University of Cincinnati associate professor Christine Colella, Nurs '81, MS (Nurs) '88, admits she didn't know how busy she would be when she left the private medical field 11 years ago to join the College of Nursing faculty. But she also says the workload is partially self-imposed because she enjoys the challenge of trying so many different endeavors.

Associate professor of nursing Christine Colella loves the community service she does each month, volunteering to provide health care at an Indiana clinic for the under-served. "That's a really cool thing," she says, "but the best part of the job is seeing the growth in the student, from the beginning to the end, and to know you've made an impact on that student. It makes me feel really blessed."

photo/Dottie Stover

"I've taught freshmen, grad students and every year in between -- across the continuum of what nursing has to offer. I've also written articles and grants, made presentations at national and international levels. Those are experiences I wouldn't get elsewhere.

"Then there's the committee work, which I feel strongly about. As faculty, we need to be good citizens to the college and the university.

"The longer you're here, the more exposure you get to other things," she adds. "You prove yourself, then you get to do more. You get sucked up into all this stuff. It's like a vortex.

"It's exhausting, but it's exciting. I've been very lucky. I feel really blessed."

On one hand, faculty are expected to engage in research or scholarship and assume administrative responsibilities. On the other hand, professors naturally do it because they have high expectations of themselves, one of the outcomes of recruiting premier faculty to begin with.

Besides teaching and grading, faculty also mentor, recruit impressive students and other faculty, obtain funding for research and special projects, discover innovations in their fields, patent inventions, write textbooks, give guest lectures, consult, lead field trips, stay abreast of new philosophies, convene conferences and generally further the scholastic enterprise of higher education. Summers generally provide much-needed catch-up time for research conferences, collaborative efforts with other colleagues and developing new curriculum.

In many ways, it's an odd combination of playing human resource director, admissions counselor, financial officer, business manager, development VP and convention planner, depending upon one's field.

"Faculty are the lifeblood of the college," says College of Law Dean Louis Bilionis. "They formulate its policy. They define its vision. They work to achieve it, including what the curriculum should look like, how to innovate it, delivering it. The culture of the college is one of the faculty."

"Our faculty members are responsible for creating, maintaining and overseeing the quality of the learning and research environment," former UC A&S dean Karen Gould says. "Without their strong engagement and creative involvement, we cannot be a premier university. That's a fundamental tenet and one we should not lose sight of."

That means if a university is going to be on the leading edge, its faculty members have to be out there discovering where that edge lies. "We have an outstanding faculty pushing the boundaries of research and engaged in scholarly dialogue about what other scholars are finding out," Gould adds. "They are very interested in what their research fields are accomplishing at other major universities, as well as in their own units, to ensure that they are actually bringing something new to the table."

Because law and law practices change constantly, Dean Bilionis says his faculty have to stay keenly aware of what is happening in the field and what will happen next. "Our professors typically teach only two courses at a time, but their preparation time is extraordinary. They're constantly reviewing the law, re-reading, reflecting, preparing approaches to use in class and doing more research.

"Part of what we do is help to be constructive in reforming the law, making it better. We're living in an increasingly global society, so the issues to which lawyers need to be sensitive expand greatly.

"We think it's important that we introduce students to the ways in which law is informed by insights of other disciplines. We're preparing lawyers to practice tomorrow, not just today."

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