1st Edition

Coming in from the Margins Faculty Development’s Emerging Organizational Development Role in Institutional Change

By Connie Schroeder Copyright 2011
    304 Pages
    by Routledge

    304 Pages
    by Routledge

    Why is it critical for faculty development centers to reexamine their core mission today?The core argument of this book – that a necessary and significant role change is underway in faculty development – is a call for centers to merge the traditional responsibilities and services of the past several decades with a leadership role as organizational developers. Failing collectively to define and outline the dimensions and expertise of this new role puts centers at risk of not only marginalization, but of dissolution. When a TLC is busy and in demand, it is hard to believe that it may be, despite all the activity and palpable array of daily outcomes, institutionally marginalized. The actual and increasing potential of marginalization and center closings may help motivate this field to recognize the danger of complacency or remaining stuck in an old paradigm that exclusively defines itself as instructional development or supportive service. Proposing a newly defined organizational development role for academic and faculty developers and directors of teaching and learning centers, Coming in from the Margins examines how significant involvement in broader institutional change initiatives is becoming a critical aspect of this work. Although undefined and unrecognized as a significant dimension of this work, the organizational development role increasingly demanded of developers is far more attuned with the demand for change facing higher education than ever before. The book provides evidence-based research into what directors of centers are currently doing as organizational developers, and how they shape, influence, and plan institutional initiatives that intersect with teaching and learning. Directors of centers, their supervisors, and leaders in the field provide models, from a wide range of institutional contexts, as well as the strategies they have employed to successfully engage in significant organizational development. They also demonstrate how they handled the challenges that ensued. The strategies in each chapter provide a practical resource and guide for re-examining the mission and structure of existing centers, or for designing new centers of teaching and learning and, most importantly, to develop their role as change agents.The book covers such topics as: Center mission statements; Center staffing; Center advisory boards; committee involvement; unique expertise, knowledge and skills; embedding Centers in strategic planning; Center vision; organizational change processes; collaboration and partnerships; institutional priorities and initiatives; relationships with upper administration.

    Introduction Part One. Calling Faculty Development to Reenvision its Role 1. Faculty Developers as Institutional Developers. The Missing Prong of Organizational Development—Connie Schroeder 2. Getting to the Table. Planning and Developing Institutional Initiatives—Nancy Van Note Chism 3. Nurturing Institutional Change. Collaboration and Leadership between Upper-Level Administrators and Faculty Developers—Devorah Lieberman Part Two. Examining the Evidence of an Organizational Development Role 4. Investigating Institutional Involvement and Change Agency—Connie Schroeder 5. Identifying the Factors that Enable an Organizational Development Role—Connie Schroeder Part Three. Repositioning Centers and Directors on the Institutional Radar Screen 6. Leading From the Middle. A Faculty Development Center at the Heart of Institutional Change—Catherine E. Frerichs, Diana G. Pace, and Tamara Rosier 7. Informing and Directing the Planning of Institutional Priorities and Initiatives—Phyllis Blumberg 8. Developing and Acting on a Center Vision Case Study Narratives—Connie Schroeder 9. Knowing and Facilitating Organizational Change Processes—Connie Schroeder 10. Optimizing Center Staffing and Advisory Boards to Promote Involvement in Institutional Change—Susan Gano-Phillips 11. Aligning and Revising Center Mission Statements—Connie Schroeder 12. Embedding Centers in Institutional Strategic Planning—Connie Schroeder Part Four. Next Steps 13. Recentering within the Web of Institutional Leadership—Connie Schroeder

    Biography

    Connie Schroeder is Assistant Director of the Center for Instructional and Professional Development, at the University of Wisconsin, UW-Milwaukee. Phyllis Blumberg is a consultant and presenter focusing on the learning process, assessment of student learning outcomes, and effective teaching in higher education. From 1999 to 2019, she was the director of the Teaching and Learning Center at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, where she was also assistant provost for faculty development, as well as research professor in education and professor of psychology.

    "This book raises the level of discussion about the valuable role that TLCs, their directors, and faculty developers can have in transforming student learning. The book comes at a time when we have reached a crossroads in the role of the TLC and its director. No longer can the TLC be marginalized if an insititution wants to be responsive to calls for academic reforms or new strategic directions. TLCs can be the key facilitatiors that bring different stakeholders together to strategize and collaborate on an organizational level, while still fulfilling their traditional roles of supporting and developing the capacity of individual faculty members.

    Coming in From the Margins should be read by faculty developers and by all leaders in higher education involved in collaborative and crossfunctional initiatives relating to student learning and institutional assessments."

    Miriam L. Forlow, Director of Academic Affairs, Jersey City Campus, University of Phoenix

    The Review of Higher Education

    “This is a remarkable work that clarifies the gradual and important transformation in faculty development that has been under way in American high education for decades, enabling us to learn from and build on the experiences, insights, and practical advice of pathfinders in our field. Dr. Schroeder provides a solid research base to this work, augmented by models, case studies and reflective practice from many of the leaders in our field who have long understood the importance of framing their faculty development roles as agents of organizational change. Connie Schroeder and her colleagues have charted this new terrain for us, recounting their triumphs as well as their challenges. They offer us a new way of thinking about our field and its future for current and future faculty developers in the U.S. and for academic and educational developers internationally. I highly recommend this valuable and thought-provoking new resource for faculty developers and the senior academic administrators with whom they work."

    Deborah DeZure, Assistant Provost for Faculty and Organizational Development, Michigan State University

    "No doubt about, we have entered a new era in faculty development. As our institutions face a myriad of changes, faculty developers will increasingly need to look beyond traditional instructional development boundaries to emerging organizational development roles. The pressures put on faculty developers during this time of flux are immense. Luckily, this important new book, based on original research and state-of-the-art practice, provides a cogent range of insights into what we are all experiencing. Coming in from the Margins is an indispensable and timely addition to the field that takes a hard look at where we are right now, and provides a road map for the future."

    Mary Deane Sorcinelli, Associate Provost for Faculty Development, and Professor, Educational Policy, Research and Administration, University of Massachusetts Amherst

    “This important volume locates a key player – the faculty development professional – in the distributed leadership needed for institutional change. The authors provide insight into becoming involved in strategic planning, mission statement development, and collaborating with administrators. Schroeder notes the wholesale change in the identity of faculty developers, and identifies key enabling factors that alter faculty developers’ role to be more central to institutional direction setting. Comprehensive, practical, inspirational, and timely - a must have book for anyone in the profession."

    Adrianna Kezar, Associate Professor, Rossier School of Education, and Associate Director, of CHEPA, University of Southern California