Dual Enrollment and CIS Program Director, about creating, making changes to, and/or replacing faculty coordinator and faculty coordinator assistant positions.  

Academic year roles are characterized as a three-credit or one course workload extended over the course of an academic year once the cohort has 6 or more instructors.  CIS chooses to pay the higher of these two types of salary calculations, usually dispersed on the biweekly UMN payroll calendar.

1. Typical ongoing academic year salaries are based on the faculty member’s regular academic annual salary calculated as a per credit pay rate by CCAPS multiplied by 3 (credits).

2. CIS has established a minimum threshold for salaries to allow for the complexities cohorts experience with growth and change.  For example, an increase in the number of CIS instructors in the cohort.  CIS minimums also operate as a salary floor.  Note:

   • The launch of a new course and during the pilot years, cohorts may have only a few instructors and that impacts salary rates.   

   • It is a system that may result in salary increases or decreases as there is fluctuation in cohort size.

   • We see a need to improve this system because change occur with occasional regularity, however, the options available to CIS have not alleviated possible annual shifts in payment yet.

Another variation to consider is an inload or an overload salary.  

2. • Inload is a three credit/one course “buy out” that CIS provides to your department and your CIS position is built into your regular academic workload and salary. CIS will cover the associated fringe with this type of appointment.  Inload arrangements are worked out in collaboration with your primary department.

   • Overload means the CIS salary is paid in addition to your regular position.  It does not include benefits, although there is associated fringe. 

Summer payments are calculated at a CIS professional hourly rate and encompass the hours of each summer professional education event to include time spent with new instructors (discipline specific course overview and more) and with the entire cohort (ongoing discipline specific professional education workshops).

Additional details are included in annual appointment letters such as:  specifications for GA and P&A positions and Minnesota Earned Sick and Safe Time benefits. 

Wage-Disclosure Protection Policy: Under the Minnesota Wage Disclosure Protection law, you have the right to tell any person the amount of your own wages. Your employer cannot retaliate against you for disclosing your own wages. Your remedies under the Wage Disclosure Protection law are to bring a civil action against your employer and/or file a complaint with the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry at 651-284-5075 or 800-342-5354.