Facilitating outstanding engineering faculty members through training from recruitment to retirement

Abstract

Most of the higher engineering education institutions don't focus on continuous training of their faculty members from recruitment to retirement (R to R). Because of this, the quality of performance of untrained faculty members gradually reduces and this impacts the attributes of their graduates, sporadic contribution to knowledge capital, and poor return on the investments (ROI) in engineering education. There is a need for an integrated and dynamic model for the training and development of engineering faculty members. The objectives of this research are to assess the literature on faculty development; to identify the total needs of the engineering faculty members from recruitment to retirement (R to R); to suggest effective and efficient methods of planned faculty development; and to validate the suggested process of development through a set of engineering institutions. The action research method has been adopted to assess the global literature, and consult multinational companies, local engineering companies, and alumni on their needs. It is found that ‘Faculty Development Courses’ are required for all engineering faculty members from entry to exit to facilitate meritocracy. A critical review of the literature revealed that most of the researchers have focused their research on entry-level faculty members or some middle-level faculty members. Only a few institutes focused on the senior members. Hence, this study focused on lifelong faculty development courses from entry-level to exit level. The training needs assessment was based on the feedback from 396 entry-level faculty members who were purposefully included in this research. The outcomes are presented in seven parts: (1) Entry-level faculty development programs (FDPs), (2) Getting recognized, (3) Middle-level FDPs, (4) Student personnel administration, (5) Senior-level FDPs, (6) Advanced-level FDPs, and (7) Radical innovations. This research provides a 360-degree assessment and creates a guide both for the educational administrators and faculty members to reach excellence. Learning is a lifelong process. The suggestions were validated through a set five of institutions. and they started implementing them. The continuous process of faculty development from recruitment to retirement has been appreciated but it may take several years to institutionalize it. Limitations of this study are a smaller number of faculty members (396) and suggestions for future research have also been indicated. This gave a promising cost-effective faculty development process at every stage of faculty growth and resulted in outstanding institutes with high-performing faculty members. Further, these faculty members contributed to human and knowledge capital.