Five Ways Administrators Can Show Faculty Support
In the summer of 2017 while I was teaching a graduate education course in China, in oppressive heat, my administrator provided cool water and fresh fruit—a small token that made a big impression on me. Having worked 42 years in educational institutions, I have witnessed what true administrative support feels...
It’s Not Just a Series of Workshops: Reevaluating Faculty Development to Improve Recruitment, Retention, and Tenurability of Faculty
In my experience with faculty recruitment at two very different academic institutions, I have learned that faculty candidates care a lot about what support they can expect for their professional development; it’s one of the most common questions I hear. Institutions typically hire faculty whom they want to keep and,...
The Role of Educational Developers in Teaching and Learning Excellence
Educational developers (EDs) are change agents. They play a crucial role in helping colleges and universities adapt and respond to change. As technology advances and attention to student success, retention, and completion grows, EDs play an essential role in supporting faculty in creating the best possible student experience. The role...
Emotionally Intelligent Leadership That Empowers, Moves Culture, and Creates Engagement
The core of these beautifully powerful and elegantly simple concepts on the neuroscience behind emotionally intelligent leadership is the happy wedding of over 40 years of teaching and leading experience with the current research on motivation, learning, and empowerment. My leadership roles as a teaching professor, head college basketball coach,...
Double Deaning: Reflections in a Mirror
Nearly everyone finds twins interesting. That is so, in part, because twins are relatively rare, with only three or four out of 1,000 births producing twins and only about 25 percent of those being monozygotic—the technical term for “identical twins.” Even more rare are those identical twins who are known...
Proactive Advising: A Case Study
The Student Success Center (SSC) on my campus was a peculiar collection of resources. There was the campus testing center, where students took various standardized exams, and next to that the Office of Disability Services. In the remaining suite of offices were the staff who made up the advising side...
Lessons Learned from 13 Years as a Director of Online Education
Back in 2004 I made the decision to develop my first online course. I was using online discussions in one of my face-to-face classes and having success with them—really, my primary motivation to teach fully online. So in 2005 I took the leap and offered my first online class. No...
Student Engagement: The Key to Retention
As Steven C. Howey (2012) pointed out years ago, educators across the US are “frustrated with the challenge of how to motivate the ever increasing number of freshmen students entering college who are psychologically, socially, and academically unprepared for the demands of college life.” For the past 40-plus years, the...
Planning Community-Based Faculty Training and Professional Development at Your Institution
External faculty development has many benefits for improving teaching and academic programs, but these courses and training also come with limitations. The direct creation of an academic institution’s own faculty training and courses is one practical option to expand faculty professional development opportunities aligned with evidence-based teaching practices, institutional needs,...
Transitioning from Compliance to Innovation
Creating a culture for continuous improvement with academic programs is a challenge. As my institution—Sul Ross State University in Alpine, Texas—prepared for our decennial accreditation review, I found it difficult to motivate faculty to complete the required program reviews for the compliance report. With some cajoling, 41 faculty reluctantly agreed...
