Community Information
March 24, 2011
CODFA PRESIDENT GRAY ADDRESSES BOT: PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT ESSENTIAL TO ACHIEVE MISSION AND VISION
Ken Gray, President of the COD Faculty Association, made the following comments to the Board of Trustees at its meeting March 24, 2011:
Good evening. In recent months, I have addressed people in this room about Conflict, Quality, and Trust. Tonight, I would like to begin applying these concepts to a current issue at the College. A simmering conflict may come to a head soon, perhaps when the Board votes on a proposal next month. Because I will not have the opportunity to address you before then, I would like to begin a conversation about the issue tonight.
The topic is Professional Development. I can begin with two points on which we all agree: First, high quality, meaningful Professional Development is essential to the College's efforts to achieve its mission and vision. Second, it can be quite expensive.
I would like to advocate for an expansive and comprehensive definition of Professional Development, one that recognizes that we achieve excellence through the encouragement of very many diverse activities that benefit faculty professionally, and so enrich our students' learning experiences.
Some people favor a more restrictive definition. They may believe, for example, that legitimate Professional Development comprises taking classes in teaching methods, advising, or one's own discipline only. In other words, I can only become a better Psychology teacher if I take classes in teaching methods, advising, or psychology. This is simply untrue.
Does it not make me a better psychology teacher if I study Brave New World in a literature class and discover the psychological principles on which it is based? Am I not more effective if I learn about literature, music, art, and film, and so discover the apparent influences of psychologists such as Freud, Jung, and Watson on D.H. Lawrence, James Joyce, Stanley Kubrick and Ben Folds? Indeed, I am a better psychology teacher because I have studied Biology, Philosophy, Political Science, and Anthropology, as well as George Orwell, Charles Dickens, John Steinbeck, and Matt Groening.
When we require faculty to stay within their own disciplines, we encourage depth of knowledge, to be sure. But we lose breadth. We also reinforce the disciplinary boundaries that, when you get right down to it, are artificial distinctions that we have created in and for the academic world.
In "What the Best College Teachers Do," a book that details a study of professors who promote deep, long-lasting, meaningful learning in their students, author Ken Bain writes: "Without exception, outstanding teachers know their subjects extremely well." But he goes on to note that they "often read extensively in other fields (sometimes far distant from their own)."
Consider also Semester Leaves and Sabbaticals as professional development opportunities. Some of the activities that our colleagues have proposed for these leaves include conducting original research and participating in the prestigious Fulbright scholar exchange program. Professor Bain also notes that outstanding teachers "are active and accomplished scholars, artists, or scientists." I contend that it is in our best interest to encourage and facilitate these kinds of activities. This is high quality, meaningful professional development. This is how we will approach our Vision to be the "primary college district residents choose for high quality education."
