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Red Deer College's Faculty PD Committee is a college-wide committee tasked with administering the faculty professional development fund, a negotiated benefit of the Collective Agreement to promote and facilitate professional development for faculty across campus. It is composed of a majority of faculty member representatives, elected by their peers to serve as "Supercluster representatives". These represent a number of faculty in a given area and guide faculty members in accessing funds. The committee as a whole is responsible for oversight of the use of the funds, and for the development of policy. The committee also has one representative appointed by the college senior leadership and a few non-voting members in support roles for the committee; these include two PD Consultants, a Treasurer, an Administrative Assistant, and an Electronic Media Consultant. Being a member of the committee is a significant commitment that requires considerable diplomatic finesse as well as an attention to detail.
I was first elected Supercluster representative in 2010 for an area that included faculty working in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, the Centre for Teaching and Learning the Division of Learning Resources. During the two years I acted as Supercluster Representatives, I was responsible for supporting about sixty faculty members and processing their applications for PD activities and purchases, as well as processing their claim forms for reimbursement. This experience provided me with the necessary knowledge and hands-on practice of the application of PD policy to prepare me for taking on a leadership role following a thorough reorganisation of the structure of the PD Committee that happened in the year 2010-2011 and in which I played a hand as a member of the steering sub-committee. The changes to policy and to the organisation of the committee that ensued posed a challenge, particularly when the sitting chairperson resigned her position to take up employment at another institution, leaving the committee in a very uncertain situation. I shared the interim chair duties in the fall of 2011 with another committee member, was appointed Chairperson in January 2012, and then was elected by faculty to the position in April of the same year.
As a committee member, I contributed to thoroughly reorganising the New Faculty Orientation, later transitioning responsibility for that activity from the PD committee to the Human Resources division of the College. I also participated in the committee that drafted the new structure for the committee that I ended up chairing a year later. As Chair, I had to negotiate the delicate transition as well as a significant budget crunch, and to facilitate the implementation of the new positions of Professional Development Consultants which replaced the former PD Animateur. I worked closely with the Centre for Teaching and Learning (CTL) to redefine the position of the PD Committee with regards to the provision of Instructional Skills Workshops (which were redesigned as a programme titled "Excellence in Teaching and Learning" (ETaL)), as well as the variety of workshops and activities that are organised collaboratively between the PD Committee and the CTL.
As Chair, I sat as a voting member of the Faculty Association Executive, and had to mediate between that group and the College's senior leadership team when some of the policy changes that impacted Professional Development led to situations of conflict between these two parties to the Collective Agreement. Many issues included acceptable levels of oversight and control of the disbursement of funds through various administrative processes. This required tactful and strategic communication to focus on the goal of building an effective Professional Development programme that could fulfill the very diverse needs of faculty while keeping the necessary accountability and transparency framework. Several changes and adaptations to PD processes and policies followed, such as the streamlining of "special funding" and a somewhat less cumbersome application process for funds.
Some of the committee's successes under my leadership were the renewed New Faculty Orientation, the implementation of ETaL, a programme that has proven extremely useful and effective to our new faculty, as well as the streamlining of the Professional Development Guidebook by reducing it in size and complexity. I have also guided the committee through an ongoing process of review of its policies and processes with an aim to reduce the administrative overburden of our programme, so as to free up resources to directly impact faculty. Also, thanks to the work of our PD Consultants, we developed an active PD culture on campus, made up of workshops, webinars, and guest speakers who have revitalised the college's professional development culture, especially in light of the implementation of the institution's 5-year strategic plan, based on learner-centred approaches to learning. This included, most notably, a keynote conference by Maryellen Weimer in April 2013 that was aimed at all faculty, staff, and administrators of the College.
This position thus required of me the use of strategic thinking, of mediation, of facilitating decision-making, and of communicating effectively across various peoples and bodies of the college. I left the committee on a secure footing when I stepped down from the position of Chair in June 2014 in order to have more time to pursue scholarly activity of my own.
I returned to the Professional Development committee in the Fall 2021, having been hired as the Academic Professional Development Consultant, a position I helped create when the committee was restructured. This position is responsible for helping faculty members access various special funding opportunities and liaising with other committees within the institution that are concerned with scholarly activity and professional development. I also help applicants for sabbatical leaves develop their projects and present them for approval by the Vice President Academic.
As one of two PD Consultants, I work with my counterpart (from the Trades) to organise activities of interest to the college community at large and represent the Polytechnic on external bodies such as the ACIFA Professional Development committee.
This position comes with a fifty percent course release.