A case study of faculty development programs in Division I research institution colleges: the perspective of the program administrators

The purpose of this study was to investigate faculty development from the perspectives of program administrators in different colleges of a Division I research institution. The participants were administrators of faculty development programs from eight different colleges at the institution. The research questions were (a) How do the administrators of faculty development programs describe the organization of their programs? (b) What do program administrators see as the purposes of the faculty development programs in the colleges? and (c) How do the program administrators as well as the college leadership determine the viability of a faculty development program? The data from the interviews were first coded to themes; as broader categories emerged, they were connected to the three research questions. The framework for the study was the concept of communities of practice, a part of Wenger???s (1998) social theory of learning. The discussion explored how the role of a faculty development program in a college could be classified as a passive instructional resource, an active teaching service, or an influential community changer. In each classification a college places an increasing degree of importance on (a) teaching as a measure of faculty competence, (b) faculty pursuit of becoming a better teacher, and (c) the need for a faculty development program in the college