Getting Started Teaching at Vanderbilt |
Teaching at a new institution, in an unfamiliar department, or even a new course can raise questions for experienced and new instructors alike. This site, sponsored by the Center for Teaching and the Office of the Provost, is designed to address some of those questions along with a quick answer and a resource to consult or contact for further information.
If you are new to Vanderbilt, you will need to activate your VUnetID and establish an e-password in order to log into essential university Web sites and course management systems. You may find it helpful to bookmark this site as well as myVU A to Z: A List of Faculty and Staff Resources, a Web site with links to many of the pages and resources linked below. |
Where Can I Find...
Log in to Class Rolls through Online Grading; select the course, click on Class Roll and View Class Photos.
Consult the online Schedule of Courses, which includes an archive of courses from past semesters.
Consult the Office of the University Registrar’sWeb site.
Consult the Office of the University Registrar’sWeb site.
Check with an administrative assistant or the administrative officer in your department, college, or school about faculty who have taught the course in the past and the availability of previous syllabi.
The online Schedule of Courses provides access to schedules for every semester for the past seven years. You can use this tool or check with an administrative assistant or the administrative officer in your department, college, or school about previous instructors.
Log in to Class Rolls through Online Grading; select the course; click on the envelope icon next to each student’s name to see individual email addresses or download all of your students’ email addresses into an Excel spreadsheet by clicking on the link below the lower right corner of the roll sheet.
You can also send a group email or select individual recipients via your course’s OAK, Folio, or Blackboard site.
Online versions of the Undergraduate Catalog and of the catalogs of the Divinity School, the Graduate School, the Vanderbilt University Law School, the School of Medicine, the School of Nursing, and Peabody College are available in PDF format. Please note that in some instances the online version is for the preceding academic year.
Print copies of the undergraduate catalog are available on request from the Office of Undergraduate Admissions. Catalogs of the Graduate School and professional schools are available upon request from the office of the dean of those schools.
The Faculty Manual is online. Some colleges and schools have specific manuals for their faculty; please check with the appropriate dean of your college or school to find out if there is a manual specific to your school’s or college’s faculty.
The Vanderbilt Online Instructor and Course Evaluations site provides you access to evaluations completed by your students at the end of the term. The CFT has a teaching guide designed to help you make sense of the information you receive from your evaluations.
How do I...
Each school and college provides orientation to and training—as requested—for the classroom management systems it supports. The Help & Training page of OAK provides the name of and contact information for the support person in your school.
Additionally, OAK has a Getting Started page with a quick start guide to Blackboard and guides to the grading function of Blackboard, Turning Point (the classroom response system used by many instructors), and SafeAssign (used to verify student written work against a set of academic papers).
Contact Alyssa Spencer, Textbook Manager for the Vanderbilt University Bookstore. Many departmental administrative assistants and administrative officers, particularly in the professional schools, will order books for you, so it may be helpful to check with them first.
Owen faculty, please contact Academic Programs at Owen for your procedures.
Use this form to place materials on e-reserve. Many departmental administrative assistants and administrative officers, particularly in the professional schools, will help you place materials on e-reserve, so it may be helpful to check with them first.
Owen faculty, please contact Academic Programs at Owen for your procedures.
The Coordinator of Copyright Clearance services for the Jean and Alexander Heard Library has prepared a useful guide with information about copyright clearance and providing originals for Class Paks. Many departmental administrative assistants and administrative officers, particularly in the professional schools, will prepare your originals and submit them for copyright clearance, copying, and binding of materials into a Class Pak.
Please note the recommended 8-week turnaround time for Class Pak requests.
Owen faculty, please contact Academic Programs at Owen for your procedures.
Many departmental administrative assistants and administrative officers, particularly in the professional schools, provide this service. If not, there will be a photocopier available for your or your TA’s (TAs’) use. This photocopier may require an access code, which the administrative assistant or officer can provide you.
Owen faculty, please contact Academic Programs at Owen for your procedures.
You can find your room assignment by checking the Schedule of Courses.
Once you know where you will be teaching, use the interactive campus map to find the location of the building.
In circumstances where it is necessary or very important to change your classroom, contact the registrar for your college or school.
Owen faculty, please contact Academic Programs at Owen for your procedures.
Speak with the chair of your department or the appropriate dean in your school or college; s/he will know the criteria and the procedure for requesting a TA.
This is a judgment call and one that may be better to make before your students make comments on end-of-the-term evaluations about the amount of assigned reading and other work. Good people to consult to determine if you’re making the right call are
- your department chair or the appropriate dean(s) in your college or school, all of whom will know about standard practices in your department, college, or school;
- a CFT consultant; or
- your students, which you can do via a small-group analysis conducted by the CFT.
Additionally, you may find the CFT’s Teaching Vanderbilt Undergraduates helpful in making this call when working with undergraduate students.
Do I Need to...
While most colleges and schools do not have a school-wide policy, some departments do have attendance requirements for some courses (e.g., undergraduate language courses). Additionally, several weeks into the semester, the registrar of your college or school will ask you to report any discrepancies between students enrolled in your course and students attending it. You won’t be able to report discrepancies if you haven’t been taking attendance. Faculty who anticipate having more than 100 students in a course are advised to speak with their department chair or a member of the dean’s office to determine if and how to keep attendance.
If this is the case for your college or school, the registrar of your school will prompt you in the 7th week of the term to report failure to meet attendance, work, or other academic standards for your course. Undergraduate faculty are asked to submit deficiencies for any student earning C minus or below and/or any student with excessive absences.
The Opportunity Development Center recommends you include the following information in your syllabus: “If you need course accommodations due to a disability, if you have emergency medical information to share with me, or if you need special arrangements in case the building must be evacuated, please make an appointment with me and/or the Opportunity Development Center (2-4705) as soon as possible.”
Additionally, you may find the CFT’s guide on Teaching Students with Disabilities helpful.
Recommended items include:
- a description of the course that corresponds to and, as desired, elaborates on the catalog entry for it;
- a narrative or list of goals or learning outcomes for the course;
- an outline of material to be taught with, as possible, a
- timeline or calendar for when material will be taught;
- a list and, as possible, an explanation of assignments to be completed, along with due dates or examination dates;
- the grading scale and criteria to be applied to assignments;
- information for students with special needs; and
- mention of the honor code and how it applies to your course.
If you teach in a college or school with accreditation or licensure requirements, there may be information that has to be on your syllabus, and so you should consult the appropriate dean in your college or school to make sure your syllabus complies with such requirements.
It depends, so your best bet is to check with your school or college registrar. If you’re teaching in a seminar room in a Commons residence hall, you should check with the Assistant Director of the Commons Center.
Where Can I Get More Information About...
The Office of the University Registrar has a Web site devoted to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and how it applies to student privacy at Vanderbilt. All faculty are required to complete the tutorial and pass the accompanying test on this site.
The Opportunity and Development Center, Vanderbilt’s Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action office, handles requests from students for reasonable accommodations for appropriately documented disabilities and will provide you with information about and assistance in providing accommodations as the need arises.
The Student Handbook provides general information about the Honor System for all Vanderbilt students. The Undergraduate Honor Council enforces the Honor Code for undergraduate students and provides information to the Vanderbilt community about the Honor System as it pertains to undergraduates. Honor councils exist in many of the professional schools; check with dean of your college or school to learn more about them.
The policy, designed to help members of the Vanderbilt community "be aware of their professional responsibilities and to avoid apparent or actual conflict of interest, favoritism, or bias,"is located in Part III, Chapter 7 of the Faculty Manual
A good place to start is the Center for Teaching’s Web page on teaching with technology. Here, you’ll find ideas about using technologies such as blogs, wikis, and classroom response systems in and out of your classroom. If you want to explore further teaching with a particular technology, a CFT consultant can help you with that exploration.
Each college and school has a dedicated technology support unit or units. Click on your college or school name to get information about one such unit in your school or a contact person. You may have educational technology needs not met by that unit, in which case the person whom you contact within the unit can provide suggestions about another person or unit to contact.
College of Arts and Science
Blair School of Music
Divinity School
School of Engineering
School of Law
School of Nursing
School of Medicine
Owen Graduate School of Management
Peabody College of Education and Human Development
Most such resources at Vanderbilt are designed to meet the learning and academic needs of undergraduate students. Professional school faculty and those teaching graduate students should consult the appropriate dean of their college or school to see what resources are available for professional or graduate students who are experiencing academic difficulty.
Language Center
Psychological and Counseling Center (in addition to counseling services for all members of the university community, the PCC provides academic skills counseling and workshops for undergraduate and graduate students)
Stratton Foster Academic Center (provides academic support for student athletes)
Tutoring Services (for undergraduates in the College of Arts and Science)
The Office of Religious Life has information about the Vanderbilt policy regarding religious holidays and a link to a 7-year calendar of holy days and festivals. Offices of deans of Vanderbilt’s colleges and schools routinely send information about holy days and festivals frequently observed by Vanderbilt students to faculty at the beginning of each academic term. |
You’re best advised to contact the chair of your department or a member of the office of the dean of your college or school. Grading scales vary from school to school, and grading standards can vary from course to course and department to department.