During the 1970’s, most of what was done under the name of faculty development focused on the individual. High priority was placed on confidentiality in dealing with faculty and efforts were made to maintain distance from the structures of power and decision-making within institutions — especially the Dean’s Office. Faculty development was established intentionally at the margins of institutions. In the years ahead, professional development activities will move from the periphery of colleges and universities to the center and be increasingly linked to long-range academic planning and institutional development.

Institutions of higher education are, obviously, labor intensive.The faculty (largely tenured and in mid-career) represent the primary resource available for adapting to the challenges and strains of changing conditions in the years ahead. Given this context, institutional vitality will require the imaginative linking of the professional development of individual faculty with the carefully planned development of academic programs.

At the 1982 National Conference of POD, a major session was held on “The Relationship of Long-range Planning and Institutional Research to Faculty Development.” The presentations that were made at that session follow. Frederick Gaige and Carol Paul are eminently qualified to deal with this subject. Fred Gaige has been involved with POD since its inception, and in the early 1970’s served as Vice-President for Professional Development at the Kansas City Regional Council on Higher Education (KCRCHE). He is now the academic dean at one of the three liberal arts colleges at Fairleigh Dickinson University. Carol Paul earlier served as Master Planner, Department of Higher Education, State of New Jersey. She is, at present, Assistant Vice-President for Academic Planning, also at Fairleigh Dickinson.

Gaige and Paul share a perspective on this topic that is infonned not only by a broad overview, but by direct experience with the complex problems involved in coordinating academic planning and professional development in an institution that is struggling with radical shifts in student interests and demands and the initial phases of enrollment declines. Their practical insights and initiative have encouraged Fairleigh Dickinson University to respond pro-actively to the kinds of problems that threaten the institutions of most of us. As a result, Fairleigh Dickinson has received a major grant for the Schering-Plough Corporation to establish a professional development program that focuses on expanding faculty options. A description of that program to provide faculty with new opportunities both within and outside higher education while also making the institution more vital and adaptive will be presented at the 1983 POD Conference.

Gaige and Paul bring to this topic both a deep concern for individual growth and development and a sophisticated understanding of the political and technical dimensions of institutional planning. Gaige’s suggestions about involving faculty in the planning process are especially important and Paul’s examples of strategic planning are instructive. Their work represents the next major step for professional and organizational development in higher education.