This education session is focused on the lessons learned from the Leadership Development Program for staff and faculty at Tacoma Community College. In this session, you will learn about the program, get insights into best practices for leadership development for mixed employee groups, and get access to the online course.
Presentation Goals:
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Share information about the Leadership Development Program
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Give insights into best practices for leadership development for mixed employee groups
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Share access to the online leadership development course
Leadership Development Program Overview:
Leadership development is a prominent and important topic in higher education. This education session is focused on the lessons learned from the Leadership Development Program (LDP) for staff and faculty at Tacoma Community College. In AY 16-17, a committee of staff, faculty, and administrators designed an eight-week leadership development program on communication and leadership for staff and faculty. The program used a hybrid modality, with three face-to-face sessions at the beginning, middle, and end of the program and an online course using the Canvas LMS. The program also had a leadership project that utilized open pedagogy to allow the participants the freedom to make an impact on campus that met their needs and interests. In this session, you will learn about the program, get insights into best practices for leadership development for mixed employee groups, and get access to the online course.
The program had 11 participants from across campus in its first run, with four faculty (full and part-time), five staff (classified and exempt), and two staff members who teach part time . This was a unique offering for our campus. Although we run professional development workshops and training series that bring all of these groups together, this was the first quarter-long program that had participants getting to know people closely with whom they do not regularly work. To build community within the cohort, we had discussion forums each week, cohort lunches, and leadership activities in the face-to-face sessions.
Presentation Description:
This session will begin with an engaging communication activity used at the beginning of the LDP. The Pretzel Activity builds community while exemplifying the need for better communication. This activity will have participants working together, getting to know one another, and starting to think about their communication preferences. This activity serves as the foundation for a discussion on the need for better communication and leadership. We will describe the need we saw on our campus for these skills and share how our program gained momentum.
After the Pretzel Activity, we will describe the committee who helped plan the program; the OER, UDL, and accessibility principles that guided the design; the marketing to gain interest and participation; the application process to join the cohort; and the Participant-Facilitator roles that we had. We found best practices in all of these stages of the creation of the program from resources such as Creative Commons, Piskurich’s Rapid Instructional Design, Gillespie and Robertson’s A Guide to Faculty Development, other institutions’ leadership programs, and many more, which we will share in the session.
For those interested in starting or modifying their leadership development offerings, we will share a synthesis of the feedback from participants, the intended and unintended consequences of the LDP, and our direction for future leadership development offerings at Tacoma Community College. We will end the session with time for discussion and questions to help us improve our program by hearing from you as well as sharing a CC BY version of our Canvas course for your modification and use.