A Three-Dimensional View of Faculty Development
The paradox of emphasizing faculty development in a time of budget cuts and inflation may appear to be professional protectionism. In fact, however, its roots lie in significant issues facing the academic community and in the changed relationship between postsecondary institutions and society. To meet these conditions planning for faculty development must be programmatic and encompass a larger framework of ideas, issues, and practices. Three dimensions are proposed: the professional dimension embodies some of the critical conceptual questions; the curricular dimension includes not only the improvement of instruction, but also designs for learning; the institutional dimension, long submerged, but now surfacing as a set of new demands on higher education. From a consideration of these dimensions a set of principles for planning and a matrix for programming are derived.