Confidentiality

The Center for Teaching & Learning Excellence and Faculty Success support are university-wide resources for the VCU teaching community. Our goals are to promote excellence in teaching through dialogue, inquiry and research, and to offer instructors feedback and an opportunity to reflect on their teaching. To fulfill these goals, the CTLE must offer a trustworthy environment to those it serves, and thus has established the following policies.

• We are dedicated to providing teachers with opportunities to discuss and observe themselves and their students in a confidential manner, for formative purposes, without risk of evaluation or censure.
• We gather feedback (SGID, observation etc.) about a course only upon the request of the teacher.
• We do not make feedback information available to anyone except the teacher.
• Feedback gathered and/or given by the CTLE is meant for their own purposes of improvement.
• We keep names of consulting and services participants confidential.
• Any certificate of completion/participation or message of gratitude for serving as a volunteer facilitator or presenter will be sent only to the individual. Any decision to share that information with others is solely at the discretion of the individual.
• Note- we cannot guarantee confidentiality in situations of mandated reporting.

This policy is supported by the Ethical Guidelines for Educational Developers developed by the national POD Network in Higher Education. Please address any questions or concerns to Kim Case, Director of Faculty Success.

Adapted from materials made public by the POD Network Code of Ethics for Faculty Development and the Center for Teaching Vanderbilt University under a creative commons license.