[Professorsofteaching] REQUEST FOR INPUT: Wording about Professors of Teaching (PoT) for The CALL

[Christophe Katrib]

Dear Annie and Todd,

Thank you for your work on this. I agree with the proposed changes and the
wording of the email. Please feel free to include my name as well.

Best,

Christophe

*Sent from my smartphone*

Christophe Katrib, MFA
Assistant Professor of Teaching
2024-25 CHASS Teaching Award
2025-26 Regents’ Faculty Fellow
Department of Theatre, Film and Digital Production
University of California, Riverside


On Sun, Feb 22, 2026 at 6:41 PM Annie Stanfield Ditta via
Professorsofteaching <professorsofteaching at lists.ucr.edu> wrote:

> Hi Professor of Teaching Colleagues,
>
> *TLDR: *
> Below please see a proposed email to be sent to the VPAP’s office
> regarding proposed changes to The CALL. Todd Sorensen (PoT in Economics)
> and I would like to suggest some wording to strengthen the degree of choice
> for PoTs in terms of what type of Professional and/or Scholarly Achievement
> and Activity to engage in. The deadline for changes to be sent to their
> office is end of business, Wednesday Feb. 25th. If you have any suggested
> changes to our email and/or other any changes you want to make to The CALL
> that you haven't passed along yet, could you please send them to us by end
> of day Tuesday 2/24 (sorry for the short turnaround!)?
>
> --
>
> If you have a little more time and want to read more about this request:
>
> *Some background:*
> We were happy to see that the VPAP sent out some FAQs (attached) to better
> inform chairs about the roles of Professors of Teaching and of our review
> process. One concern we had was that some of the language could be
> interpreted as de-emphasizing the option of disciplinary research as a
> contribution to "Professional and/or Scholarly Achievement and Activity”.
>
> Specifically, the second page of the FAQ (FAQ1) has a bullet list of
> examples of "What types of scholarly or professional activities are
> valued?” Initially, disciplinary research was not included as an example.
> However, in an updated draft of this document (FAQ2), "Traditional
> disciplinary research or presentations” was added to this list.
>
> In addition, we feel that the last paragraph on the first page
> de-emphasized this path for PoTs:
>
> "Traditional disciplinary research is not required. However, Professors of
> Teaching are expected to engage in scholarly or professional activity
> related to teaching, such as pedagogical scholarship, curriculum
> development, or educational leadership."
>
> We felt that the spirit of valuing traditional disciplinary research would
> be better expressed by the paragraph below; we have gone forward with the
> spirit of “what we wish the FAQ had said” to make our suggested changes to
> The CALL. We are not trying to get the FAQ document edited, but wanted to
> note this for possible future use.
>
> "Professors of Teaching are expected to engage in *scholarly or
> professional activity*, which may take different forms. Traditional
> disciplinary research is *not required* but such work is valued in the
> merit and promotion process. Additionally, activities such as pedagogical
> scholarship, curriculum development, and/or educational  leadership are
> valued in this category."
>
>
> *Proposed Email Draft:*
>
> Dear Dan,
>
> Thank you for valuing the role of PoTs, and the broad set of potential
> contributions to Professional and/or Scholarly Achievement and Activity”
> that is valued in our roles. We especially appreciate the intentionality in
> sending around an FAQ document on this, and on adding "Traditional
> disciplinary research or presentations” as a bullet point item in the list
> of “What ˚types of scholarly or professional activities are valued.”
>
> We would like to suggest the following changes to The CALL to reflect the
> spirit of a broad interpretation of Professional and/or Scholarly
> Achievement and Activities (including traditional disciplinary research or
> presentation) that will be valued in our review process:
>
> Page 37; 4b: add in parentheses at end of line “(this includes both
> pedagogy-related and discipline-specific research)”.
> Similar wording being added to #2 on pages 1-2 of the "UCR Guidelines for
> Professor of Teaching Series” would also help emphasize this point.
>
> Best and thank you for your consideration,
> Annie Ditta & Todd Sorensen
> [and anyone else that wants to add their name!]
>
> --
> *Annie S. Ditta, Ph.D.*
> Pronouns: she/her/hers (what's this?
> <https://www.mypronouns.org/what-and-why>)
> Associate Professor of Teaching
> Distinguished Teaching Professor
> Department of Psychology
> University of California, Riverside
> LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/anniesditta
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>
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