FACULTY DEVELOPMENT
members should be encouraged to share their ideas and develop new skills with confidence. Building upskilling programmes Conducting a comprehensive assessment of learning needs is a good way to start identifying the specific skills and knowledge gaps among faculty and staff. This can be done through surveys, focus groups and performance evaluations, culminating in the development of tailored training programmes that address the unique challenges and requirements of an institution’s faculty and staff. Here, it’s important to ensure an open environment to guarantee a programme’s effectiveness and ensure that faculty and staff are enthused about participating, without having any fear of reprisal for sharing their views. To facilitate this, ‘buddies’ can be assigned to any new/younger members of the faculty. Meanwhile, the training itself can take the form of workshops, online courses or self-paced exercises. As enablers of cultures of continuous improvement, learning communities should be reinforced by reserving a mandatory number of hours for every employee’s personal growth and development. Regular evaluation of these initiatives is also essential to ensure their effectiveness and improvement. Higher education continues to navigate a complex and dynamic environment, making the upskilling of faculty and staff a critical component of institutional success. By investing in the professional development of their personnel, HEIs can nurture an ethos of lifelong learning, enhance teaching quality, improve student outcomes and foster a culture of innovation, inclusion and active mentorship that helps both faculty and students realise their full potential.
end and think of educational institutions as, first and foremost, service providers. They will expect to be able to tailor offerings to their individual preferences, as well as to measure and compare institutions in ways that go far beyond placement statistics. Students’ level of attachment to an institution, when compared to older generations, is also likely to change. Instead of investing in an assumed and gradual return on investment, students will want more visibility of the benefits they can expect to look forward to. Higher education will require more of a ‘here and now’ environment akin to the immediate gratification offered by many products and services in the modern world. To adjust and thrive in this context, HEIs will need to develop the right mindset and bring greater levels of professionalism into all their activities. Peer-learning cultures Institutions must inspire their faculty members to go beyond their comfort zones and co-create new ideas through peer-learning communities. In this, mentorship programmes that pair experienced faculty with newer educators can benefit both parties and lead to enhanced learning experiences for students. These relationships facilitate knowledge sharing and support professional growth, while offering great potential for the cultivation of collaborative research. Additionally, peer-learning communities allow faculty members to work together on the development and use of innovative practices, enhancing teaching methods for our new age of learning and fostering a culture of continuous improvement. Nurturing the right mindset Faculty members should be shown the merits of focusing on getting the best from every student, rather than judging individuals on a standard competency scale. This necessitates ensuring that faculty members are open minded and providing them with training on how they can create safe spaces in which students can be creative and speak freely. Instilling an environment of enterprise and encouraging students to think differently will motivate them to give their best. Adopting a mindset of lifelong learning, fuelled by an ability to comprehend the need to change and be flexible as they carve out their learning journeys, is also essential. Faculty members need to receive training on this if they are to instil this mentality effectively in their students. This approach will also be instructive in interactions with industry experts, where faculty
Kakoli Sen is a professor at SolBridge International Business School in South Korea. She is also a member of the Harvard Business Review Advisory Council and the Advisory Board at the WomEnablers Foundation. She teaches and trains in the areas of organisational behaviour and leadership
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Business Impact • ISSUE 4 • 2024
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