Scorecard: How Do Higher-Ed Institutions Leverage Professional Development?

illustration of an article

Professional development is a strategic asset to an institution, as it is a key engine for increasing the capacity of your team and for bringing in proven strategies from other organizations—allowing you to both avoid “reinventing the wheel” and to revitalize your work with fresh ideas.

In late 2015, we surveyed 971 managers and frontline faculty and staff at colleges and universities, both to score the past year’s investment in professional development against the previous year’s, and to uncover new findings and emerging stories of what teams that are leveraging professional development (PD) to move their institutions forward are doing differently—and what you can learn from them.

Our full, complimentary report (which you can read here), includes:

  1. A more in-depth review of our year-over-year scorecard of 8 critical professional development (PD) metrics.
  2. Evidence that institutions need to raise the bar of what they expect from professional development.
  3. Two key findings that can help you maximize the return on your PD in 2016.
  4. Ten practical tips for optimizing the return on a professional development event.
  5. A template for a written professional development plan.

Here’s a look at the scorecard:
See full-size version

How would your own institution, division, or department score? Can you use this scorecard to start some critical conversations at your office?

Daniel Fusch, Ph.D.
Director of Research and Publications
Academic Impressions
daniel@academicimpressions.com