Spheres of Influence: Ventures and Visions in Educational Development*

3-6 July, 2002
The University of Western Australia
Perth, Western Australia

Abstract

Educational development: A catalyst for enhanced collegiality

Kogi Naidoo, Massey University, New Zealand

There are several tensions at tertiary education institutions currently, viz. Increasing workloads and accountability, decreasing growth in some programmes and increasing post-graduate registration, financial cutbacks in government subsidies, staff reductions as a result of institutional restructuring resulting in conflict and competition among staff, among others. This has resulted in increasing demands being made on staff time. They are expected to 'do more with less', ie being responsible for teaching more students, undertaking research and engaging in professional development. In this paper the various staff and educational development programmes for staff at Massey University are described and reflected upon, focusing on the scope and coverage. The University, a large multi-modal, multi-campus may be viewed as a learning organization (Senge et.al. 1994: 512-513) with learning communities. Partnerships, interactions and collaboration initiated by the Training and Development Unit (TDU) form the basis of staff's personal and professional development through the various training programmes.

Universities are fundamentally still academic communities as opposed to being corporations. The core processes in the learning partnership that are fundamental to creating and sustaining communities according to Bryan Smith (Senge et.al. 1994: 512) enhance capability, commitment, contribution, continuity, collaboration and conscience. These processes underpin the philosophy, principles and practice of the Unit. Adopting a learning partnership model to develop and enhance staff expertise sustains a collegial community, viz. Sharing best practice. However, the ultimate challenge is maintaining the balance between being 'instructive' and 'constructive'. Finally, in the light of under-resourced and -staffed development units generally, analyzing, showcasing and documenting the practice of one university provide the opportunity for extending partnerships across staff development units. There would be sharing of expertise and resources across units. The paper concludes with reflections on what we do now and some of the challenges we face now and in the future.

Key words:
Staff development programmes; Learning partnerships: Sharing best practice;

Objectives, outcomes and activities:

• Staff development units can act as catalyst for initiating and sustaining learning partnerships: Overview of Massey University practice.
• Harnessing staff expertise by using staff in the programme has the double advantage of collegiality, sharing best practice, but also taking ownership for their development programme: Participants share practice.
• A vision: Reflections on what we will do in the future.

Dr Kogi Naidoo is Training Consultant at Massey University responsible primarily for the research management skills development programme. She has extensive experience having worked in the areas of staff development, research and quality assurance. Her post-graduate research outputs include designing self-evaluation programmes for academic staff development and a quality assurance mechanism for academic programmes. She has presented and published her work nationally and internationally. To her credit she has numerous prestigious academic awards and fellowships.

Contact: Kogi Naidoo, email: K.Naidoo@massey.ac.nz