1. Strategic staff development: more than a rhetorical flourish?
Richard Blackwell, LTSN Generic Centre
Paul Blackmore, University of Warwick
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2. SD Strategy in HE: ends and means?
Organisational function - effectiveness
Own ends - professionalism
Educational development/SEDA
SD as support for T&L
Consensus around reflective practice
Judicious mixture/peaceful co-existence.
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3. Some issues for HEIs? Lifelong Learning [and WP]
‘Employability’ and competitiveness
Generating 3rd leg funding
Entrepreneurial activity
elearning and globalisation
elaearning and pedagogy
Management and Leadership
Team working and efficiency
….. are they our business too?
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4. Strategic HRD Relationship to organisation goals
Top management support
Environmental scanning
Staff development plans and policies
Relationship to line management
Relationship to human resource management (HRM)
Role of staff developer
Cultural engagement.
Evaluation. (McCracken and Wallace 2000).
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5. Learning organisation
Flexible, adaptive, continuous learners
Single, Double and Triple loop learning
Structured serendipity [James 1997]
Nurturing leadership [Duke 2002]
Problems of linkages and openness
SD at organisational core
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6. Communities of practice
Learning embedded in practice
Apprentice model
Informal, social, tacit, distributed.
‘Part of the Furniture’
SD as internal consultant to depts
SD as horizontal facilitator
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7. Are we appropriately experienced? Are we well and visibly qualified?
Some key questions
Are we appropriately experienced?
Are we well and visibly qualified?
What is our expertise?
What is our remit?
Are we organisationally well positioned?
What is our ethical position?
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8. Leaders in staff development
Common set of core values
Diverse people and backgrounds
Diverse - and dynamic - roles
Working across boundaries
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9. What does expertise look like?
positions and roles vary
people vary and shape the job
effect of reputation and previous actions
ambiguous relationships
varying expectations of others
……… role as interaction
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10. Resources for learning
57 varieties of academic background
Some PhDs
Some trained to teach
Little formal management development
Little formal reflection / development
...………. but lots of HE experience
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11. Structures for EDUs
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12. Taking a stance A technician? A critical friend? A radical critic?
Situational ethic?
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13. Ongoing questions How aligned is it possible to be?
System instabilities
Ambiguities over mission
Complexity and unpredictability
How might the SD leadership role evolve?
A more central role?
A less ambiguous role?
Support for professional development?
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14. A research agenda Empirical research on SD effectiveness
What works? (models and location)
Who benefits?
Professional learning in disciplines/departments
Can we understand it better? (concepts of communities of practice, situated and tacit learning)
How can we help improve learning processes?
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15. Further information
Blackwell and Blackmore ‘Towards Strategic SD’. OUP/SRHE. Forthcoming Summer 2003
Blackmore, Stainton and Wilson ‘Leadership in Staff Development: a Role Analysis’. Forthcoming
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