Time: 2:15pm to 3:30pm
Content level: Intermediate
In many institutions, resources to support professional education in research administration are limited. As a result, where they exist, these professional development programs tend to focus intensively on urgent on-boarding issues and regulatory or policy updates and to lean heavily on one mode of education, such as classroom presentations or online slides. These programs can often be driven by vital leadership priorities but can neglect to harness the initiative and expertise of the research administration community itself.
In this session, participants will learn how to structure their professional development programs to cultivate a vibrant learning community, not just by delivering meaningful content in multiple meaningful ways but by engaging the community in developing and providing the programs themselves. To do this, participants will identify the areas of expertise research administrators in their institutions most need and identify the modes of professional development currently being offered.
From there, using a toolkit offered in the session, participants will assess gaps that currently exist in their offerings. Through brief exercises and discussion, participants will list specific forms of expertise and initiative that reside in their research communities and describe new ways these communities could be engaged to share their expertise with each other. Throughout the session, we will focus on how the very process of structuring professional development programs broadly and inclusively can not only extend limited resources by drawing on the whole community's knowledge, but can also give emerging leaders a chance to learn to lead their peers and can cultivate a powerful culture of shared purpose and continuous learning.
Learning objectives:
- Identify specific modes of professional education.
- Provide expertise and initiative for the research administration community.
Prerequisites: None
Speaker(s):
Laura Lucas, PhD, Training & Development, Tufts University