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Stewart Bellman Award for Exemplary Leadership for the Advancement of
College Teaching and Learning

Nomination Statement
for Marion Hogan Larson
Recipient of the 2007 Bellman Award

Submitted by
Dr. Jay Barnes, Provost, College of Arts and Sciences, College of Adult and Professional Studies, Graduate School
Dr. Barrett Fisher, Associate Dean of Arts and Humanities
Dr. Richard Sherry, Dean of Faculty Growth and Assessment
Bethel University

Engaging actively in the professional community. Dr. Marion Hogan Larson, Professor of Writing and Director of the Honors Program at Bethel University, has been active in faculty development since 1994. She has served two terms as Faculty Development Coordinator at Bethel, from 1994-1998 and from 2003-2007. From 1996-1999, she served on the Board of Directors of The Collaboration. Four times she has served in leadership for The Collaboration's Summer Institute at St. Olaf. She has frequently participated in the Traveling Workshop initiative of The Collaboration, presenting at campuses in the region. She has long been a recruiter and advocate for faculty attendance at Collaboration conferences, with the result that between six and ten Bethel faculty members a year are able to participate.

Out of her background as a teacher of writing, she has influenced other instructors in this area at Bethel (and at other institutions) through workshops and through mentoring writing teachers. Earlier in her career she helped shape Bethel's Writing Across the Curriculum program, and has continued to provide workshops to faculty as new instructors have come into the institution.

Providing leadership for measurable, sustained improvement in college teaching and learning. Dr. Larson's service as Faculty Development Coordinator has occurred during an explosion in the size of the instructional faculty. In 1994, when she began as coordinator, Bethel had 112 full-time instructors; now the institution has nearly 200, and for the last several years has added cohorts of 10-20 new faculty members annually. During her two terms as coordinator, she helped acculturate almost 80 new instructors. She has participated actively in developing and refining "extended orientation" of instructors during their first two years at the institution. She participated in peer classroom observations, and led workshops on team-based "colleague coaching," a program in which teams of three observers counseled one another on instructional strategies. She contributed frequently in workshops on strategies to engage students in writing, and developed a faculty newsletter highlighting resources and strategies for teaching. In her most recent terms, she has brought new resources to the attention of instructors, sponsoring reading and discussion groups and actively counseling a dozen new instructors in their first year. In 2006, she won foundation funding for a three-day workshop on how faculty members can assist students in considering the mutual interplay of Christian faith perspectives and the assumptions of academic disciplines. The introductory workshop was followed by ongoing reading and discussion groups over the course of the academic year. Attendees at the workshop have reported significant help in treating this central theme of Bethel's undergraduate program. She was able to win internal funding to repeat the workshop for another group of instructors in 2007.

As a member of Bethel's Professional Development Committee, she has also sought to improve the climate for learning on other ways. She has advocated development and improvement of processes of evaluation and feedback to instructors, creating a positive climate in which instructors gain information on how to improve their performance in the classroom. Through principled re-examination and review of processes leading to re-appointment and tenure, she has sought to reduce the anxiety of instructors about their performance and replace it with information they can use in strengthening the learning environment.

Advocating for the development of educational approaches demonstrated to be effective in promoting student learning. As chair of the general education committee, and later coordinator of general education, she has advocated for appropriate class sizes, active learning strategies, and engagement with students to strengthen pedagogy. Her service included oversight of the first plan for assessment of the integrity of Bethels' general education program, and an emphasis on embedded and authentic measures of student learning. In her role as director of the Honors Program, she has guided faculty through curriculum development and teaching strategies particularly effective with the strongest students Bethel enrolls. Working in a team environment with instructors in the program, she has led by example and encouragement.

Believing that faculty actively engaged in their disciplines can bring more to students, she has also developed programs to strengthen the collaboration of mid-career faculty as they build their research agenda. The "Not ready for Prime Time" opportunities she has developed in the last three years have enabled faculty presenters to share the early results of research in settings which offer both support and constructive critique.

Her Bethel colleagues have honored her work as an instructor and faculty developer, awarding her the Faculty Excellence Award in teaching, given in 2000-2001.