Tbers,
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE!
The posting below looks at some of the important
issues in faculty development at colleges and
universities. It is from Chapter 6, Future
Directions for Faculty Development: Open-Ended
Responses - The Future of the Field in, Creating
the Future of Faculty Development, Learning From
the Past, Understanding the Present, by Mary
Deane Sorcinelli, Ann E. Austin, Pamela L. Eddy
and Andrea L. Beach. Copyright © 2006 by Anker
Publishing Company, Inc. Bolton, Massachusetts.
All rights reserved. ISBN 1-882982-87-8 Anker
Publishing Company, Inc. 176 Ballville Road P.O.
Box 249 Bolton, MA 1-882982-14-2.
[www.ankerpub.com] Reprinted with permission.
Amazon reference (copy/paste into browser):
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1882982878/ref=sib_rdr_dp/104-6844509-61167
47?%5Fencoding=UTF8&me=ATVPDKIKX0DER&no=283155&st=books&n=283155
FUTURE DIRECTIONS FOR FACULTY DEVELOPMENT
Chapter 6 - Future Directions for Faculty
Development: Open-Ended Responses
The Future of the Field
For approximately 30 years, the Professional and
Organizational Network in Higher Education (POD
Network) has advocated for the ongoing
enhancement of teaching and learning through
faculty development. In 2003 the POD Network
crafted a vision statement for the 21st century
that charges the organization to "expand
guidelines for educational development, build
strong alliances with sister organizations, and
encourage developer exchanges and research
projects to improve teaching and learning" (Core
Committee, April 2003). In the open-ended
comments of our study, developers offered a
number of insights on what should and what will
be the vision for the future of the field of
faculty development. Their comments elaborate and
expand on the vision of the POD Network.
Developers' visions about the future of the field
coalesced around three key areas. Many called for
more emphasis on organizational development and
change. They believe that developers should take
a stronger leadership role within higher
education institutions, becoming involved in
governance structures, aligning their centers
with institutional priorities, engaging in
discussions of rewards structures, and working
with academic leaders. There was also a sense
among developers that faculty development should
work to gain more respect and credibility as a
field or discipline of study. Credibility and
respect were linked to the field's ability to
articulate a body of scholarly knowledge,
standards, and core competencies that defines it,
and to build on the research base already laid
for the scholarship of teaching.
There was some commentary on the merits of
restructuring faculty development-by making it
more central and valued, by diversifying
development offerings and efforts, or by
integrating faculty development into departments
or interdisciplinary groups. Some developers
expressed the view that faculty development
should be spread throughout institutions and that
departments and individuals could take up faculty
development themselves. Others argued that the
field should proactively network with external
organizations-accreditation bodies and other
higher education associations, such as the
Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of
Teaching and Learning and the American
Association for Higher Education.
Developers also believe that the field of faculty
development and its place in higher education
institutions will gain credibility and respect in
the coming years, although there is also a sense
that funding issues will be important. Many
faculty expressed the belief that centers and
programs within institutions would need to fund
their own efforts from external sources, while
others believed that internal funding would come
with the increased stature of faculty development
within colleges and universities.
Also evident in the open-ended responses were two
competing positions regarding who owns faculty
development. One position (expressed most often
by liberal arts and comprehensive university
respondents) was that faculty should own their
own development. A number of respondents at
liberal arts colleges expressed a vision of
faculty development planned and decided by the
faculty themselves-that faculty development
without faculty input was not faculty
development. Similarly, many respondents at
comprehensive institutions saw their role as
serving faculty rather than administrative
interests and needs.
The other position was that institutional
administrations own faculty development, for
better to worse. Some respondents argued that
faculty development should be more aligned with
and responsive to the critical needs of the
institution, needs often defined by the campus
administration. Many noted faculty development
must work to be more legitimate, central, and
respected part of the institution. But the
drawback to such alignments also emerged,
especially in concerns about being pushed into an
overemphasis on technology without careful
consideration of issues such as course content
and student and faculty readiness. Responses to
earlier survey questions regarding who
establishes the priorities for faculty
development support this sense that the faculty
development agenda is set, in part, by the
priorities perceived by senior-level
administrators. Some respondents were somewhat
negative or resigned about this situation. Others
were more positive in their view that the
strongest faculty development programs were those
that responded to the needs of both faculty and
institutional leaders in setting agendas for
development.
Developers also grappled with the issue of who
they think belongs in faculty development.
Comments about who faculty developers should be
and how they should (or should not) be trained or
prepared for their profession pointed to a
tension between a perceived need to
professionalize the field and a concern that
doing so will diminish it.
Numerous developers saw the need for faculty
development to be more discipline-like, with a
defined body of scholarly knowledge, core
competencies, skills, and practices. Some desired
more formal pathways into the profession, such as
specific graduate training and continuing
professional education. Many also felt the need
for the field to engage in more research about
best practices that influence student learning,
and to work programmatically from a research base
on teaching and learning. In contrast, some
developers were adamant that pushing for creation
of a disciplinary field of faculty development
would be as one developer argued, "the kiss of
death" to the enterprise, gutting it of its
unique perspective in favor of "methods." Another
argued that the field should retain its "big
tent" approach, with multiple paths into the
profession.
In conclusion, respondents expressed a range of
visions for the future of faculty development-the
issues they saw as important to address were by
no means focused exclusively on issues of
teaching and learning, although those issues
remained primary concerns. They saw the need to
address other issues faculty face as they
confront expanding roles, competing
responsibilities, and the demand for new skills.
Faculty developers, especially directors of
centers at larger institutions, called for
faculty development to take a more prominent role
in institutional development and strategic
change, and to raise the credibility, importance,
and centrality of faculty development in their
institutions among both administrators and
faculty.
The most striking theme to emerge from the
open-ended responses was the desire for more
connection between where participants wished to
see faculty development move and where they saw
it moving, with or without their control.
Respondents were deeply concerned about what they
saw as an over-reliance on technology as the
teaching and learning "fix" that everyone must
use, and their role as technology consultants to
faculty subsuming all other roles and issues they
see as important to address. They also worried
about increasing pressure on the field to be part
of the assessment movement and various evaluation
processes such as accreditation reviews and
post-tenure review.
Perhaps most interesting was developers' sense
that they need to find better ways to manage or
direct these shifts in focus in the future. They
are concerned about how they will address both
the perceived needs of senior administrators and
the expressed needs of faculty. And many also
want a voice in creating their own framework for
understanding the role of faculty development in
the future-what it is, why it is important, who
the key players will be, what future developments
to expect, and how to chart a course for that
future.
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