Concern over interaction between faculty became the main topic for discussion at the spring 2002 Faculty Forum Tuesday.

The Faculty Senate met with faculty members and college deans Tuesday to discuss ideas geared toward strengthening faculty potential, providing assistance to Eastern’s faculty and creating a sense of community among one another. Recommendations will later be made to the administration to carry out the proposals.

Among the proposals was expanding orientation for newly hired faculty members, creating a mentoring program for new faculty and finding areas on campus where faculty can socialize.

New faculty need to “actually be exposed to the entire campus community,” said James Wallace, assistant professor in the Department of Counseling and Student Development.

Wallace, who has taught at Eastern for two years, said that a new faculty member can feel too “intimidated to use facilities, go to events or be part of a group when you don’t know what centers offer what services, or even where certain centers are located.”

Expanding orientation would give faculty more time to meet other faculty, become familiar with the campus and become aware of the services that the campus has to offer.

Another proposal made to promote faculty interaction was to create a formal monitoring system in which a senior faculty member would help to advise a new faculty member.

The program would help to “share the wealth that is among us,” said Reed Benedict, vice chair of the Faculty Senate and associate professor in the sociology and anthropology department.

Forum attendees also suggested creating facilities where faculty could go to participate in open discussion. The new library will have a faculty lounge, which is viewed as a good start, and participants in yesterday’s forum hope to continue expanding faculty meeting places by creating faculty dining rooms on campus and a center for faculty development.

The center would be a place faculty could go for information on funding for research projects, mentor programs and other faculty development issues. The center would also be expected to contact faculty on these issues.

Benedict noted that these programs require funding to get started and “historically, Eastern has been limited in faculty development due to funding.”

Partly because of that history, Thursday’s forum stressed the importance of Eastern engaging in a serious fund-raising campaign to help finance faculty development.