-PD. BULLETIN:

FACULTY PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

The College-wide Professional Development Committee has traditionally sponsored

and annual P.D. "event" during May in order to encourage all faculty to share

common professional interests, to discuss innovative teaching strategies, and

to be stimulated by "ideas" presented by external speakers.

Interest in attending these P.D. days in May, however, has dwindled over the
past couple of years. In response, the Committee conducted an informal cross-
college survey of faculty earlier this year in order to ascertain how faculty
felt about professional development in general and about the P.D. days in par-
ticular. This formed part of a drive to re-evaluate the role and function of
the Committee with regards to co-ordinating P.D. activities.

The results of the survey strongly indicated three trends:

1. A considerable amount of ongoing professional development is being
conducted by faculty at the department level, where more realistic
funding for P.D. activities is universally desired. Much of this
P.D. often goes unnoticed by the general college community.

2. Attendance at the P.D. days has declined for a number of reasons
(such as low faculty morale, inability to attend or end of semester
"burn-out") but a dissatisfaction with the format and content of
these "events" in recent years was frequently cited. Some faculty
even suggested these days may have outlived their usefulness now
that most instructors work at a single campus together.

3. Strong but widely dispersed interest exists for a co-ordinated series
of workshops/seminars on specific topics relating to professional
development (such as effective student evaluation, "thinking skills"
instruction, student "drop-out" reduction, and faculty "renewal"
strategies.) Such dispersed interest could be better addressed by
a series of small-scale P.D. events held during semester-time in vacant
slots in the timetable matrix, rather than by a single P.D. event in
May.

Consequently, the College-wide P.D. Committee has decided to cancel the annual
P.D. days in May for the foreseeable future, starting this year. Instead,

the Committee will undertake the following activities designed to encourage
and co-ordinate faculty P.D. at Douglas College:

 

a) Organizing an ongoing series of small-scale workshops/seminars on
matters relating to professional development and teaching excellence
throughout each semester.

b) Publicizing P.D. events currently occurring at the department level and
publishing in the Mad Hatter reports of P.D. activities undertaken which
could be of interest to a wider college audience.

c) Lobbying for greater funding at the department level for P.D. activities.

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