Adult learners have beliefs, assumptions, values, and prior knowledge that determine how they make sense of the world and their experiences. These assumptions may be challenged by people, contexts, crises, and new experiences. Faculty development is not only chronological but also event-based. As Christians themselves or as people who have chosen a religiously-affiliated institution, faculty want to integrate spiritual, intellectual, personal, and social aspects of their lives. Faculty in religious institutions are likely to feel unique tensions in doing so.
Isolated workshops have little impact on faculty.
The real impact comes from the campus and departmental culture and values, interaction with colleagues on and off campus, reward systems, hiring, and socialization of new faculty. However, a survey of faculty at the University of Cincinnati indicated that faculty viewed extrinsic rewards such as salary and promotion as symbols of the administration's commitment to faculty development, and they ranked reward systems high on a list of suggestions for enhancing teaching. For many faculty, teaching methods are the result of observation and practice, not formal training. Carnegie survey data suggests that at selective liberal arts colleges, research is more individualistic than bureaucratic and that faculty are often critical of their disciplines as narrow and irrelevant. Chief causes of stress for faculty are time conflicts, tenure pressures.