In this episode, Sarah Holtan, PhD, the President and Founder of High-level Leadership, LLC, delves deeply into how to protect the product of higher education. She argues that professional development funds for faculty and staff are essential to the quality of education. Discover how investing in people can save you money long term, reducing turnover and increasing productivity.

Sarah also discusses how professional development funding can lead to long-term savings through the continuous employment of top talent. Listen in as she draws an intriguing analogy between a non-profit college and an independent restaurant, exploring the roles and improvements necessary for success in both domains.

Don’t miss out on these eye-opening insights on the essential nature of professional development funds. Listen in, learn, and let’s get down to college business. Tune in now!

Episode Highlights:

05:26 - Research is one of or the most significant element of an academic portfolio. Faculty cannot progress on an individual level without that research. Additionally, the in-class learning and the student outcomes are reduced as well if faculty are not active in their own research. Truly, the curriculum is just not as strong when faculty are not active in their discipline.

12:54 - I'll argue that many faculty probably have a percentage of their load dedicated to research and development. But what about staff? I'm getting a guess that that's a rare scenario. So it's not just about the monetary funding, but also some time in their schedule to actually go out and learn.

18:48 - Another high cost, high return benefit is individual research and conference funding as we've been talking about from the beginning. Again, this is the product. We have to protect our product. That is part of our educational service and product. If faculty and staff are not producing new knowledge and sharing it with their students and community, they're not really in the learning business.

Sarah Holtan, PhD

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