(This blog was originally published March 17 2014, and is republished as part of current institutional development work with appropriate updates and references as warranted.)
Actualization in Faculty Life
My current institution initiated an ambitious project before I arrived known as the curriculum alignment project or CAP. The intent of CAP is to ensure alignment between our degree learning outcomes, program learning outcomes, and course learning outcomes. As such, CAP is both a curriculum project and an assessment project. My enthusiasm for the project stems from a belief that this is deeply meaningful work that will enhance the overall quality of instruction and the overall quality of learning at the institution.
My enthusiasm, however, was dampened by the realization that many faculty have not been fully engaged in the process and see their role narrowly as that of classroom instructor without clear roles in the areas of curriculum or assessment.
The root of this disengagement goes to the core of faculty life. The question of faculty life is not primarily a question of contracts, performance reviews, time and effort, or other human resource questions but of professional existence. In this respect, Maslow's hierarchy of needs provides an appropriate context: faculty who consider their work to be fully self-contained in instruction are not fully actualizing their potential. In fact, regardless of the type of institution faculty work in, self-actualization requires some reflection on multiple different roles. On my first day, I stood before the faculty and talked about my interest in seeing faculty life from the perspective of teaching, service, scholarship, and outreach. I commented that in my own journey the emphasis of these different areas has shifted according to where I work and what I'm doing, but they all still exist.
The CAP discussion served as a reminder that faculty, like all employees, may have specific focus on particular roles but need a framework to aid in conceptualizing the nature of their work. Foundational to faculty life is scholarship within the discipline and practice. While on faculty at a research I institution, this meant -- for me-- basic research in human resource development with all the affiliated efforts towards presentations, publications, and grants. But scholarship remains a foundation at all institutions even those primarily focused on good teaching. Scholarship can be a presentation at a teaching/learning/technology conference, facilitating a professional learning community, exploring a new potential teaching technique for efficacy, or practicing classroom assessment techniques. But without effort to remain grounded in both the discipline and the practice through scholarship, faculty life is destined to go stale.
The legs of faculty life are multiple (conceptualized liberally from Richard Swanson's three legged stool of human resource development) and focus on curriculum, andragogy, advising, and assessment. Student learning, the outcome of faculty instruction, requires all four of these, not just one. Fail to address any single leg, and the entire stool falls. The integration of these in the CAP project speaks to a realization that one must teach something, and that something, most hopefully, is socially relevant, employment relevant, and skills relevant. One must also teach somehow to ensure that end users (our students) interact with information in ways that create knowledge transfer and knowledge production...and do so in a way that leads to a credential. Finally, one must measure to ensure a desired result. Without something to teach, techniques to teach it, and evidence that learning has happened, the faculty endeavor crumbles.
Finally, faculty are the heart of an institution: academic leadership and governance set the stage for all the wonderful outcomes that result from faculty scholarship, curriculum, instruction, advising, and assessment. Increasingly, efforts to disaggregate governance from decision-making lead institutions astray. Management is responsible for efficiency, effectiveness, equity, and sustainability, but faculty are the moral compass and their input through shared governance is crucial.
Actualized faculty life is inherently enlightening, but the outcome and impact is magnified when faculty reach out to audiences inside and outside higher education, sharing what they know and love. True actualization is obvious to the community member watching the music faculty conduct, children laughing an explosion in a demo, or participants from an assisted living facility dreaming of that faraway place that a guest speaker describes. They see that the flame of passion for the work is brightly lit, sharing light for all.
Institutionally, it is far less important that all faculty serve all these roles all the time than that the institution support a robust faculty who collectively exhibit high performance in all these areas all the time. Faculty deeply engaged in governance might be less involved in the community, while those working in outreach might be less involved in their own scholarship and professional development. In either case, however, actualization requires sustenance: each faculty member may want to re-position his/her own activities over time to ensure sustainability. And the institution will want to ensure -- through coaching, management, and intentional human resource development -- the consistent, collective high performance of the faculty as a whole to realize robust outcomes and impact.
My enthusiasm, however, was dampened by the realization that many faculty have not been fully engaged in the process and see their role narrowly as that of classroom instructor without clear roles in the areas of curriculum or assessment.
The root of this disengagement goes to the core of faculty life. The question of faculty life is not primarily a question of contracts, performance reviews, time and effort, or other human resource questions but of professional existence. In this respect, Maslow's hierarchy of needs provides an appropriate context: faculty who consider their work to be fully self-contained in instruction are not fully actualizing their potential. In fact, regardless of the type of institution faculty work in, self-actualization requires some reflection on multiple different roles. On my first day, I stood before the faculty and talked about my interest in seeing faculty life from the perspective of teaching, service, scholarship, and outreach. I commented that in my own journey the emphasis of these different areas has shifted according to where I work and what I'm doing, but they all still exist.
The CAP discussion served as a reminder that faculty, like all employees, may have specific focus on particular roles but need a framework to aid in conceptualizing the nature of their work. Foundational to faculty life is scholarship within the discipline and practice. While on faculty at a research I institution, this meant -- for me-- basic research in human resource development with all the affiliated efforts towards presentations, publications, and grants. But scholarship remains a foundation at all institutions even those primarily focused on good teaching. Scholarship can be a presentation at a teaching/learning/technology conference, facilitating a professional learning community, exploring a new potential teaching technique for efficacy, or practicing classroom assessment techniques. But without effort to remain grounded in both the discipline and the practice through scholarship, faculty life is destined to go stale.
The legs of faculty life are multiple (conceptualized liberally from Richard Swanson's three legged stool of human resource development) and focus on curriculum, andragogy, advising, and assessment. Student learning, the outcome of faculty instruction, requires all four of these, not just one. Fail to address any single leg, and the entire stool falls. The integration of these in the CAP project speaks to a realization that one must teach something, and that something, most hopefully, is socially relevant, employment relevant, and skills relevant. One must also teach somehow to ensure that end users (our students) interact with information in ways that create knowledge transfer and knowledge production...and do so in a way that leads to a credential. Finally, one must measure to ensure a desired result. Without something to teach, techniques to teach it, and evidence that learning has happened, the faculty endeavor crumbles.
Finally, faculty are the heart of an institution: academic leadership and governance set the stage for all the wonderful outcomes that result from faculty scholarship, curriculum, instruction, advising, and assessment. Increasingly, efforts to disaggregate governance from decision-making lead institutions astray. Management is responsible for efficiency, effectiveness, equity, and sustainability, but faculty are the moral compass and their input through shared governance is crucial.
Actualized faculty life is inherently enlightening, but the outcome and impact is magnified when faculty reach out to audiences inside and outside higher education, sharing what they know and love. True actualization is obvious to the community member watching the music faculty conduct, children laughing an explosion in a demo, or participants from an assisted living facility dreaming of that faraway place that a guest speaker describes. They see that the flame of passion for the work is brightly lit, sharing light for all.
Institutionally, it is far less important that all faculty serve all these roles all the time than that the institution support a robust faculty who collectively exhibit high performance in all these areas all the time. Faculty deeply engaged in governance might be less involved in the community, while those working in outreach might be less involved in their own scholarship and professional development. In either case, however, actualization requires sustenance: each faculty member may want to re-position his/her own activities over time to ensure sustainability. And the institution will want to ensure -- through coaching, management, and intentional human resource development -- the consistent, collective high performance of the faculty as a whole to realize robust outcomes and impact.
| Conceptual framework of full-time faculty work (image augmented by AI). |
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