Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education

 

Date of this Version

2009

Document Type

Article

Citation

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development (2009) 27

doi: 10.3998/tia.17063888.0027.012

Comments

License: CC BY-NC-ND

Abstract

The authors provide examples of a model that develops faculty leaders for learning in all institutions that prize research. The examples come from seven university-wide initiatives, which were sponsored by the institutions faculty development center. The initiatives spanned a nearly ten-year period. Based on four conceptual groundings—scholarship of teaching and learning principles, educational renewal, the production of social capital through soft projects, and horizontal structures—the model has the power to transform faculty into leaders. Elements of the model include a call to participate, a diverse cohort of participants, commitment to providing resources, conference center planners, and peer review and assessment. In contrast to leadership models borrowed from business and industry, the model prizes what the academy values most—collegiality, intellectual curiosity, and the generation of knowledge.

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