Creating Time and Space for Faculty Reflection, Risk-Taking, and Renewal

From the Tomorrow's Professor Blog, comes this interesting piece originally published in the Summer 2008 issue of The Department Chair: A Resource for Academic Administrators:

Faculty today must stay up to date in their fields and energetic in their classrooms or they cannot provide the quality education that students deserve. However, as faculty duties expand and their personal lives become more complex, it is increasingly difficult for faculty to find the space and time necessary to grow professionally and support their institutional communities. Frequently, faculty are overextended in their personal and professional roles while trying to maintain their stride on the academic treadmill. In this climate, institutions must try to find places within the lives of faculty that enable them to reflect on their work,take risks, and reenergize themselves and their academic careers.

In this article, we share the insights we gained by studying the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation's Faculty Career Enhancement (FCE) program. The Mellon Foundation sought to promote the development of faculty across the academic lifecycle by providing support to selected institutions to design programs tailored to the distinctive needs of their faculty members.