The best faculty development is continuous, varied, and intellectually robust. Bringing faculty up to speed in the pedagogy and scholarship of diversity is not a one-shot deal. It must be sustained over time with ample opportunity for continued study, candid dialogue, and repeated self-evaluations. When faculty themselves are suddenly students again tackling unsettling new material, they reconnect in new ways to their own students' experiences. Investments in faculty development, however, pay large dividends across institutions.
Faculty development is also the only way to make lasting curricular change.
Research on effective faculty development reveals that faculty value not only the intellectual stimulation it inspires, but also the new collegial community established through diversity work. Participants also are frequently surprised to discover that faculty development activities validate good teaching and good teachers. They feel greater permission to take more risks as teachers and scholars. When faculty themselves are suddenly students again tackling unsettling new material, they reconnect in new ways to their own students' experiences. Faculty development initiatives also lead to other kinds of institutional change.