Klodiana Kolomitro, Natasha Kenny, Suzanne Le-May Sheffield
The roles of educational developers have been redefined, reimagined, and repurposed. Beach et al. (2016) have witnessed, “mounting evidence that faculty development has become a more essential support for institutional strategic initiatives”(p. 1). Pressures are high on teaching and learning centres to do more with less as educational developers are being called upon to address institutional priorities and metrics of success and are increasingly functioning as organizational change agents. This paradigm shift has positioned developers with a unique role of becoming predictive in their work by anticipating and effecting institutional changes and new directions. At the same time, if educational developers are to support, lead, manage and participate in change initiates, then they need to start paying more attention to how they take care of themselves and prevent burnout. Maslach and Leiter (2000) describe burnout as “the index of dislocation between what people are and what they have to do” and further add that “individual employees become the ‘shock absorbers’ for organizational strains”. In The Slow Professor (2016), Maggie Berg and Barbara Seeber concerned about the frantic pace of contemporary life call for academics to adopt principles of the “slow food” movement in order to alleviate stress and prevent burnout. At the same time, Stacy Grooters delivered a session at the Professional Organization Network Conference in October 2017 on Exploring the Possibilities of “Slow” Educational Development.
We developed and administered a survey to better understand the concept of burnout and workplace well-being (Hyett and Parker, 2015) amongst educational developers, in order to suggest strategies for creating flourishing workplace environments. At this conference, we aim to engage our community through a poster session and use a collaborative process to capture participants’ feedback on the research results and strategies for supporting workplace well-being amongst educational developers. This research connects to the ISSOTL18 conference theme–A culture of learners. To cultivate and support a culture of learners, we must nurture not only our intellectual being but also emotional, spiritual and mental being. Only by encouraging wellness, buoyancy, and optimism can we develop a resilient, strong, and healthy community of scholars. Our hope is that the results of this project will benefit not only educational developers but also the wider community in adapting strategies that encourage a flourishing work environment and support educator well-being.
