CCT: University Context

Core Competency 4: Understanding the University Context (CCTI, May 2024).

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Workshop attended: Understanding the University Context: Aligning Teaching with Different Institutional Types and Missions, Certification in College Teaching Institute (CCTI), MSU Graduate School. Presenter: Judith Stoddart (Associate Provost for University Arts and Collections), followed by a breakout session on developing a teaching philosophy.
Workshop date: May 9, 2024, STEM Teaching and Learning Facility, Michigan State University

Description of the Core Competency

Understanding the university context means recognizing that teaching always happens inside an institution with its own mission, students, and expectations of faculty. Research universities, comprehensive universities, liberal arts colleges, community colleges, minority-serving institutions, and for-profit institutions value and evaluate teaching differently, and the students they serve bring different goals and needs. A college teacher who understands these contexts can align their teaching with an institution’s mission, describe their practice in terms the institution values, and prepare for the kinds of positions they want.

I met this competency through the CCTI session on aligning teaching with institutional types and missions, and its breakout on developing a teaching philosophy statement.

Artifacts

Materials distributed at the CCTI session:

  1. CCTI agenda, May 6 and 9–10, 2024.
  2. Types of Higher Education Institutions in the United States: characteristics of research, comprehensive, liberal arts, community college, minority-serving, and for-profit institutions, and what each expects of faculty.
  3. Samples of Institutional Mission Statements and Statements on Teaching: mission statements and faculty-handbook excerpts on teaching from Michigan State University, Grand Valley State University, Calvin University, Howard University, and Jackson College.
  4. Teaching philosophy materials from the breakout: Teaching Philosophy Inventory, teaching philosophy statement guide, rubric, reflection tool, and an example statement.

Materials Developed

Teaching philosophy statement (read it here), which I began in the CCTI breakout, developed further as a COLA fellow in 2024, and restructured in 2026. It is organized around three practices, each explained as why I use it, what I do, and how it helps, with evidence from my classes: inviting students to the board (in Matrix Algebra, volunteers grew from three or four in the first two weeks to at least twelve by week five), opening each class with the purpose of the material, and running the class as a dialogue in a space where mistakes are welcome.

Artifact / Material Rationale

The institution-types and mission-statement handouts are important because they show, side by side, how differently institutions define and evaluate good teaching. MSU’s promotion and tenure form treats instruction as scholarship documented through portfolios, peer review, and student evaluations. Grand Valley requires self, peer, and student evaluation of teaching. Calvin describes teaching as a faculty member’s primary vocation. Howard emphasizes students’ intellectual growth and avoiding discriminatory conduct. Jackson College ties classroom assessment to college-wide learning outcomes. Reading these together helped me see what different employers will look for in my teaching materials.

The teaching philosophy is the material this session prepared me to write. A philosophy statement is how an institution first sees a candidate’s teaching, so it has to be specific, backed by evidence, and readable by search committees at different types of institutions. Mine names concrete practices backed by evidence from my own courses rather than general beliefs, and it addresses priorities that appear across the mission statements: student learning, an inclusive and safe classroom, and continued professional growth.

Interpretation / Reflection

Before the CCTI, I thought about teaching mostly at the level of my own classroom. This session showed me that the institution shapes what good teaching means, who the students are, and how a faculty member’s teaching is judged. A research university like MSU expects teaching to be documented and treated as scholarship, while a community college may put teaching at the center of the job and expect continual classroom assessment. Because I want a career that combines mathematics research with teaching, I need to be able to explain my teaching to both kinds of institutions.

The session also made the purpose of a teaching philosophy clear to me. Working through the inventory and rubric in the breakout made me list the courses, students, and contexts I had actually taught in, which helped me move from general beliefs to specific practices with evidence. That shaped how my philosophy has evolved, from the version I wrote as a COLA fellow to the current one, where each practice is tied to evidence from a class I taught.

Going forward, I will read an institution’s mission and teaching expectations before applying or designing a course there, adjust my teaching philosophy and materials to that context, and keep documenting my teaching (student feedback, materials, and reflections) so that it is visible in the way institutions evaluate it.