**Executive Summary
Although this briefing is written primarily for department chairs, its
topic, creating a climate for teaching and learning, is an institutional
affair and cannot be fully realized without broader support from
academic leaders. I take as a conceptual starting point Boyer's (1990b)
influential text Scholarship Reconsidered and thus begin with the
premise that improving teaching and learning requires that we think
about teaching as an activity not wholly segregated from other scholarly
activity--thereby requiring entirely different kinds of support--but as
an activity that can benefit from the same kinds of encouragement and
support that foster research and scholarship.
There are, in fact, many parallels between the suggestions and practical
advice that support good teaching and those that support research and
scholarship. I have drawn the suggestions in this briefing from a
variety of sources, including personal experience. To help department
chairs make wise choices in implementing these ideas, I have organized
the practical suggestions within a framework for transformative change.
The assumption in doing so is that department chairs want to make
lasting changes and that seeing each suggestion as part of a larger
process will make it easier for them to do so. Finally, because one of
the most significant and important steps that departments need to take
to instill a climate for teaching and learning is to create contexts for
conversations, I have provided in the annotated bibliography articles
and books that could be used to encourage departmental discussion and
dialogue.
**
