becoming a faculty developer

A faculty developer’s self-study allows her to become an active agent inher own learning and development. A collaborative relationship with acolleague facilitates her transformative journey.

Becoming a Faculty Developer

Susan Wilcox

I am a faculty developer in a Canadian university. Faculty development iswork with a worthwhile goal—improved teaching and learning—and workthat is unencumbered by prescribed rules of practice. Although there areconventions of practice, it is largely up to individual developers to find waysto improve teaching and learning in their own work setting. If it is a bless-ing to be given the freedom to shape one’s work, it can also feel like a curseif the developer does not know where or how to begin, or does not have auseful measure of the effectiveness of her actions. I chose to see my own sit-uation in faculty development as an opportunity for learning—learning todo the work, learning about the work, and learning from the work. Cran-ton’s convincing argument for considering educator development as trans-formative learning (1996) persuaded me to present the story of my growthas a faculty developer as the case of an educator engaged in a transformativeprocess of learning. In this chapter I tell my story, describing my efforts toconstruct a meaningful and effective educational practice in the field of fac-ulty development.

The Beginning

Faculty development is a second career for me. After almost ten years of pro-fessional practice in health care, I returned to university for a graduate degreein adult education. In the last year of my master’s program, the InstructionalDevelopment Committee at the university I was attending received a smallgrant to hire a graduate student to assist the committee with its work. I wascurious and in need of money, so I took the job when it was offered to me.That first year, my approach to faculty development was direct, pragmatic, andtask-oriented. I simply wanted to complete the assigned work competently and

NEW DIRECTIONS FOR ADULT AND CONTINUING EDUCATION, no. 74, Summer 1997 © Jossey-Bass Publishers 23

24 TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING IN ACTION

efficiently. I concentrated on using and developing the skills I needed to do agood job, and gave little thought to the process of learning.

Funding to open a permanently staffed faculty development unit camethrough in the next year, and I successfully applied for the part-time positionof resource coordinator. In effect, I became an apprentice to the director. Ifocused my attention on the way she approached her faculty developmentpractice, observing her, asking her questions, helping her, and trying to incor-porate her ways into my own working style. Because that same year I enrolledin a doctoral program in education at another institution, I also became quiteadept at playing two distinct and separate learner roles: the informal role ofapprentice in the workplace, and the formal role of student in the academy.

Only one year later, I decided to apply for a full-time faculty developmentposition—a new position, in a new unit, in one of Canada’s oldest universities.Although the university prided itself on a long history of providing a high-quality undergraduate education, this was the first time it had made a seriouscommitment to providing teaching improvement services for its faculty. Finan-cial support from students was a key factor in making it all possible.

I remember a lunch spent with the students who were serving on thesearch committee. That morning I had given the required formal presentationto the Principal’s Advisory Council on Instructional Development, and thesestudents had made few comments. Afterwards, over a beer in a restaurant off-campus, they asked lots of interesting questions, surprising me with the extentof their knowledge about faculty development programs at other universities.Soon I relaxed, enjoying this stimulating conversation with energetic andenthusiastic students. They then asked if I might predict how long it wouldtake me to improve teaching at the university. Although my luncheon com-panions have now graduated from the university, their question still hauntsme, for it implicated me, personally, in the universal problem of how toimprove university teaching and learning.

When the principal offered me the position in that center, I could notresist. I was excited by the possibilities and eager to make a difference, and Imade the choice to become a faculty developer. From that moment, I becameconscious of a compelling need to understand and know faculty developmentin a way that was useful and meaningful to me in my new role.

First Steps to Understanding

My brief informal apprenticeship was over, my doctoral program was clearlynot designed to prepare me for faculty development work, and I faced a hardreality: I would have to find my own path to becoming an effective facultydeveloper. I began to think of myself as a self-directed learner with the self-defined learning project of uncovering the nature of faculty development.Ignoring Candy’s counsel (1991) that intentional self-education, or autodidaxy,should not be treated as a simple variation on the conventions of institution-ally structured learning, I proceeded systematically with my learning project,

25BECOMING A FACULTY DEVELOPER

conducting a series of rather formal academic studies. From them, I managedto learn some interesting things about faculty development.

I oriented myself to faculty development as a field of study and practiceby reviewing the ways development is portrayed in the literature. From thisreview, I learned that there has been a gradual shift in emphasis from a focuson the provision of programming to a focus on the learning that is central tothe developmental process. I also found confirmation of the idea that the devel-oper plays a vital role in faculty development.

Then, using survey methods, I collected information and opinions froma sample of Canadian faculty developers. This provided some insight into whomy colleagues are and how they make sense of their work. I learned that otherdevelopers share many of my own educational concerns and interests—whichboth surprised and encouraged me. I also learned that many developers accept,rather too readily, the current conventions of faculty development work, whensome further critique of the context in which we work might well be in order.

Next, I turned my attention to how university teachers learn about teach-ing. Over a four-month period, I observed faculty members participating in fac-ulty development activities, to see what I could uncover about the nature of thedevelopmental process. This study left me with (1) a deeper appreciation for theways teaching is improved when faculty focus on practical and real problems theyface in the classroom, (2) a better understanding of the ways that the process ofdevelopment is shaped by teachers’ definitions of teaching, and (3) an interest inthe ways teachers use stories to organize the developmental process over time.

My next project was to look at the emergence and growth of the teachingreform movement in Canada by tracing its history in the events and peoplewho were part of that movement. I reviewed written records and, more impor-tant, conducted a series of informal interviews with persons who had playedkey roles in faculty development programs and centers. My conversations withcolleagues who had been developers for many years served as a form of initi-ation for me, an empowering rite of passage in which I was given permissionto use the knowledge that others have gained through their experiences.

Limits to Understanding

These studies were informative but limited in their direct applicability to myongoing efforts to construct a reasonable and satisfying approach to facultydevelopment practice. One of the most important lessons I had learned so farwas that my capacity for understanding faculty development in a useful waywas constrained when my approach to learning separated me from my per-sonal role as a “developing developer.” I was beginning to appreciate both thelimits of the observer stance and the benefits of the participant stance, whenthe purpose of inquiry is to come to a deeper understanding of a topic of sig-nificant personal and practical interest.

Also, I was growing uncomfortable with approaching my personal searchfor meaning by mining others’ experiences. It dawned on me that my own


experiences in learning to become an effective educator are examples of fac-ulty development in action—experiences from which I might gain worthwhileknowledge. I wondered about focusing on my own experiences: Could I cometo know faculty development through critical reflection on my learning andmy work?

Teetering on the brink of a stage of development that seemed particularlypromising to me, I suddenly lost confidence that I knew how to proceed withmy learning in a legitimate and productive manner. How unfair, I thought tomyself, as I turned once again to Candy’s text (1991) on self-directed learning.Candy writes, “the autodidactic process is a complex and unpredictable one”(p. 177); he emphasizes that the autodidact’s learning efforts “often zig-zagfrom one ‘organizing circumstance’ to another in an apparently random way”(p. 199), and points out that serendipity plays an important role in learning.These words rang true to me. I felt lost in the middle of learning.

I let go of structured attempts at learning and relied heavily on intuitionto guide my progress. I continued to learn, but frequently felt isolated anduncertain. Because I was deeply engaged in full-time faculty developmentwork, I decided to keep detailed records of my work and to make regularentries in a journal. Other than that, I did not know how to proceed.

Finding Courage to Continue

I gained a new perspective on my situation and new energy to proceed when afriend introduced me to the heuristic research tradition. Heuristic inquiry is a“process of internal search through which one discovers the nature and mean-ing of experience and develops methods and procedures for further investiga-tion and analysis” (Moustakas, 1990, p. 9). According to Moustakas, “theheuristic process is autobiographic, yet with virtually every question that mat-ters personally there is also a social—and perhaps universal—significance” (p.15). I had found an approach to inquiry that was perfectly suited to my task,and again I made plans to continue. Nonetheless, I still had some reservations.

In the heuristic process “the researcher is present throughout the processand, while understanding the phenomenon with increasing depth, theresearcher also experiences growing self-awareness and self-knowledge”(Moustakas, 1990, p. 9). Moustakas states that the researcher’s story ofhuman experiences, to be worth the telling, must be told in a way thatenables self-transformation. Self-transformation has been described as theuniquely adult process of learning (Mezirow, 1991). Although transforma-tive learning is espoused as a valued goal of adult education (including self-education), I was aware that the process could be uncomfortable, difficult,disorienting, and disruptive. I knew that I needed to reflect critically on myapproach to faculty development work, but was I really open to the prospectof self-transformation? I reminded myself that transformative learning at itsbest can also be liberating, opening a route to authentic action in the world.This outcome certainly appealed to me. I decided to proceed, and my inquiry


into faculty development work became the subject of my doctoral research,which presented another problem.

In recording the story of my inquiry into faculty development and writ-ing for others about the meaning of my journey, I was caught in a positionwhere I had to expose the private and personal. The heuristic processrequired me to place my experiences and my understandings at the very cen-ter of the inquiry: “Whatever presents itself in the consciousness of the inves-tigator . . . represents an invitation for further elucidation. What appearscasts a light that enables one to come to know more fully what something isand means. In such a process not only is knowledge extended but the self ofthe researcher is illuminated” (Moustakas, 1990, pp. 10–11). This situationdemanded that I write in my own voice, uncovering and relating the truthof my experience. I most certainly wished there was another way—a less per-sonal, more private way—to develop and convey a deep understanding offaculty development.

It is perhaps not surprising that I was apprehensive; “women in the acad-emy have not had our stories told very much one way or the other” (Lewis,1993, p. 213). Following the example of Heilbrun (1988), who encourageswomen who are “without a text” for their lives to discover one, I decided totell a story that is very much mine. I hoped that it would be meaningful formyself and others.

Next Steps to Understanding

To help me better understand my approach to faculty development, I had beenkeeping a daily work journal, and I now proceeded to review the entries. Ineffect, through this analysis I engaged in dialogue with myself. I commentedon my entries—questioning my motives and underlying assumptions, makingsuggestions, connecting various entries one with the other, and noting under-lying themes. I did not have a formal procedure; instead, I responded to thetext as if it had been written by a valued colleague or friend.

Because many of my personal journals include detailed reference to myeducational practice and scholarship, I reviewed them as well, using Rainer’srecommended approach (1978) to journal analysis. I described the tone of myentries, identified key themes and issues, and noted the ways in which each ofthe journals were different or similar. This analysis gave me a good sense of thechanges in my focus, interest, and thinking over an eight-year period in mypersonal and professional life as a teacher and learner.

Concurrent with this review and analysis of my journals, I examined allthe documents produced in my faculty development work over a one-yearperiod. This included letters and memos, short articles, texts of presentationsto a wide variety of groups, proposals for funding, descriptions and evaluationsof programs and workshops, records of consultations with clients, agendas andminutes of meetings, and reports prepared as a consequence of committeework. This was one way of taking a look at myself “in action.”


Through this process of critical reflection on my own practice, I began tofeel the full power of becoming an active agent in my own learning and devel-opment. The door to transformation creaked open. Here is what I discovered.

I was able to articulate the basic assumptions I held about educational processesand practices. I found I was then able to review the data collected through myearlier studies and identify ways in which my assumptions were connectedwith those of my colleagues, the faculty I work with, and the literature.

I was able to see some of the themes that were present in my own developmen-tal path. I began to see, for example, that my educational journey was emer-gent rather than goal-oriented and that improvisation was an important aspectof my working and learning style. I was able to identify some prevailing pat-terns in my development: a tendency to respond actively and openly to peo-ple and to circumstances, a propensity for imagining possibilities, a hunger forboth a sense of coherence and a sense of competence, and a desire for personalautonomy, particularly as a member of a community. I saw strengths and weak-nesses in these patterns.

I was able to make explicit knowledge claims about the process of developmentand the nature of faculty development work. Through critical analysis of my prac-tice, I discovered that one of the most consuming roles I play as a developer isto help faculty make better connections with their students. More important,I learned that a relationship with students helps the faculty member to developa personal identity as an educator.

As a new developer I was confronted by the need to establish my owneducator-learner relationship with individuals and groups of faculty all overthe university. The irony of my situation is that I am committed to faculty aslearners, but they don’t know that; in fact, they may not see themselves aslearners. It is a challenge to present myself in a way that allows faculty to rec-ognize me and communicate with me as an educator.

I found that I am also constantly assessing faculty: Where are they on thepath to thinking and responding like an educator? In effect, I ask faculty, “Whoare you as educators, and how does your practice reflect that commitment andidentity?” I hope that when I express interest in them as educators and in thearguments they create for themselves as educators, they hear me and chooseto respond. I invite faculty to respond to their bewilderment, boredom, anger,frustration, and curiosity with learning. I hope they learn to be educators andnot just to play the role of a “professor who teaches.” This is the path my owndevelopment must take, as well as theirs. In the role of faculty developer, Imust learn to be an educator.

I saw that conventions of educational practice serve a useful purpose asrituals for creating and developing an educator identity through a relationshipwith learners. A ritual may be broadly defined as a series of repeated actsinfused with meaning, and educational rituals are activities that are generallyaccepted as characteristic of teaching. When individuals participate in educa-tional rituals, playing the role of teacher or the role of student, they establisheducator-learner relationships. One route to my development is therefore to


follow faculty development conventions (workshops, newsletters, consulta-tions); doing so did provide some shape for my work as I struggled to developa more authentic coherence. My experience suggests, however, that many ofthese conventions are inadequate rituals for the growth of developers as edu-cators. In some cases, they merely identify the developer as a technical expertor as a program administrator, rather than as an educator.

I was able to identify and examine my own faculty development conventions.I saw that I was intent on developing and following conventions that helpedme to establish effective educator-learner relationships with faculty and helpedfaculty to relate to their students in a similar manner. My interests in model-ing and inviting self-directed development and in creating collaborative,knowledge-building, teaching communities infused the conventions charac-teristic of my own faculty development practice. Thus my practice focused onactivities that emphasize self-assessment of teaching, reflection on personalteaching experiences, and collegial conversations among teachers in whichthey share expertise and experiences and articulate practical arguments forparticular teaching practices.

In describing my practice, I came to realize that there had been a simple yet sig-nificant change in the way I experience faculty development and in what I anticipateexperiencing. A faculty development client decided to write with me about thedevelopmental process we were engaged in together. Ian Strachan came to mefor advice about procedures for self-and peer assessment of group work in theundergraduate geography course he was teaching. I suggested that he keeprecords of what he did, because others would be interested in his experiencesand he might want to write about it. I make that suggestion to some of myclients. Ian was the first who took me up on it, and he took me by surprisewhen he asked me to collaborate with him in writing the case (Strachan andWilcox, 1996). Even more surprising to me was that the act of writing collab-oratively about our learning made such a difference to the “feel” of the devel-opment process.

In one way, there was nothing about the relationship between Ian andme that was different from any other interaction I have had with my clients.He wrote about what he did, which was to make changes in his geographycourse. I wrote about what I did, which in this case was to help him interpretthe feedback that he received from students and help him evaluate the over-all impact of the new teaching and assessment methods he was using. Thisprocess is essentially the same process I participate in with many of myclients. However, collaborating in writing our record of what took placeshaped the process we were involved in and had a powerful influence on theoutcomes of the process. It was only when Ian wrote down his description ofwhat he did and why he did it that I became aware of the reasoning underly-ing his actions and of his perspective on the project—in a way that I did notentirely understand through our conversations. The writing was a source ofdeeper information about the other’s perspective and knowledge. Writingtogether was an excellent way to check assumptions, to clarify what we knew


and what we believed, and to draw finer distinctions in the meanings of ourrespective explanations for practices.

Writing with Ian transformed my experience of faculty developmentwork. Being able to do the work and reflect on the process at the same timewas a gift. It offered a holism that enabled me to be fully present and engaged,curiously and critically participating in something that matters, with someonewho cares. It was a way of experiencing faculty development that included theneeds and interests of faculty yet did not detract from my ability to experienceeducational practice in a way that included my needs and interests. I hadknown that as a faculty developer I needed to consider the perspective of thefaculty I work with, and the perspective of their students. I learned that it isnecessary to simultaneously engage in educational experiences from my ownperspective. Working with Ian was a first experience of the “ideal” relationship,and as such it gave me a strong personal sense of the educator I wanted tobecome. I came to know a way of doing faculty development in which I couldstand outside myself (experiencing from the perspective of the other) yet enterfully into an experience (participating from my own perspective) and maintaina commitment to learning from that experience.

Conclusion

My story suggests that educators’ self-directed studies of their experiences offera personal approach to meaning-making that has the potential to transform col-lective understandings and accepted practices in the field of faculty development.

I started my learning journey thinking of faculty development as workthat I do, and I looked outside myself for ways to approach this functional task.I found that through my engagement in practice I became a faculty developer,establishing a personal identity that transformed my understanding and expe-rience of self and others.

I have described how I was an active agent in my own transformation. Itfelt empowering to direct my learning through a series of self-defined learningprojects, first focusing on others’ experiences of faculty development and thenfocusing on my own experience. Acting as my own “critical friend,” I was ableto view faculty development from different perspectives without being depen-dent on others to guide my learning.

My understanding of self as faculty developer was deepened and broadenedthrough a collaborative and care-full educational relationship with an “other,” afaculty development client. I conclude from this experience that the quality oflearners’ relationships with educators has a significant impact on the process ofeducator development, affecting the degree to which transformation is possible.

References

Candy, P. C. Self-Direction for Lifelong Learning: A Comprehensive Guide to Theory and Prac-tice. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1991.


Cranton, P. Professional Development as Transformative Learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass,1996.

Heilbrun, C. Writing a Woman’s Life. New York: Ballantine, 1988.Lewis, M. “Private Spaces: The Political Economy of Women’s Solitude. In D. Wear (ed.),

The Center of the Web. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993.Mezirow, J. Transformative Dimensions of Adult Learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1991.Moustakas, C. Heuristic Research: Design, Methodology, and Applications. Thousand Oaks,

Calif.: Sage, 1990.Rainer, T. The New Diary. Los Angeles: Tarcher, 1978.Strachan, I. B., and Wilcox, S. “Peer and Self Assessment of Group Work: Developing an

Effective Response to Increased Enrollment in a Third Year Course in Microclimatology.”Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 1996, 20 (3), 343–353.

SUSAN WILCOX is adviser on teaching and learning at the Instructional DevelopmentCentre, and assistant professor of adult and higher education at Queen’s University,Kingston, Ontario, Canada.

becoming a faculty developer

Documents