Ongoing professional development for faculty, staff, and administrators at colleges, now more than ever, is critical to the currency and quality of higher education. Evolving technology, modern degrees and emerging careers, Millennial and Generation Z students, multigenerational faculty, and new and often challenging required skill sets are demanding more time and energy from college employees to stay productive and up to date. If we are to maximize resources and provide relevant teaching and support services, we must be able to embrace new and different strategies to meet contemporary student needs for success.
Changing Times, Changing Models
Education was an important theme of President Obama's State of the Union Address in January. He stressed the importance of education in "winning the future," adding that in 10 years half the jobs in the United States will require education beyond high school. So what will higher education institutions need to do to serve these students?
Linking Learning Outcomes across the Curriculum
Curriculum mapping is a process that can help academic programs ensure that their students meet the desired learning outcomes of a program. In a recent Magna Online Seminar titled "Connect Learning across Courses with Curriculum Mapping," Peter Wolf, director of teaching support services at the University of Guelph, talked about the curriculum mapping process at his institution and offered practical suggestions for implementing a similar process.
Promoting Research While Advancing Instruction, Part 3
Perhaps the most fundamental reason why teaching and research are viewed as competing rather than interrelated activities—and a key cause of why it's so difficult to reunite these processes in faculty load assignments and evaluation systems—is that colleges and universities themselves are structured as though instruction and scholarship were utterly distinct enterprises. Examine the mission statement of almost any institution of higher education, and you'll discover that teaching and research are listed as important but not necessarily related functions of the organization. In other words, relatively few mission statements present learning as a goal achieved through independent inquiry and research; even fewer describe discovery, integration, and application as results actively sought through teaching. Once again, the focus is on the activity rather than the result, and that perspective shapes everything that is familiar about the modern university.
Strategies to Build and Maintain a Successful Academic Unit
Problems are inherent in any organization where you have people working together. Personalities differ, agendas conflict, generations struggle to understand one another, resources are limited, and the list goes on. While a leader may have little control over these factors, there are strategic measures that can provide a firm foundation upon which an organization can build a culture that provides members of the community with the best possible chance to succeed.
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