AAACE 2021 Annual Conference

Staff/Faculty development, professional development

In this session, we describe how we conducted a college-wide personal and professional development needs analysis and what we learned in the process. We discuss the major steps in survey development, data collection, and data analysis, and we conclude by highlighting major takeaways by presenting preliminary findings and action steps.

This session focuses on a project which sought to analyze and understand the personal and professional development needs of the employees of the College of Human Sciences & Education (CHSE) at Louisiana State University (LSU). The data for the project came from the CHSE Office of Faculty Affairs and Professional Development survey administered to the CHSE employees (staff, faculty, administrators, graduate assistants) which focused on the employees’ personal and professional development needs and included questions regarding the preferred time and format of developmental offerings, and the following topics: technology-related opportunities, teaching-related opportunities, research-related opportunities, service-related opportunities, advising-related opportunities, leadership/management-related opportunities, opportunities for the pre-college division, and other opportunities (personal development; organizational climate, wellness, etc.).
Existent research on professional development in education focuses on those who teach (instructors, teachers, professors, assistants) but rarely on other employees (e.g., staff, administrators). By informing professional development needs, these results should ultimately improve performance, quality, and efficiency. Further, we took a comprehensive approach by focusing on both personal and professional development, inherent in the mission of our college to improve the quality of life across the lifespan.