It’s Not Just a Series of Workshops: Reevaluating Faculty Development to Improve Recruitment, Retention, and Tenurability of Faculty

In my experience with faculty recruitment at two very different academic institutions, I have learned that faculty candidates care a lot about what support they can expect for their professional development; it’s one of the most common questions I hear. Institutions typically hire faculty whom they want to keep and, for those that have a tenure system, faculty who will be tenurable. The success of an academic institution depends on high-quality faculty who demonstrate excellence in teaching, scholarship, and service, and the new generation of over-tasked millennial faculty (Gardener, 2016) expect more support than before. This article encourages academic institutions to reevaluate their faculty development offerings for improved recruitment, retention, and tenurability of high-quality faculty.