To meet Penn GSE’s mission, one of the most significant considerations is the development and maintenance of an academically/professionally excellent, relevant, and productive Faculty of Education. The faculty personnel policies and procedures described in this Manual have therefore been designed accordingly. View the Faculty Personnel Manual here.

Graduate School of Education
University of Pennsylvania

Standing Committees

Standing Committees of the School are appointed by the Dean. The Dean will appoint one student to be a member of the committee on instruction and one student to be a member of the Committee on Degrees. The student member on the Committee on Degrees will excuse him/herself from the meeting during any discussion on the status of a student. All Committees will meet regularly and sufficiently often to preclude unreasonable delay in the discharge of their responsibilities.

Committee chairs are responsible for:

1.  Scheduling of regular and special meetings as needed.
2. Formulating and distributing an agenda in advance of each meeting
3. Chairing each meeting.
4. Arranging for the preparation and distribution of minutes in which at least major decisions are recorded.
5. Ensuring that facilities and resources needed by the committees are made available. 

Executive Committee

1. Serves as the central planning body of the school
2. Considers administrative matters referred to it by the Dean, and advises the Dean thereon.
3. Reviews proposals pertaining to academic matters and formulates recommendations for full Faculty action.
4. In accordance with GSE’s Faculty Personnel Manual, reviews proposals for searches submitted by divisional chairs for candidates for standing faculty positions. If a proposal is endorsed by the Executive Committee, it is forwarded for discussion and vote by the full voting membership of the Faculty of Education. 

Faculty Personnel Committee

1. The Faculty Personnel Committee performs a central role in the appointment, reappointment, and promotion of members of the Faculty of Education as defined in the GSE Faculty Personnel Manual.
2. In addition, the Faculty Personnel Committee consults with the Dean on matters of Faculty Personnel Policy as may be requested by the Dean, and advises the Dean on matters of Faculty Personnel Policy as may be initiated by the Committee. 

Committee on Instruction

1. Degree Program Proposals
   1. Evaluate details of proposals for new degree programs, and for major changes to approved programs, formulate recommendations for full Faculty action, and transmit recommendations to Faculty via the Executive Committee.
   2. Evaluate proposals for minor changes in degree programs and render decisions approving or disapproving proposal changes.
2. Education Course Proposals
   1. Evaluate proposals for new education courses and transmit recommendations to the full Faculty for action.
   2. Evaluate proposals for changes to approved education courses (e.g. number, title, prerequisites, description, etc.) and render decisions approving or disapproving proposed changes.
3. Consider other topics and issues related to instruction referred to the Committee by the Dean or Associate Dean and formulate recommendations for full Faculty action. These may include library matters, computer education matters, schoolwide colloquia, or others.

Committee on Degrees

1. The Committee on Degrees hears appeals from students who request exceptions to GSE academic policy.
2. In addition to monitoring student progress through approved degree programs, the Committee, through the Associate Dean’s Office, approves admission to candidacy, change of advisors and programs, completion of degree requirements, comprehensive examinations, degree program requirement waivers, disciplinary review, dissertation hearings, proposals and committee appointments, extension of time requests, graduation, leaves of absence, reinstatements and withdrawals. Students may appeal decisions made by advisors or the Associate Dean to the Committee, and the Committee evaluates and decides to approve or disapprove proposals from individual students for exception from standard degree requirements. The Committee also ensures that students meet all established degree requirements.
3. In addition to the above duties, the Committee on Degrees is to evaluate details of proposals to change approved degree requirements, and formulate recommendations for faculty action (to be transmitted via the Executive Committee); and monitor operations of approved degree programs of instruction. 

Student Awards Committee

The Student Affairs Committee is to promote the quality of student life by developing and evaluating proposals from the GSE community to improve student-faculty and student-school relationships that do not involve specific academic programs, advocating support within GSE for student concerns, and by taking steps to address, maintain or improve student school communications, student-faculty relationships, and all other student issues.

1. Excellence in Instruction Award: Develop a selection process (with full faculty approval) and select, annually, a member of the Faculty of Education to receive the Excellence in Instruction Award, based upon outstanding contributions demonstrated over a considerable period of time.
2. Instructor and Course Evaluation Form: Develop, revise, and review (with full faculty approval) on a regular basis the Instructor and Course Evaluation Form. 

Policies of the Graduate School of Education

The following is a (not necessarily complete) compendium of academic and administrative policies and procedures of the Graduate School of Education, as approved by the Standing Faculty and/or the Dean, and currently in effect. GSE’s policies and procedures must always be consistent with University policies and procedures, and GSE must operate in accordance with them. As official new and/or revised University policies and procedures are implemented, they assume precedence over any contrary policies in this Handbook. With the evolution of both University and School policy and practice over time, this Handbook should be reviewed and revised periodically. For University policies, please consult the Handbook for Faculty and Academic Administrators, The PennBook: Policies and Procedures Handbook, University Policies and Procedures, or with the appropriate administrator. 

Faculty Teaching Load

Standing Faculty: The teaching load for standing faculty members is four c.u.’s per academic year.

Non-Standing Faculty

1. The full-time teaching load for an academic year for associated faculty and academic support staff is six c.u.’s.
2. A full teaching load may be reduced by the Dean in consideration for other responsibilities and duties such as:
   1. Student advising, including dissertation committee membership
   2. Research activities
   3. Academic administration, including leadership and committee positions
3. Part-time faculty members appointed to instruct one c.u. will be employed 1/6 time, those employed to teach 2 c.u.’s will be considered to be employed 1/3 time, and so on. Part-time faculty members can be hired for explicit extra increments of time to perform substantial advising or academic administration functions.

Scheduling Experimental Courses (Education 545)

1. Proposals to place a new version of Education 545 (i.e. with content not previously offered) on a summer roster shall be accomplished without review by the Committee on Instruction, by the Office of the Associate Dean if the proposal is reviewed and approved by majority of the voting faculty of the GSE division sponsoring the course.
2. Proposals for scheduling a new version of Education 545 (i.e. with content not previously offered) during the academic year or to schedule a previously offered version of Education 545 for a second or subsequent time, if the proposal is reviewed and approved by a majority vote of the voting faculty of the GSE division sponsoring the proposed course, shall be reviewed and subject to approval by the Committee on Instruction before scheduling is accomplished by the Office of the Associate Dean.
3. In other respects, the procedures for rostering and/or reviewing proposed Education 545 courses shall be the same as for permanent (i.e. non-experimental) courses and in keeping with timelines established for these processes by the Office of the Associate Dean and the Committee on Instruction.

Course Buyouts

1. While the Dean’s office is always available to discuss buyouts by individual faculty, no decision will be made without full discussion with the appropriate divisional chair.
2. The proposed buyout must come from the divisional chair and would include such things as: courses to be bought out, courses to be taught by the faculty member (if partial buyout), replacements required, secretarial, office, and other related costs.
3. Course buyouts will be as follows:
   1. Non-required and small courses will be bought out first.
   2. Wherever possible, courses bought-out that must be taught should be taught by existing standing faculty.
   3. Wherever possible, unnecessary courses should not be taught.

GSE Policies and Procedures for Determining New Hires to Pursue for Standing Faculty, Professors of Practice, and Instructional Staff

(Adopted by GSE Faculty on 1/16/08)

Goal

The Goal of GSE is to be the intellectually most exciting place in education. GSE’s strategy for realizing this goal is through leadership, leadership in ideas and understandings about education, and leadership through educating and placing future leaders in both education practice and scholarship.

Context

GSE is a relatively small school of education situated in an outstanding university. We do not seek to become a large school, but we do seek to have a large and important positive impact. Our strength comes not just from within our school but from drawing on the tremendous strengths of the entire university. 

Replacing standing faculty, professors of practice and instructional staff who leave

If a member of the faculty or staff is terminated on grounds of performance, the position will be posted unless the home unit for the position no longer finds the position a high priority. GSE’s commitment to continuing positions vacated on grounds of an individual’s poor performance is to support all units exercising high standards for performance.

If a position is vacated at the initiation of a faculty or staff member in the position, then that position no longer exists. The home unit may request a position for a person with training and experience similar to that of the person leaving, but there will be a review through the same process as for adding new positions described below.

Adding new positions

Each winter the GSE will complete a process for determining what if any new positions it would like to add in the coming year. Divisions and other units as appropriate are invited to submit to the Dean requests for new positions. Each request will consist of a) a position description, b) a rationale, c) evidence in support of the rationale. The Dean will take the request to the Executive Committee. While all members of the Executive Committee will participate in discussion of a request, only the standing faculty on the Executive Committee will vote to determine the priority of the position. 

The review of requests for positions will result in a rank ordering on priority for filling the requests as well as a determination of which requests fall above the GSE’s “need” threshold such that resources available, a search should be undertaken. 

The following criteria guide the drafting of requests and will be used in their review:

• Importance for GSE achieving its overall goal
• Meets needs for research and product and program development.
• Meets teaching needs
• Increases the GSE’s ability to connect to the rest of the university
• Meets school wide needs
• Would serve to strengthen an existing area of GSE strength
• Addresses an area of scholarship that is important but not currently addressed by GSE (would require an extraordinary argument).

Searches That Fail the First Year (Adopted by GSE Faculty on 10/15/2015)

In cases where searches fail during the first year, the Search Committee has the option of requesting to continue the search for a second year. The Search Committee would offer a rationale to the Executive Committee for this request. If the Executive Committee approves this request, it will then be forwarded to the full faculty for discussion and vote. This request would be independent of prior approvals of searches authorized for the coming year.

Targets of Opportunity

While the above procedures are expected to result in the majority of new hires, there may be, from time to time opportunities to add to GSE’s strength that present themselves unexpectedly. GSE should be ever vigilant and sufficiently nimble to effectively pursue such targets of opportunity. The same criteria as articulated above for the “normal” process apply to targets of opportunity. In addition, a target of opportunity will be pursued if and only if the target of opportunity represents what can be convincingly argued as a rare opportunity for GSE to substantially improve its capability of realizing its overall goal of being the most intellectually exciting place in education.

Targets of Opportunity may be identified by any member of GSE faculty or staff at any time. They may be explored informally with the Dean initially or a formal proposal may be submitted to the Dean following the outline for regular requests.

Financial feasibility

Once the above criteria are met, an analysis of GSE’s capacity to financially accommodate each potential new hire will be completed with a positive result before the posting of any new position.

Policy for the formation of an “Ed.D. Graduate Group”

Adopted by the Faculty

October 15, 2008

Currently (and consistent with University policy) GSE has a graduate group dedicated to overseeing the Ph.D. degree. Members of the graduate group may chair and serve on Ph.D. dissertation committees. GSE should establish a “graduate group” for the Ed.D. degree in order to underscore our collective commitment to this degree and to provide adequate stewardship for Ed.D. dissertations. This “Ed.D. graduate group” would initially and immediately be comprised of all standing faculty members and practice professors. All of these individuals are full-time, all are on multi-year contracts, all have terminal degrees, and are the product of national searches. However, this group should have the authority to approve of other individuals whose scholarly credentials and affiliation with GSE indicates that they are well-suited to serve as GSE’s representatives on Ed.D. dissertation committees. Given the “graduate group” for the Ed.D., Ed.D. students would be required to have at least one Ed.D. graduate group member serving on their dissertation committee.

Adopted by Faculty January 2014

Draft Guidelines for Faculty Approval of New Non-Traditional* Programs

Penn GSE programs that award the EdD or MSEd, GSE certificate, or professional development credit; or carry GSE’s imprimatur 

November 25, 2013

Proposals for new non-traditional* GSE programs—programs that award the EdD or MSEd, GSE certificate, or professional development credit; or that carry GSE’s imprimatur—must be approved by a majority of the Standing Faculty. The approval process is the same as the approval process for new “regular” programs, i.e., it involves the following sequential steps: 1) Dean; 2) Executive Committee (Exec Com); 3) Committee on Instruction (COI); 4) Standing Faculty. The Dean will determine if the marketing plan and the proposed budget are feasible and appropriate. The Executive Committee will provide feedback on the substance of the proposal. The COI will vet the proposal to ensure compliance with the Guidelines (see below); it will send the proposal to the Standing Faculty with a yea or nay recommendation, based on compliance with the Guidelines. The Standing Faculty will vote to accept or reject the proposal—or to request a revision for resubmission to the Standing Faculty. 

*This term subsumes other labels commonly used at GSE for non-traditional programs: “executive,” “external,” or “non-core.” 

Guidelines for Faculty Approval of New Non-Traditional Programs 

1. Standing Faculty Spokesperson. A Full or Associate Professor in the Graduate Group proposes and represents the program in all phases of development and implementation (the proposal may come from outside the faculty, but like a bill in the Congress, it must be vetted and introduced by a Standing Faculty member).
2. Mission and Goals. The program aims to strengthen education practice, theory, or policy; it has clear goals that are commensurate with maintaining a high academic standard.
3. Market Status and Business Plan. An identified, viable market exists for the program and includes strategies for monitoring whether such a market does exist. The proposal includes a sound business plan, including an estimate of revenue and costs and supporting evidence of the risks and vulnerabilities of these estimates.
4. Financial Viability. The proposal includes an initial defensible budget, identifies all funding sources, and includes a plan for monitoring the financial viability of the initiative.  
5. Curriculum. If the program offers a degree, certificate, or credit of any kind, it has a clearly defined curriculum. If the curriculum does not have a strong foundation in established practice, the proposal will include a responsible plan for monitoring and judging the efficacy of the curriculum. If the program does not offer a degree or other GSE credit; e.g., it provides instruction or research for an education organization or group, it will have a clearly articulated rationale and action plan.
6. Faculty Involvement The program has a core faculty—and if the program offers a degree, its core faculty includes at least one Standing Faculty member who teaches in the program and at least one other member, also teaching, in one of the following faculty ranks: Standing Faculty, Practice Professor, or Advanced Lecturer.
7. Duration and Teaching Schedule. The proposal specifies duration of the program for each cohort in months and the teaching schedule (weekends monthly, bimonthly; summer weeks; online instruction).
8. Faculty Oversight. If the program offers a degree, it has a Faculty Steering Committee that includes at least two members of the GSE faculty (professors, practice professors, advanced lecturers), at least one of whom is a Standing Faculty member and one of whom serves outside the Division housing the new program.
9. Commensurability of Degree Programs. If the program offers a degree, the program’s curriculum and course requirements, teaching contact hours, and program duration are commensurate with the School’s regular programs for these degrees.
10. External Partners. If the program involves a partnership with an external organization, that organization’s goals and activities must be commensurate with GSE’s core principles.

Proposal regarding approval of certificates

December 1, 2016

Over the past two decades, the number of certificates being offered by Schools at Penn has increased dramatically. In part this is because certificates are a way for Schools to generate new revenues. However, certificates are also a way for Schools to reach out and serve people who would never pursue a degree at Penn.  In short, they offer another way for Schools to fulfill their educational missions and increase access to the expertise of faculty.  

There are different kinds of certificates:

1. Certificates of participation: These are the most basic form of certificate and carry no credit. They simply indicate that the individual participated in an educational experience run by Penn.
2. Certificates with continuing education (CE) credits: These certificates also certify participation in a Penn educational experience but also carry Continuing Education credits. The Penn Literacy Network and the VOLT program are current examples of this form of certificate.
3. Certificates with credit towards CU’s: There are certificates that contribute towards the generation of a credit (or at Penn a CU.) For example, a School could develop a set of certificates that it has determined will be the equivalent of one CU. There are currently certificates at SP2 and Wharton that are designed in this way. Many universities use these kinds of arrangements to introduce participants to programs as a way to encourage enrollment in subsequent degree programs.

GSE’s current policy for approval of new non-traditional programs, which was approved by the faculty in January 2014, specifies that every new program should be first proposed to the dean (to ensure it makes sense from a budgetary standpoint), then vetted by the Exec Committee, the COI, and finally voted on by the faculty.  The intent of the policy—to ensure that all degree-granting programs have proper faculty oversight—is sensible. The question is whether this process is appropriate for certificate types #1 and #2.

When the 2014 policy was developed, faculty oversight for some of our programs was inconsistent. Since that time, policies have been put into place providing either faculty oversight through divisions or through the establishment of faculty oversight committees. All programs now have faculty oversight. As we develop new certificate programs, we suggest that we develop a streamlined approval process for certificates that do not carry credit. We propose that such certificates be approved by either the division or the faculty oversight committee. Certificates that have the potential to lead to the conferral of credit should be first approved by a division or a faculty oversight committee, reviewed by the COI, and then presented to the full faculty for a vote.

Motion: The dean must review and approve the budgetary parameters and infrastructure requirements of any proposed certificate program. Certificates of participation as well as certificates that convey Continuing Education (CE) credit may be approved by a division or a faculty oversight committee attached to an academic program. Further, certificates conveying CE credits must be developed in collaboration with the GSE registrar to ensure proper documentation of participants. Certificates that have the potential to lead to the conferral of credit should be first approved by a division or a faculty oversight committee, reviewed by the COI, and then presented to the full faculty for a vote.

Adopting promotion criteria requires some strategies for supporting promotion. The following information specifies a minimum mentoring plan to be adopted by all divisions for full-time staff with an adjunct assistant professor appointment.

1. If they wish, the adjunct assistant professor may choose a mentor (in consultation with their division chair) to support their ongoing work at GSE. The mentor should have senior status (standing faculty, senior lecturer, or professor of practice).
2. They can meet with their mentor with the frequency that they both agree on, but at a minimum of once per semester to review teaching evaluations and to discuss service to the school. These discussions may also include scholarly activities of interest for further development, such as research and publishing.
3. Teaching evaluations and mentoring should be reviewed by the program chair or director at the end of the year. Timely and constructive feedback should be provided.