Current and Desired Faculty Development Practices Among POD Members

In 1984-85, POD sponsored a survey of all four-year colleges and universities in the U.S. to determine which of them had “…faculty development, instructional development, or teaching improvement programs or activities” (Erickson, 1986, p. 182). Of the 1200 respondents, 750 reported having at least one person responsible for such activities. Subsequent surveys yielded a portrait of faculty development circa 1984-85 based on responses from 630 institutions. The results indicated that, contrary to reports at the time, faculty development was alive and well with a diverse array of practices in use.

Today, the changing context of higher education presents challenges that may alter the character of faculty development work. Teaching, a major concern of faculty development efforts in the past 20 years, continues to draw national attention, with growing numbers of conferences and books on teaching and learning appearing each year. The condition of the professoriate, too, remains a focal concern, exemplified in such substantial projects as the Carnegie Survey (1989), Clark’s extensive review (1987), and recent work by Schuster and Wheeler (1990). With increased demands for faculty excellence in both teaching and scholarship, professional developers may find themselves in need of new approaches, a stronger research base, new theoretical frameworks, and stronger organizational linkages.

We were interested in learning what faculty development practices are currently favored among POD members and what trends are likely to emerge in the future. Specifically, we wanted to know 1) whether the current national focus on teaching has translated into support and program diversity at the local level, 2) whether new demands for faculty scholarship are reflected in a corresponding programmatic emphasis or desired emphasis at POD members’ institutions, and 3) the degree to which POD members’ programs are systematically evaluated.

Method and Sample

To explore these questions, we surveyed POD members. Using Erickson’s survey as a general guide, we constructed a list of items related to teaching improvement and campus climate for faculty development. We sent this preliminary list to fifteen randomly selected POD members equally distributed by region. They were asked to identify the items they would most like to know about and to mention additional items of interest. The twenty-six most frequently nominated items were included in the survey under “Program Components and Characteristics.” To assess possible trends in the use of various practices, we asked respondents to indicate which programs or activities are presently in use and which are planned or “sound desirable.” We also surveyed practices for evaluating teaching, value accorded to teaching on campus, and views of faculty development.

The survey was distributed early in 1989 to 330 POD members (one per campus, randomly selected). We received 155 returns, for a response rate of 47%. No follow-up requests were sent. The distribution of responses corresponds roughly to the distribution of membership based on the 1988-1989 POD Membership Directory from which our mailing list was drawn. Table 1 compares the two distributions.

Results

Discussion

Many of the most frequently cited current practices are individualistic in nature. Practices such as individual consultation, videotape-based consultation, travel to conferences or research sites, and released time for instructional development may involve collaboration, but their primary focus is on the individual faculty member.

In contrast, we think we detect a distinctly organizational and collaborative flavor to practices POD members desire or plan to use in the future. Desired practices include training chairs to facilitate teaching, mentoring new faculty, facilitating faculty exchanges, and involving colleagues as catalysts for change. This apparent preference for collaborative activity may be necessary to distribute the work of faculty development since only 27% of the institutions represented have a full-time developer. Equally likely, POD’s collaborative philosophy may be evident in this pattern of results.

Perhaps the strongest indicator of interest in new collaborative efforts is the high proportion of respondents (60%) who report that they would like to work with chairs to facilitate teaching improvement, compared with the low percentage who currently do so (16%). Working with department chairs seems an especially important and productive direction for future alliances. In a study of 433 sociology departments in the U.S., Bradshaw (1983) found that department chairs who reported holding regular meetings with faculty about their teaching also reported the greatest variety of innovative teaching practices used by faculty in their departments. The correlation leaves unanswered the question of whether chair interviews encourage innovation or simply uncover more of what is actually going on in classrooms. It may be that where teaching is valued, chairs naturally discuss it in more depth with faculty in their departments. In any case, the department chair is clearly a key person in fostering and maintaining a healthy climate for teaching.

The current low level of perceived chair support for faculty development suggests that POD members may have neglected this important aspect of organizational bridge-building. Alternatively, chairs may be perceived as least supportive of faculty development because they are most directly in a position to be threatened by the existence of such programs on their campuses. Chairs may perceive (rightly or wrongly) that to the degree faculty members have alternative sources of guidance, their own influence over their department is lessened.

We found that a substantial percentage of programs attend to research and scholarly writing of faculty members (a total of 34% of our sample). Only a few respondents believe faculty development programs should be confined to instructional concerns (5%). A substantial proportion of respondents (45.8%) report interest in better integration of teaching and scholarship as well. One way to accomplish such integration is to encourage scholarship and publication related to teaching, reportedly a current practice in 39% of respondents’ programs and desired by an additional 44%.

Interest in classroom research may reflect both the desire to integrate scholarship and teaching and the growing realization that teaching is a professional practice whose empirical investigation is an intellectually stimulating and educationally productive activity. Prior surveys did not ask POD members about the extent of their involvement and interest in facilitating scholarship, so we can only speculate that this index would have risen over earlier measures. We plan subsequent surveys to assess this and other trends in faculty development.

Although program evaluation is considered important by nearly a third of respondents, we found that only 13.5% report that they systematically evaluate one or more components of their programs. We hope that respondents’ interest in research on teaching and the value of local, empirical validation of program effectiveness (expressed by just one-third of our respondents) will translate into increasingly systematic self-study. Imaginative, collaborative investigations of program effectiveness, such as that described by Ferren and Mussell (1987), provide a vehicle by which faculty development programs strengthen communication with faculty, respond to changing faculty needs and institutional dynamics, and demonstrate the values of reflective practice we encourage faculty to adopt. Studies of our effectiveness and the factors that contribute to it are a necessary foundation for the growth of our profession in the demanding future ahead of us in the 1990s and beyond.

References

• Bradshaw, T.K. (1982). Innovations and the undergraduate sociology curriculum. Teaching Sociology, 10(1), 132-144.
• Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. (1989). The condition of the professoriate: Attitudes and trends, 1989. Lawrenceville, NJ: Princeton University Press.
• Clark, B.R. (1987). The academic life: Small worlds, different worlds. Princeton: The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
• Erickson, G. (1986). A survey of faculty development practices. In M. Svinicki, J. Kurfiss, & J. Stone (Eds.), To Improve the Academy,5, 182-196.
• Ferrin, A., & Mussell, K. (1987). Strengthening faculty development programs through evaluation. In J. Kurfiss, L. Hilsen, L. Mortensen, & E. Wadsworth (Eds.), To Improve the Academy, 6, 133-143.
• Schuster, J.H., Wheeler, D.W. & Associates. (1990). Enhancing faculty careers: Strategies for development and renewal. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
• Seldin, P. (1989). How colleges evaluate professors 1988 vs. 1983. AAHE Bulletin 41(7), 3-7.