A Framework for the Strategic Leveraging of Outside Resources to Enhance CTL Effectiveness

Leveraging Dimension: Impact

One leveraging dimension is the impact or general effect an activity is expected to have on the faculty, staff, or students served by the CTL. There are two major levels of leveraging impact. Reciprocity is an indicator of how mutual the benefit is expected to be between the CTL and the partner. An activity can possess low, medium, or high reciprocity. For example, partnering with a faculty team from an individual department to produce a single workshop might be a low reciprocity activity (i.e., the CTL gets the workshop, but there is little that would benefit the participating department). Alternatively, creating a workshop series in partnership with the campus writing center would likely reflect high reciprocity (i.e., there would be information and resources that would likely be mutually beneficial to both centers). Saturation refers to the expected depth or coverage of an activity with respect to the mission of the CTL. An activity can have low, medium, or high saturation. For example, a new faculty orientation program is likely to be a high saturation activity (i.e., reaching all new faculty and their departments), whereas an individual workshop on a specific instructional technology might be low in saturation (e.g., appealing only to a specific discipline or department).

Leveraging Dimension: Value

The value dimension reflects a judgment of the likely significance or importance of a leveraging opportunity for the CTL’s mission and visibility. The strategic level refers to the expected connection of the activity or program to the short and long term planning and goals of the CTL and, by extension, the institution as a whole. Leveraging activities can have low, medium, or high strategic value. For example, an activity or program that is directly aligned with the University’s strategic plan (e.g., partnering with the general education office) might have high strategic value and increase the visibility of the CTL. However, a partnership that is secondarily or indirectly related to that mission (e.g., supporting the work of a small humanities program at a STEM focused institution) might have low strategic value. Return on investment (ROI) refers to whether the CTL’s production of the activity or program is likely to be worth the time, effort, and/or expense involved. A high ROI activity might reflect minimal CTL work but high potential return (e.g., serving as a resource on high profile initiatives, such as faculty evaluation of instruction). Low ROI might refer to an activity that requires much time or effort, but which provides minimal value for the CTL (e.g., partnering with disability services to oversee syllabus compliance with ADA standards). In her detailed evaluation model for CTLs, Hines (2017) illustrates some of the ways that staff can assess the strategic and ROI features of a program or activity. Her suggestions (e.g., evaluating how a program connects to the university’s mission; identifying what the program intends to accomplish) can be easily adapted to the evaluation of the value of specific leveraging opportunities.

Leveraging Dimension: Range

The range leveraging dimension refers to the general “reach” or coverage of an activity across or outside of the institution. Direction refers to whether the activity or connection is an example of vertical, horizontal, or mixed leveraging, with respect to the CTL position on the institution’s organizational chart. Horizontal leveraging refers to cases where a CTL partners with parallel campus units (such as the campus writing center) or with a CTL from another institution (such as shared events). An example of vertical leveraging would be partnering with a college Dean to create an interdisciplinary research faculty learning community. Locus refers to whether the potential leveraging partner is external or internal to the campus, or mixed. This variable can apply to relatively straightforward situations, such as bringing in an outside facilitator for a summer teaching institute, as well as more complex activities in which the CTL becomes part of multi institutional initiatives or grants.

Applying the Framework as an Analytical Tool

CTLs can use the leveraging framework to categorize or score each prospective activity or program along the three major dimensions and six levels. Table 2 provides a template or grid for evaluating the leveraging footprint of existing or potential CTL activities or programs. Once a leveraging opportunity has been scored, the CTL will need to determine the relative importance of the dimensions and levels. For example, there may be good reasons to move forward with activities that have different combinations of scores (a low impact/high value/low range activity versus a high impact/low value/low range activity). Based on the application of the framework, CTLs might also consider making changes to a proposed activity or program (e.g., so that it has a broader range or stronger impact). That is, the framework can be used a developmental tool for the planning of specific activities or programs. Recommendations can be made for specific events that can improve their impact, value, and/or range.

Example 1. Let’s consider a hypothetical CTL that is deciding whether or not to implement a week long, online teaching institute for new faculty who are teaching online. With respect to the impact dimension, the project has a high reciprocity value, as the program would be conducted in horizontal partnership with separate on campus units of educational technology and distance learning. For this project, the saturation rating would be medium, as not all colleges or departments offer online programs or courses. Similarly, the strategic value of the institute is also medium, as the institution’s mission mentions distance education only as part of a broader vision of community engagement. The range is limited, as the online nature of the program means that it is not an especially visible or strategic asset of the CTL, nor would the institute have much potential transferability outside of campus because of the limitations of the proprietary LMS system. The limited range is critical—because the amount of work required for the project would be very high, the ROI would rank low. The CTL staff would want to weigh the relatively high reciprocity against this low ROI before deciding whether or not to allocate precious resources to the project. It might be helpful to consider whether or not the strategic value of online teaching and learning is likely to change in the near future, as that could tip the balance, especially if the project increased strategic value and saturation for the CTL down the road.

Example 2. Now suppose a hypothetical CTL is considering the possibility of developing a leadership retreat for department chairs. With respect to impact, the project has relatively low saturation potential, as department chairs are a relatively small subpopulation, as well as low reciprocity. However, these assessments could be weighed against the likely value of the program. In particular, we might expect a high ROI. Such a retreat would be relatively easy to organize and facilitate and would likely contribute a great deal to increasing the perceived CTL value and range, thereby strengthening vertical partnerships with departments and colleges. On the other hand, leadership development may fall outside the current scope of the work of the CTL, giving it a lower strategic value and making the CTL vulnerable to credibility challenges and/or mission creep. In light of these factors, the CTL might want to consider ways to capture the benefits of a high ROI while minimizing the strategic risks. For example, it could shift the locus of the activity from an internal to external focus, such as by hiring an outside expert to run the session or by collaborating with other nearby institutions.

Leveraging Strategies: Impact

The impact dimension includes both reciprocity and saturation facets. Educational developers are known for their relational skills and our toolkit is replete with strategies and tactics for cultivating reciprocity (Wright, Lohe, Pinder Grover, & Ortquist Ahrens, 2018). The tactical level often involves everyday actions that are sustained over time, whether simply including someone in an email conversation, greeting a colleague by name, or inviting a new faculty member out for coffee. These small actions can easily be overlooked, but such incremental transactions can accumulate and make a significant impact on the social capital of a CTL in the long run (Carpenter, Coughlin, Morgan, & Price, 2011). This accumulated social capital can be embodied in the person of long standing CTL staff members, whose institutional memory, expertise, and connections can be instrumental in leveraging efforts. This social capital can also be attached to the center itself, as well as to campus perceptions of educational development more broadly.

At Belmont University (Nashville, Tennessee), the 25 year old, relatively small (three staff members) CTL has created, supported, and maintained extensive partnerships across campus. For example, the CTL works with academic departments (quantitative literacy and writing across the curriculum with math and English, respectively), student affairs (residence life and student supports), and general education (reading groups and teaching workshops). The CTL also partners with career services (career readiness competencies), international studies (course design for travel away courses), and service learning (lunch and learn sessions). Additional connections include multicultural affairs (cultural leadership faculty cohorts) and the continuous improvement of teaching committee (workshops, reading groups, support for the scholarship of teaching and learning). Taken collectively, these sustained activities have contributed to the CTL having a reputation for being a valued and valuable contributor to the campus community. Because of that reputation, departments more readily recommend that their faculty attend CTL events. Administrators are also more likely to grant CTL staff access to campus wide projects and faculty governance bodies will advocate for continued support. Viewed through our leveraging framework, reciprocity then links to perceived value, and social capital becomes part of the equation for determining return on investment.

It is one thing to have effective programs and partnerships—that becomes irrelevant if no one knows about them. If CTLs continue their aspiration to “come in from the margins” and take on the increased responsibility of serving as agents of organizational change, educational developers have to manage the reputation of their centers. They should also pay attention to the visibility of their work both on and off campus. This visibility is a strategic component of the saturation facet of the impact dimension (Singer, 2002; Stensaker, van der Vaart, Solbrekke, & Wittek, 2017). Of course, visibility also has implications for value and range dimensions.

At Middle Tennessee State University (Murfreesboro, Tennessee), for example, the CTL staff recognized that faculty wellness was becoming the subject of increasing concern from multiple campus stakeholders. In many frameworks of educational development, concern for the holistic well being of faculty members is often linked to teaching and learning success. However, the CTL staff also saw some risks in taking on this challenge. Their concerns focused on impact, especially potential perceptions of mission creep or encroachment. They were also concerned about their ability to bring the same level of expertise to subjects, such as stress management, about which the staff had little expertise. Both of these concerns focused on the risk of negative strategic value.

To find the most effective leveraging point, the CTL chose to strengthen their reciprocal relationships with other units on campus, such as counseling services (for a stress management workshop), members of faculty learning communities (for presentations on work life balance and workplace civility), a faculty member from the communication studies department (for a voice coaching workshop), the campus’s director of health promotion (for a presentation on healthy eating and physical activity), and a campus recreation department director (for a presentation on a campus health coaching program). Details about the development and implementation of this faculty wellness series are available in Brinthaupt, Neal, and Otto (2016). The CTL employed a strategy that ameliorated the dangers to strategic value, in part because the numerous reciprocal relationships that developed also increased the degree of saturation as reflected by interest among faculty and staff from across the university. Although participation numbers were not especially high for the first iteration of the wellness series, the impact could still be considered high because of the relatively low costs and high visibility of the program, including the perceived proactive role of the CTL in meeting a growing campus need. As this wellness series has evolved (e.g., into presentations on mindfulness and yoga), recent workshops have experienced high levels of faculty attendance.

Leveraging Strategies: Value

The value of a leveraging opportunity is determined by its potential for increasing the CTL’s visibility and reputation while also achieving the goals of the CTL and/or the university. Researchers have discussed the value of effective partnerships, such as between student affairs and academic affairs (Schroeder, 1999) and have offered recommendations for how CTL can best manage multiple collaborations to address university wide strategic priorities like retention of first year students (Chism, 2004) and assessment of student learning (Skinner & Prager, 2015).

To determine the value of an initiative, CTL staff can analyze both the strategic and ROI facets. At Middle Tennessee State University, for example, the administration asked the CTL to collaborate with the Division of Student Affairs and the newly created Office of Student Success to help revitalize and expand the university’s student learning communities program. In these learning communities, the same cohort of students (usually first semester freshmen) enrolled in two common courses. Learning community faculty were expected to fulfill several requirements, including curricular integration, by developing a theme for their courses and creating at least one integrated assignment/project; relationship building, by developing and implementing at least one activity designed to create a sense of community among the students; active learning, by creating frequent and explicit opportunities for engaged learning; and reflection, by providing multiple occasions for interdisciplinary reflection across the two courses.

A CTL staff member facilitated multiple yearlong faculty learning communities and faculty work groups for participating faculty and also coordinated summer retreats to ensure that faculty had the knowledge and resources to fulfill the learning community goals. Although this staff member invested substantial time in planning, facilitating, and coordinating activities for the faculty, the strategic value of these activities was high because the learning communities program was directly aligned with the university’s Academic Master Plan, student success goals, and the CTL’s mission “to create a community of faculty who develop, improve and integrate creative and effective use of pedagogies and technologies to enhance student learning.” Participation in the project elevated the visibility of the CTL, both as a resource for faculty professional development and as a partner in achieving university wide strategic goals. The CTL staff also helped recruit faculty to teach in the learning communities program, a role not typically associated with a CTL. However, ROI was still viewed as high because the CTL was able to forge and strengthen its relationship with the new Vice Provost for Student Success, who was involved in a number of initiatives related to faculty development, including a funded course redesign program. The positive interactions led to additional partnerships—for example, a representative from the Office of Student Success now sits on the CTL’s Executive Board.

Strategic value can also contribute to ROI, as it can be part of the equation in determining the overall value of a proposed partnership or solution to a leveraging problem. There are two parts to the ROI equation, the investment of time/resources/energy versus the expected return, or benefits of that expenditure. There is a tendency for others, especially outsiders, to only see one side of this equation and not consider the full implications of bringing them together. It is not uncommon for CTLs to be faced with questions of prioritization among projects or initiatives that all have enticing benefits. It can be hard for us to say no. The ROI equation allows us to distribute our finite resources as effectively as possible. It can also provide us with the robust rationale needed to effect the elimination (or de leveraging) of pre existing programs or projects. ROI assessments can be influenced by those who are advocates within CTL staff, allies among prominent faculty, or supporters in administration. The following case study, a composite of several real life examples, illustrates the nature of making a strategic ROI assessment.

Like many others, the CTL at State University was an integrated center. In addition to educational development, the six member team also supported educational technology and online teaching and learning, including direct oversight for the institution’s LMS. The director had spent considerable time on strategies to blend the two sides of the house, that is, those more oriented towards classroom practice and those focused on technology. In the process, she found that the primary sticking point lay not in the people or even the differing cultures but rather in the nature of the work. The LMS team spent a great deal of time answering help desk calls, the vast majority of which required relatively simple and straightforward solutions, such as resetting a password. This was a far cry from the development emphasis that characterized the work of the rest of the team. Although there were reciprocal and saturation benefits to hosting the LMS, the Director came to see that the diminished strategic value and, especially, ROI outweighed these advantages. She developed a strategy through which she carefully and intentionally articulated this low value proposition to a series of campus stakeholders, drawing upon the CTL’s social capital, and eventually leading to the LMS team being voluntarily withdrawn from the CTL and moved into a unit within the IT division. Since that time, the CTL has been able to re leverage its capacities within its strategic focus of educational development including the creation of two new staff positions.

Leveraging Strategy: Range

The range of a leveraging opportunity includes both direction and locus facets. There are different ways to consider horizontal and vertical CTL leveraging. For example, horizontal leveraging occurs when CTLs partner with other administrative units that are essentially parallel on the institution’s organizational chart (e.g., units or areas within ITD, Student Affairs, Faculty Senate, or Distance Education). Vertical leveraging occurs when CTLs tap resources or expertise from other administrative units that are not parallel on the organizational chart. For example, CTLs can create partnerships “up” with Deans or the Chairs Council and “down” by working at the departmental or individual course level. Partnering with CTLs from other institutions is an example of off campus horizontal leveraging, whereas collaborating with a state level higher education administration board is an example of off campus vertical leveraging. In evaluating the direction of a potential or existing leveraging option, CTL should determine the associated impact and value of that program. For example, vertical leveraging may be especially useful for establishing or improving reciprocity and saturation. One advantage of vertical (upward) leveraging is that having “positive” signals and support from college level Deans and Associate Deans can increase the chances that faculty will see the relevance of CTL activities/programs. On the other hand, horizontal leveraging might especially relate to the strategic value and ROI of a leveraging choice. Frequently, a given opportunity may allow both vertical and horizontal leveraging, as illustrated by the following example.

At Belmont University, the university Welcome Home Team and a corresponding Diversity Council was formed to initiate intentional efforts to encourage and support diversity and inclusion. This provided the CTL with opportunities for both horizontal and vertical leveraging. The CTL director is an active member of the Diversity Council which includes faculty members, administrative staff, and support staff. The CTL sponsors an event during the campus Diversity Week, supports cohort groups of diverse faculty, and includes a range of activities and programs that incorporate diversity and inclusion (such as lunch and learns, reading groups, and workshops). These CTL efforts involve working on multiple levels across campus, including the Provost’s Office, colleges and departments, individual faculty, and the office for multicultural learning.

We included locus in the leveraging framework to inspire educational developers to think beyond the confines of their own campuses when looking for effective partnerships and collaborations. Bringing in external partners has the advantage of enhancing impact. For example, an outside speaker can generate excitement, foster broader levels of interest, build momentum with initiatives, and provide direct exposure to national experts. However, one the disadvantages of bringing in “outside” speakers is the shift in locus—in other words, they may lack familiarity with the local campus’s climate or culture and this, coupled with the often substantial price tags, has the potential to drag down ROI.

When considering external partners, it is not uncommon to focus primarily on short term partnerships, such as inviting a guest speaker to campus, but such bounded opportunities can struggle with the impact dimension, especially in the long run. A number of state university systems have had success in cultivating sustained educational development partnerships between and within member campuses. Their activities range from the reciprocal (opening up campus events to faculty from participating institutions) to the horizontal (shared professional development opportunities) to the strategic (drafting joint policy recommendations) (see Cruz, Christie, Durham, Ehrmann, & Springborg, 2015). In the absence of state systems, voluntary organizations have also sprung up that encompass institutions within a particular geographic region, such as Pittsburgh’s Colleagues in Connection and the Southern Regional Faculty and Instructional Development Consortium (SRFIDC), or across institutional types, such as the POD Network’s small college special interest group.

Implications and Recommendations for Effectively Using the Leveraging Framework

We recognize that there may be other facets of leveraging that are neglected by our framework or perhaps better labels for the dimensions or facets. As it currently stands, we believe that the framework can be crucial for determining broader CTL evaluation metrics, such as “visibility” and “success.” Although we referred to the importance of “visibility” in some of our prior examples, this metric appears to span the impact, value, and range dimensions. Evaluations of the “success” or “effectiveness” of a specific leveraging program or activity similarly can be seen as a combination of these dimensional assessments.

In most of our examples, we have applied the framework at the granular level (i.e., separately examining the impact, value, and range dimensions and their facets). However, we have also alluded to the fact that the dimensions and facets are not necessarily independent of each other. Thus, there is also the need for more holistic evaluations. We believe that, in practice, holistic evaluations of leveraging opportunities are the norm for many CTLs, even if those evaluations are intuitive or impressionistic rather than strategic. The framework seems particularly useful as a tool to provide strategic, granular assessments that can then be used to inform the holistic evaluations that lead a CTL to accepting or rejecting a leveraging opportunity.

Although none of our examples applied to the evaluation of existing partnerships or collaborations, we believe that the framework also has great potential for helping CTLs to decide if those programs or activities are worth keeping or revising. As with considerations about prospective leveraging opportunities, we suspect that, in practice, most assessments of existing leveraging programs are more intuitive and impressionistic than they are strategic. The framework has the potential to help CTLs to make decisions about continuing a partnership, ending it, or revising it so that it increases impact, value, and/or range.

As we have noted, those engaged in faculty professional development can use the strategic CTL leveraging framework to assess the value of both current and future programs and services. The framework encourages thoughtful and purposeful evaluation of leveraging activities. Because those of us who choose to work in faculty professional development are deeply committed to the improvement of teaching and learning and to the establishment of campus wide partnerships, we are sometimes tempted to collaborate on all proposed initiatives. Leveraging opportunities, however, must be considered within the constraints of CTL staffing and budgeting, and the framework requires that we pause and consider the impact, value, and range of each initiative. However, the framework provides only a starting point for our deliberations. For example, even if a leveraging opportunity appears to provide limited range and low ROI, CTL staff might still want to move forward with it in order to build important relationships or to improve the Center’s reputation or visibility.

Holistic evaluations about a potential or existing leveraging program (and the relative importance of the three dimensions) are likely to vary depending on one’s institutional climate or culture, as well as on the maturity and unique characteristics of a CTL. We have not specified which leveraging dimensions and levels are most and least important. One interesting question is whether CTL differ in the relative importance they assign to the dimensions and levels. Future research could determine if such differences exist and the factors that might contribute to those differences. Another question is whether there are ideal, preferred, or more effective leveraging strategies. Although our framework provides guidance for evaluating the potential of a leveraging opportunity, it does not explicitly indicate the best ways to leverage outside resources. This question seems also highly individualized and dependent upon the nature and circumstances of one’s institution and CTL.

In conclusion, we believe that the proposed leveraging framework provides CTLs with ways to strategically evaluate prospective leveraging opportunities, assess existing collaborations or partnerships, and revise prospective or existing programs in order to enhance the “bang for the buck” (i.e., impact, value, or range) of those activities. We encourage our colleagues to consider applying the framework in these ways, and we are very interested in learning whether and how the framework proves to be useful.