Let Us Grow Our Own Timbre: Strategies for Faculty Development

Anup K Singh, PhD

Three Major Challenges before Indian Higher Education Institutions• Industry focus• Research and innovation• Faculty availability and productivity

Growing Timbre

• Timbre is a scarce resource • It take a long time to grow timbre• It requires a lot of nurturance and care• It also requires skills and resources to grow timbre• All plants may not survive• Final outcomes pay rich dividends

Faculty are Academic Timbre

• On an average, the IITs have 35% shortfall of faculty; NITs have 40% shortfall, while IIMs have 25% shortfall• Universities have done equally bad; they suffer from major shortage of

faculty• Hardly there is an academic institution that does not have faculty shortfall• There is short supply of trained faculty• Therefore, each institution finds it so difficult to fill new positions• Poaching and new hiring have their limitations• An institution has to develop its own faculty to meet future requirements• For this, it has to commit manpower, time and financial resources

Factors in Faculty Recruitment, Development, and Retention• Vision and mission (Explicit and implicit)• Organisational strategy• Financial resources• Faculty manpower planning• Orientation and strategy of HR division• Institutional leadership• Faculty labour market• Organisational culture and systems

Structural Issues in Faculty Availability• No HR function in the institutions• The traditional function of ‘Establishment’ is unable to meet the

challenges• Manpower planning is missing in institutions• Deans are not empowered to fulfil faculty deficiency; the board has

to directly address the issue by creating appropriate roles and earmarking appropriate budget• The institutions should also be given more flexibility in filling faculty

positions by regulators

Financial Issues & Developmental Norms• Staff salary is anywhere from 50% to 70% of total budget in an institution• Senior faculty are almost twice more expensive than junior faculty• Expenditure on faculty development is negligible in most institutions• Unfortunately, numerous institutions cut cost by employing less faculty

members; they also employ junior faculty to save money• An institution should earmark two week (12 days) for faculty development for

each instructor• On an average, an institution should spend one month salary on the faculty• Every third year, an instructor should get some international exposure• Faculty should be equally trained in pedagogical excellence and assessment

Faculty Development Strategies

• Training and Education• Mentoring• Feedback• Exposure to Developmental Exposure

Training and Education

• Educational upgradation • Induction training• Early career training• Advanced training• Short-term courses• Professional development programmes• Assessment during training

Feedback

• Feedback from students• Quantitative feedback• Qualitative feedback

• Feedback from peers and experts• Classroom observation• Video-based feedback

• Video based feedback• Self-feedback• General reflection• Reflection vis-à-vis lesson plan

Mentoring

• First year mentoring• Choice of a mentor• Number of mentoring meetings• Closure of mentoring relationship• Evaluation of mentoring scheme

Exposure to Developmental Avenues

• Participation in seminars and conferences• Industry internship• Research internship• Exposure to special interventions• Provisions of leadership positions• Special assignments• International exposure

Best Practices in Faculty Development• Office of Faculty Development, headed by a senior professional • Training and develop for a period of two week every year• Earmarking one month salary for training, development and research• Giving one to two days free for the conduct of research• Providing an opportunity with full funding for international exposure

once in three years• Sabbatical after a period of six years to do research, write books, etc.

Strategies for Retention

• Develop and implement a career graph for faculty• Develop an effective work culture• Develop effective grievance mechanism system• Pay competitive salary• Communicate organisational expectations and measure them• Provide incentives for stay• Manage conflicts and reduce stress at the workplace

HR Strategies

• Use faculty satisfaction survey• Use exit survey rigorously• Develop Individual Career Development Plan• Implement PMS effectively• Give performance feedback regularly• Mentoring for new faculty• Measure and monitoring attrition rate• Earmark appropriate budget for faculty development• Create a position of Dean (Faculty Development)