The Value of Intergenerational Faculty Mentoring
For the most part, US higher education has not recognized the value of intergenerational workforce practices as a valuable source of expertise and transmission of institutional knowledge. But faculty mentoring programs are the exception: they represent one of the most highly developed intergenerational practices in higher education today. These programs...
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...
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,...
Developing and Evaluating Teacher Effectiveness at Colorado State University
An international conversation around an increased focus on high-quality teaching at R1 institutions has been gaining momentum for several years. A recent shift in the conversation, focused on identifying fair and valid measures to evaluate effective teaching, continues to grow. On the one hand, individual departments and colleges look to...
Coaching: Developing Your Faculty One Conversation at a Time
Coaching is a relationship frequently leveraged in the business sector but is not a well-established paradigm in higher education. Academics, however, can benefit just as much from a coaching approach, and the field is beginning to gain traction for training academic leaders (Robison & Gray, 2017). This article defines coaching,...
Providing Leadership and Support to Professionally Develop Adjunct Faculty
Adjunct faculty may be the most overused and under-resourced groups of individuals in higher education. Many departments and courses would not function, or at least not function well, without adjunct faculty. Yet despite being in many cases essential members of a department, adjuncts receive modest pay, typically by the course...
Conquering the Fear of Authenticity
I will never forget the time I hired a team of social media experts to provide professional development for my fellow faculty members at a small college. As they deftly covered how to best use Facebook, Twitter, and other social media to connect with students, they suggested that it was...
Rejuvenating Experiences
The end of a long academic year is probably the time when we are most open to the idea of a rejuvenating instructional experience. In a recent workshop, I heard two teachers describe just such an experience. They team-taught an introductory English lit course with content that explored veteran experiences....
