Navigating the complexities of higher education: towards a more holistic, relational understanding of academic development work

Abstract

From the very beginning, since the publication of our first volume, there have been calls in IJAD for a holistic approach to academic development. Back in 1996, Brew and Boud noted that ‘the necessary emphasis on teaching has distracted attention from the fact that university teachers are facing many other complex demands’ (p. 17). They highlighted diversity in the range of backgrounds of academics and their increasingly diverse range of roles, as well as the growth in the number of casual and contract staff. As a result, Brew and Boud (1996) called for new frameworks for academic development to emphasize negotiation and flexibility. More than twenty years later, Sutherland (2018) responded to what she terms the persistent calls for a more holistic approach to academic development echoing through the literature: an approach that would consider the whole of the academic role, the whole institution, and the whole person. Such a holistic understanding is also reflected in IJAD’s working definition of academic development (https://www.tandfonline.com/action/ authorSubmission?show=instructions&journalCode=rija20#working). The articles in the current issue all engage, whether explicitly or implicitly, with the complexities, challenges, and opportunities of a more holistic understanding of academic development work, one that is also more relational in character. Relationality is present in academic development practice, although rarely made explicit in role description. For example, when you meet an academic developer passionate about their work, it becomes clear that care, community, and quality are foundational to their philosophical and professional approach. Those drawn to the academic development profession are often individuals who experience the joys of teaching and serving their community by holding space for impactful conversations and experiences. Relational pedagogies drive academic development work, as confirmed by significant work in IJAD and in the field more broadly, including recent special issues on approaches to fostering communities of practice (Mårtensson & Roxå, 2015) and professional conversations (Pleschová et al., 2021). This work is underpinned by philosophies of care, with holistic, person-centred ontologies that inform academic developer work as ‘influencing agents’ (Debowski, 2014, p. 50) across capacity building, policy writing, and change enabling practices. It also becomes clear just how complex our work is. While many, perhaps most, of us still work in centralized units that focus on professional development of teaching, a holistic approach to academic development also embraces those in positions that emphasise educational technology or researcher development. A range of development services that specialise in one domain, or stretches across several dimensions of teaching and research work, seeks greater alignment to support the complexities of faculty work that may include teaching and research roles. Adding to the complexity of academic development work, staff in higher education institutions are affected by the socioINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR ACADEMIC DEVELOPMENT 2023, VOL. 28, NO. 2, 119–123 https://doi.org/10.1080/1360144X.2023.2203960