Pursuing a Comprehensive Faculty Development Program: Making Fragmentation Work

Arizona State University (ASU) serves as a case study of a comprehensive faculty development program in a large university characterized by numerous overlapping and fragmented resources and services. In this setting, the task of faculty development is to provide the leadership that is necessary to mold these fragments into a coherent vision and mission that promotes the aims of the university and supports the needs of the faculty. Programs based on the consortium, the cooperative, and the distributed models make fragmentation work for, rather than against, the program. In addition, faculty development must work to establish an academic environment that values teaching, research, and scholarly outreach—the constituent elements of a comprehensive program.