University of Puget Sound’s New Faculty Development Center Helps Professors Reach Goals

Campus, Faculty

The center supports faculty in advancing professional and scholarly careers

In a cozy room on the main floor of Collins Memorial Library stocked with snacks and books on professional development, and furnished with indoor plants and comfortable couches, a group of professors is gathered to learn and share strategies for navigating the emotional impact of supporting students in crisis. This isn’t just a run-of-the-mill professional development course. It’s intentionally-curated programming offered by the Faculty Development Center (FDC), a new initiative by the University of Puget Sound to support faculty as teachers, scholars, leaders, and people.

“The mission is to support faculty throughout their time at Puget Sound,” says Erin Colbert-White, associate professor of psychology and inaugural director of the FDC. “That’s going to look different for people in different disciplines and different phases of their career, but our goal is to come alongside them and help them move towards their personal and professional goals—whatever they may be.”

Faculty members chat on Commencement Walk with Memorial Fieldhouse in the background

The Faculty Development Center's commitment to supporting holistic faculty excellence allows faculty members to engage more effectively with students in the classroom and beyond, while also modeling what it means to be lifelong learners and producers of knowledge.

The FDC hosts a variety of workshops, panels, and discussion groups around topics as diverse as securing grant funding for research, working toward publication, understanding implicit bias, and employing mindfulness practices. This year, the center even hosted its own in-house writing retreats, which Colbert-White plans to expand to an off-campus event during her second year as director. Colbert-White uses a holistic approach to professional development that centers around four key areas: teaching, research and scholarship, health and well-being, and service and leadership. She sees all four areas working in an intricate balance, where development in one area can strengthen others. The FDC also offers individual consulting to help faculty develop a plan for everything from reimagining their course content and delivery to setting healthy work-life boundaries.

Director, Faculty Development Center

Erin Colbert-White, associate professor of psychology

"Now is the time to rebuild our sense of community and reinvest in ourselves and what makes us feel fulfilled as teacher-scholars."

Colbert-White was tapped to build the new Faculty Development Center from the ground up. Over summer 2021, she worked with the Facilities Services team and the associate deans’ office to create the physical space, and programming launched officially in October 2021. She sees the center as an important way to help faculty engage with their students, stay active and enthusiastic about their scholarship, and model lifelong learning. Looking ahead, Colbert-White is planning to launch a faculty mentorship program and a focused effort to support professors in finding time, creative energy, and funding to pursue scholarly projects.

“We’ve just come through two years of major disruption in terms of the ways in which we teach, in our ability to pursue our own scholarship, in what it looks like to serve on a committee or contribute to your field, in carving out time to take care of ourselves,” Colbert-White says. “Now is the time to rebuild our sense of community and reinvest in ourselves and what makes us feel fulfilled as teacher-scholars.”

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