To Improve the Academy

An annual publication of the Professional and Organizational Development (POD) Network in Higher Education, this 25th anniversary edition of To Improve the Academy focuses on contributing to and expanding the scholarship of educational development. Each chapter of this volume provides context and strategies for faculty and organizational development that advances student learning.

To Improve the Academy, Volume 25, offers a resource for innovating and meeting new challenges in higher education to faculty and instructional development staff, department chairs, deans, student services staff, chief academic officers, and educational consultants. Divided into five sections, the book covers topics such as

• POD's ethical guidelines for educational developers
• Educational development and sociological imagination, or the ability to connect individual experience to social structure
• Paradigms for readers to consider, including critical theory and chaos theory
• Educational development and the scholarship of teaching and learning
• Specific practices and issues related to improving curriculum and instruction
• Faculty development, vitality, and reward at different stages of the faculty career

The aim of the book—and POD as an organization—is to instill in educational developers a sense of responsibility for improving the quality of teaching and learning. This anniversary edition not only celebrates this value but also guides readers to a workable understanding of how to contribute to improvements in higher education.