Abstract
Universities are experiencing serious challenges: constant funding problems, staff and student mental health and wellbeing issues, deep inequities, revolutions in technology, and serious questions about the whole meaning and purpose of higher education (HE), to name a few. Universities are not new to challenges, and HE staff have a long record of dealing with change. In reflecting on 40+ years of such changes, this paper builds on a keynote delivered at a SEDA conference, and on the contributions of academic developers who were invited to give their views on the issues raised. From their responses, it is clear that, notwithstanding the very grave problems afflicting the sector today, academic developers can have some hope for the future. Generations of academic development have evolved in parallel with sectoral changes over the decades, and developers have proved that they have the capacities to face with justified confidence the undoubted challenges which are approaching in the next stage of HE development. This paper looks back in order to support the process of living forwards, when academic developers will continue to use those capacities and play key roles in what is to come. This is important for active learning, in which academic developers have long played, and will continue to play, a key role.
Introduction
Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.
Higher Education (HE) staff are under continuous pressure as institutions face “a new era of permacrisis” (Favier, 2025), manifest in serious funding and resource issues, staff and departmental reductions, inter-institutional competition, the managerialist focus on targets, structural change (like the complex move from HE to a wider tertiary sector, discussed in Phoenix & Kolyva, 2025), public accountability accompanied by negative press coverage, the technological revolution, overloaded staff, student mental health difficulties, the changing international landscape, and questions around the whole purpose of HE. While such challenges play out differently for different HE institutions and their staff, negativity in the UK sector is such that a trade union survey about working in HE (UCU, 2022) found that, of 7,000 university staff across 100 institutions, 90% felt pessimistic about the future of HE, a third of academic staff were employed on fixed-term (precarious) contracts, and two-thirds would leave HE in the next 5 years due to pension cuts, pay and working conditions. The world “is in a transition from a relatively stable political, economic and social period towards one in considerable turmoil with radical implications for higher education” (Hazelkorn et al., 2022, p. 125).
While this paper provides a case example of UK experiences, there is much of relevance for those in other countries; UK HE’s permacrisis is not unique. North American institutions are dealing with similar challenges, including shifting government policies, financial instability, changing demographics, technological advances, student debt, public perceptions of HE, diversity and inclusion, and mental health issues (The Change Leader, n/d). Budget cuts are affecting universities not only in the US but in much of Europe, putting into question the very survival of core academic values (Wit et al., 2025).
In such volatile times (Hazelkorn et al., 2022) is it possible to find positives to light the way forward for academic developers who often find themselves at the forefront of change? The term academic developers (also known as educational or faculty developers) covers a range of roles, in developing learning and teaching or research, and a range of institutional locations and responsibilities. As well as supporting the development of teaching skills, academic developers are key in disseminating and implementing institutional strategy (Gaebel & Zhang, 2024), with the accompanying challenges of change management.
Sometimes, as Kierkegaard (1835) reminds us, it is necessary to look backwards to understand and deal with what is to come – and sectoral change will certainly keep coming. In what follows, I reflect on some 40 years of change, to consider why and how things developed as they did. Why 40? Two reasons: to reflect on my own experience of 40 years’ working in HE, and to identify a change of era which Thatcherist central regulation, funding cuts and neoliberalism kick-started in the 1980s (Bailey, 2014).
Looking Back: Key Developments in HE Over Time
As unlikely as it might now seem, until the 1980s Governments largely left universities to manage their own affairs. Academics were generally left to teach their students as they wished, with little management interference, and students were left undisturbed to study in their own ways, on the assumption that the tiny numbers of students who had reached university would learn unbidden. Pre-1980s, however, a gentle earth tremor was already rumbling through the system. It was initiated by the Robbins Report (1963), which set the target of increasing participation in HE from the shockingly low figure of 4% of the age group to 13% by 1973. By the late 1990s, targets had lifted to aspirations of mass HE (15%–50% participation rates), and this expansionist trajectory continues today, albeit with nuances such as the pressure to offer degree-level apprenticeships. What seemed like a tremor in the 1960s and 1970s thus became a veritable earthquake, requiring huge changes in the sector, some of which might be seen as positive (like attention to student learning) and some as negative (like managerialism), although the reality is much more nuanced than simple positives or negatives. Trow (1973) predicted that expansion would lead to change in:
Size of institutions.
Institutional boundaries.
Administration and governance.
Student homogeneity.
Modes of attendance.
Curriculum.
Student experience.
Academic standards.
Forms of instruction.
Staff-student relationships.
The many changes which universities have faced over the past 40 years map closely to what Trow predicted. For instance, “student experience” in the much larger cohorts of today is very different from that of students a few decades ago, and the “size of institutions” became wholesale mergers into mega-institutions from the 1990s onwards. From the 1980s, “administration and governance” translated into managerialism and its attendant changes in university cultures, reflected in the moves to private sector-type management and finance post-Jarratt Report (1985). The UK was not alone in this; following US moves towards performance-based accountability, many European countries, such as Germany, Sweden, Denmark, and Austria, followed suit (Alexander, 2000).
Of course, not all government-driven interventions are immediately implemented. While the 1963 Robbins Report highlighted deficits, including staff training and development, and poor attention to learning and teaching (L&T) compared to research, systemic change was slow to come. But pressures over the following decades led to action, and Table 1 below “Major strategic initiatives in UK HE over the decades” charts some of the top-down reviews and policy directives which reshaped the sector, from the 1980s to the 2020s. It is clear from the “Key Sectoral Initiatives” column that external intervention in university learning and teaching increased over the decades, with wide repercussions for issues like widening participation, staff training and development, quality processes, student funding, and evidence-informed practice.
Major Strategic Initiatives in UK HE Over the Decades.
In the “Academic Development Generations and Activities” column, the table lists consequent changes in academic development (AD), including the review which was by far the most impactful for AD, chaired by Dearing (National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education [NCIHE], 1997), and these changes will be discussed in the second part of the paper.
While the university sector has been transformed partly due to push factors, such as these major government interventions, pull factors from within the sector, such as the growing power of polytechnics which gained university status after 1992, have also had an impact. I can throw some light on one example of a pull factor: as a new lecturer in the early 1980s, inspired by the then Director of Preston Polytechnic, Eric Robinson, who was committed to the idea of a “people’s university,” I witnessed the growing massification of student numbers as the institution’s doors were opened to students from an unprecedented range of ethnic and social backgrounds, and with a range of abilities. This initiated a shift over time from 4,000 to 42,000 students (Roff, 2011), which would, inevitably, necessitate many of Trow’s adjustments.
In the 1980s, however, HE still lacked many of the structures and frameworks now expected from a university system. There were no credit and qualifications frameworks, institutional L&T strategies, assessment specifications, Bologna agreement, or clear written information for students, and scant pedagogical scholarship. Few institutions provided even minimal lecturer development, while student support was lecturer-dependent and ad hoc. Academic departments knew little about what senior managers were planning, and public information about institutions and their programmes was negligible. In McNay’s (1995) analysis of organisational cultures as being collegial, bureaucratic, corporate or entrepreneurial the management regimes of 1980s universities fall firmly into the category of collegial, laissez-faire cultures, with loose regulatory and management frameworks. The 1980s marked what Shattock (1994) referred to as the end of an era of independent academic culture.
In the 1990s, the massification of student numbers gained traction across western Europe and in other OECD countries (Alexander, 2000), albeit with different contexts and challenges (Wit et al., 2025). In the UK, this brought restructuring and mergers, as polytechnics and colleges became universities, and HE systems across Europe have experienced similar shifts in governance and policy (Smeenk et al., 2009).
Following the UK 1992 Further and Higher Education Act, designed to eliminate the divide between polytechnics and universities, the unified system did see polytechnics becoming universities, but also produced unanticipated consequences. In another example of a pull factor from within the sector, the older, pre-’92 universities were impelled to adopt some characteristics of the ex-polytechnics, in areas like quality regulation, modularisation of course structures, recruitment of non-traditional students, such as those from underrepresented socio-economic groups or ethnicities, and attention to vocational relevance of courses (Emms, 2022). The Dearing Report (NCIHE, 1997) brought explicit guidance on accountability for the staff and student experience, with clearer expectations of staff and student behaviours, and attempts to acknowledge the equivalent value to universities of research and teaching. A key Dearing recommendation from the AD viewpoint was the creation of an Institute for Learning and Teaching to accredit training programmes for lecturers. Most universities responded by creating their own programme, usually linked to probation, with a focus on improving practice in learning, teaching, assessment and student support.
The 2000s continued the managerial push, with an increased focus on data, much resisted by many who, despite well-rehearsed objections to metrics (Bamber, 2020) later appreciated the value of an evidence-informed approach to enhancing L&T, and the power of sticks, as well as carrots. The Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) has illuminated issues of access, and the National Student Survey (NSS) while not a perfect proxy for teaching quality, has powered enhancement initiatives. These and other data sets which survey undergraduate and postgraduate student experiences have fed increasingly into university systems to underwrite league table positioning, as competition for student fees and performance-based government funding intensified. This has amplified “performativity” at all levels (Bamber, 2020) but also underpinned funding for innovation and L&T-related initiatives, both institutionally, such as in NSS-driven enhancement projects, and nationally, as in Roberts Review funding (2002) to embed support for PhD students. Devolution of education in the UK nations is reflected in different approaches to university quality. Scotland, for example, adopted an enhancement-led approach in 2003, with significant emphasis on collaboration between institutions and the quality agency.
The 2010s brought increased belt tightening, workload pressures, workforce casualisation, institutional targets and more performativity, often to meet regulatory body expectations. For students, full-time undergraduate fees in England rose from £3,290 to £9,000 per year, fuelling market-led, consumerist HE. Institutions which previously enjoyed student collegiality and loyalty have had to work to engender engagement and belonging between students and their university community (Thomas, 2012). Since there is some evidence that consumerism promotes passive learning (Naidoo et al., 2011) this is worrying for advocates of active learning (AL).
The 2020s brought the pandemic and a rocket boost to technology-enhanced learning (TEL), plus increased student mental health issues, staff workload and burnout, and financial pressure on institutions. Under the then UK government’s mantra of “low value degrees,” the government asked the Office for Students (OfS) to ensure that “courses which fail to deliver good earnings are subject to stricter controls” (DfE, 2023), thereby bringing into question the very purpose of HE, and leading students to question the value for money of their education.
Views From the Frontline
I presented some of the above reflections in a keynote delivered to the 400+ delegates at a Staff and Educational Development Association (SEDA) conference and asked them to share in the online chat what changes they had witnessed in their different HE settings. My purpose was to better understand those changes and to learn from their experiences in dealing with them. While SEDA members are a heterogenous group, with differing contexts, experiences, perceptions and histories, their responses had much in common. The comments can be categorised in terms of culture change, increased demands on staff, the changing student experience, changes in strategy and structures, management approaches, and questions around the purpose of HE.
Regarding culture, delegates said that university cultures have become more complex, demanding and emotionally challenging, resulting in multiple and constantly mutating (academic) identities. While HE is now a more inclusive environment in which to work, with a diverse global community of staff, one delegate suggested that we now have a 365-day academic year, and others highlighted precarious contracts and high expectations of staff, and a dearth of student-free periods to undertake research or relax. More positively, they noted greater awareness of student-centred approaches and TEL to enable active, collaborative learning, together with greater transparency about what is expected of students, with clearer learning outcomes, and a greater role for personal tutoring.
Staff are now expected, however, to manage the wellbeing of students in addition to their learning, and resources are a constant issue, manifest in funding-led management, rounds of efficiency, course closures and staff loss, a lack of support for L&T development, and greater research expectations. Delegates commented on the catalysing impact of Covid-19 on online L&T, with consequent increases in workload and a complete re-evaluation of the staff-student relationship.
Delegates recounted that student experiences and expectations have changed for the Gen Z students (born 1997–2012) who now constitute a large proportion of the current cohort. While such a diverse generation cannot be stereotyped (as discussed by Taslibeyaz et al., 2024), delegates noted the complex demands on these students’ time, with commuter students displaying presenteeism on campus amidst significant financial and work pressures (ONS, 2023).
They also pointed to a marked shift in perceptions of the purpose of HE, emphasising preparation for work over more “pure” academic degrees. At the same time, greater diversity and neurodiversity in the classroom have increased awareness of the range of student needs. And, while many students may now lack the sense of belonging pivotal for their success (Thomas, 2012), there is better attention to student and staff mental wellness.
Concerning institutional strategy and structure, delegates commented on the challenges that have come from increased regulation, growth in international student numbers, and lower entry requirements for some courses, while modularisation has atomised programme ownership. Along with a greater focus on inclusion and access, class sizes have increased, and some institutions/regions have seen the “death” of subjects and disciplines, especially in the Arts and Humanities. They noted how commercialisation of HE has created more private providers, while universities struggle for numbers and battle for the financial contributions of international students. Delegates also highlighted structural influences that come from several sources: from the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF), with “a massive focus on student metrics,” from the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted; for degree apprenticeships), increased international learners, open education initiatives and Advance HE Recognition. Many expressed concerns about education now being seen as a “business,” while attacks from national media and government around HE for students’ lifetime pay have resulted in disdain for academia in some quarters, with an anti-intellectualism and lack of empathy for academic staff and an increasingly politically polarised view of the country.
At the same time, management approaches were said to exclude academic staff from decision-making, either by design or by dint of workload. One delegate commented on how striking it was that so little had changed and that colleagues were still fighting the same battles, in particular with regard to ideology and attitudes of senior management in HE institutions.
Implications for Academic Development
It is clear from this brief 40+ year overview of key changes in HE, and the experiences of the SEDA delegates, that HE has undergone decades of multi-faceted change, including continuous shifts in sectoral policy and institutional strategy. Academic development staff are often in the front line of implementing such change.
But why is this a matter of interest in this journal on active learning? Because active learning is not simply what goes on between an academic and their students; it is part of a L&T culture, and AD plays a very important role in facilitating that culture. Among key competencies in the “unique skillset” of academic developers is knowledge of active and engaged learning (POD Network, 2016), and a commitment to supporting academic colleagues to develop the necessary skills and confidence for effective AL. Any colleague who has attended an academic development course will have come across the writing of foundational thinkers, such as Chickering and Gamson (1987), Boyer (1990), and Biggs (1999). That scholarship underpins AL values and pedagogy, leading to improvements in areas such as curriculum design, student-student and student-lecturer interactivity, interactive resource design, student engagement, assessment and feedback for learning, classroom engagement, active online learning, and students as researchers.
However, knowing about AL theory and practice is not enough in itself. Academic developers have used their understandings of how to effect change, and have leveraged wider, sectoral change to generate AL developments. Examples include harnessing quality assurance and enhancement policies to promote the shift to more student-centred learning, to move the narrative from “teaching” to “learning,” and to resource L&T enhancement. ADs are advocates for listening to the “student voice,” amidst growing awareness of social justice and diversity. None of these developments were on Trow’s 1973 list, which underlines, perhaps, the unpredictability of change, a point we will revisit later in this paper.
Returning to Table 1, the policy, regulatory and strategy changes outlined have required innovation from generations of developers in supporting colleagues and institutions to work within changing paradigms. Such innovation has resulted in step changes, which I would call generational changes, in development work.
The final column of Table 1 lists some of these generational changes in AD over the decades, mapped against the key sectoral changes described in the previous section, and listed in column 1 of the table. Readers will know of changes which are not listed here, and will realise that change does not slot neatly into decade tranches – Table 1 is illustrative, rather than exhaustive. Some of the changes listed illustrate a cause-and-effect mechanism between sectoral shifts and AD, such as the relationship between Dearing, the Institute for Learning and Teaching in HE (ILTHE) and academic developers instituting PG Certs in L&T. Often, the cause and effect are much more loosely coupled, such as when the massification earth tremor, mentioned previously, increased in size and strength and gradually became widening participation strategies.
What we might call Generation 0 of academic development, pre-1990s, provided very limited development. According to Gibbs (2013), AD employed only around 30 people across all UK institutions in the 1970s. Gosling (2001) describes times when a few developer pioneers were only just surviving in adverse circumstances (p. 86): When HEDG [Higher Education Development Group] was formed in 1995 there was a strong sense of a vulnerable and emerging group of people, mostly newly appointed to positions with institution-wide responsibility for enhancing learning and teaching, who needed to meet to share experience, provide mutual support in a hostile world and plan their survival.
In Generation 1, till the end of the 1990s, AD work was characterised, with only a few exceptions, by optional stand-alone workshops, often aimed at improving lecturing for expanding student numbers. A small number of initiatives such as Gibbs’ “Teaching More Students Project” (1992) offered practical guidance to those who looked for it.
In the 2000s, in Generation 2, the Dearing Review led to systematisation of AD, with more formal, less optional provision. PG Certificates in L&T developed in most universities post-Dearing, linked to probation and recognition by the ILTHE, building on SEDA’s earlier accreditation initiatives. An initial focus on improving teaching then extended to researcher development under Roberts funding (2002). The national Teaching Quality Enhancement Fund (TQEF) required institutions to develop L&T strategies, so AD units became engaged in whole-of-institution L&T strategy implementation, for example relating to student support and employability.
Generation 3, in the 2010s, brought mainstreaming and a national professional standards framework (PSF) (Higher Education Academy, 2011), with related institutional CPD schemes, designed to support fellowship applications and underpin leadership development. An updated PSF followed (Advance HE, 2023). The UK Quality Code for Higher Education was developed by the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) in 2012, with active learning firmly embedded in principles of student engagement and active learning methodologies.
In the 2020s, activities for many current developers have broadened conceptually, in scholarship and in understandings of AD and contextually, including extensions to AD frontiers (Evans, 2024). For example, many AD units work not only within their institutions, but also within sectoral initiatives. Significantly, heads of AD also have a more significant voice at the committee table, which previous generations of AD did not. It may be asked what Generation 4 of AD will bring: the Postgraduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching in most institutions has been central to AD for more than 20 years - could ever-increasing pressures on institutional financial resources herald the demise of the PG Certificate in L&T? There are signs of institutions moving to shorter, less resource-intensive options.
The generational changes experienced in AD have brought commensurate changes in academic developers’ ways of thinking and practising, to borrow a concept from McCune and Hounsell (2005), leading to identity shifts (Brew, 2004), and extended reach, relationships and roles for developers.
Their reach has shifted from working with individual academics to supporting programmes and departments, the institution, UK partner institutions, and global partners. Relationships and interrelationships are with individual academics, but also with senior management, the Quality Office, Planning, Student Support, the Student Union, and national agencies such as Advance HE, the quality agency and regulatory bodies. The roles played in these varied contexts are vital to institutional imperatives, and increasingly mandated by senior management (Bamber, 2020). The changed ways of thinking and practising have meant more engagement in strategy implementation, scholarship, change management, collaboration, evidence-informed activity and bridging between diverse groups, but less one-to-one support for academics.
In summary, these generational shifts in the identities, skills and knowledge of academic developers are their response to decades of evolution within a constantly changing HE sector. The challenges will keep coming, as Martin (2018) warns: “There is no all-enveloping safety-zone identified for the future” (p. 17). Baume’s (2016, p.101) question of “How should developers respond to the blizzard of signs from the future?” is apposite. I would argue that developers will do this by continuing to hone the core change capacities which have stood them in good stead over preceding decades and which are vital for supporting institutional and sectoral change, and these change capacities are the focus of the next part of this paper.
Looking to the Future of Academic Development
Following Kierkegaard’s advice, looking back holds two major lessons: first, that while HE changes vary, change itself is constant, and, second, that academic development has flourished through all these changes because it has responded constructively at each turn, with ADs developing key change capacities and using them to adjust to new frameworks and new contexts.
Baume (n/d) once described academic developers as “principled, pragmatic opportunists.” This means that, rather than digging their heels in, developers adapt to ever-changing contexts, to make the most of their specific opportunities for enhancement - without forgetting academic values. Of the many capacities which developers have evolved over the past decades, I suggest that four specific capacities have particular relevance for the challenging times ahead. These are: working with uncertainty in changing contexts (as when adjusting to the latest government or institutional priority), working with systems and cultures to leverage change (as when probationary requirements were introduced for new lecturers on PG Certs L&T), fostering collaborations (of which the enhancement approach to quality in the Scottish system has been a good example), and balancing strategic with operational work (as when managing responses to institutional strategies, while maintaining support for academics). The next section discusses these four capacities.
Working with Uncertainty in Changing Contexts
Twenty-five years ago, Barnett (2000) indicated that supercomplexity - working together in epistemological pandemonium and with uncertainty in changing contexts - was “the new normal” (p. 167). This was echoed by later scholars, such as Groen et al. (2023) who offered conceptual tools to equip academic developers to “navigate changing seas” (p.76), and LeBlanc (2018) on the need to exercise organisational agility in a VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous) world. Barnett’s pandemonium is not completely opaque, however; it has patterns and key features, and academic developers, with their birds-eye view across institutions and departments, and nuanced understandings of the macro institutional/national context, the micro individual, and the meso levels in the middle, have developed the ability to discern and work with these multi-layered features. I would contend that the operational capacities demanded of today’s (Generation 4) ADs extend well beyond those of Generation 1 ADs who were involved in facilitating L&T workshops, but whose wider influence was limited.
What “working with uncertainty in changing contexts” means in practice is that ADs deploy contextual knowledge in combination with change thinking and practices (Trowler et al., 2002), such as described metaphorically by Reynolds and Saunders (1987) as the “implementation staircase.” The staircase metaphor describes what tends to happen in universities with top-down policy initiatives; on each step of the staircase, actors catch the policy “ball” from above, bounce it around, throw a few curve balls, and eventually bat it back upstairs, generally changing or averting the intended policy outcome. ADs have become adept at negotiating and navigating policy initiatives towards an outcome which bears some resemblance to the policy objective, but which considers the interests of those affected, by acting as intermediaries in interpreting, implementing and thoughtfully subverting management intentions into the realities of different subject areas and contexts.
Developers stand, to continue the metaphor, on a staircase of constant change, sometimes high up on the staircase, as policymakers or key policy leads, sometimes as implementers at different stages of the policy journey. On the staircase, developers join others in catching the policy “ball” and adapting it as it progresses along the policy process, knowing that “change changes change” (Trowler et al., 2002). For example, since the National Student Survey was introduced in the UK in 2005, ADs have helped formulate policy based on data, research and experience, and have then supported its implementation across the subject disciplines. When presented with a policy, let’s say on using feedback for learning, ADs have been key to supporting subject disciplines in their different interpretations of what to do. The academic development role, by its nature, gives ADs particular responsibility for making change happen, and working with uncertainty in academic contexts has been, and will continue to be, central to that work.
Working with Systems and Cultures, to Leverage Change
Operating within these complex change contexts, ADs apply their “scholarly, critical, and questioning stance” (Bovill & Mårtensson, 2014, p. 263) to working with institutional strategy. They use systems thinking, appreciating the interconnectedness of the different parts of their institutions. A model which encapsulates this approach is the well-known 7-S Framework (Peters & Waterman, 1982), which speaks to the multi-faceted, interdependent nature of organisations, as depicted in my adapted version of the framework in Figure 1 below, with the seven key elements of Structure, Strategy, Systems, Skills, Style, Staff and Shared Values. You will spot the adaptation, the additional S for Students, because ensuring student engagement in leveraging change (in more than name only) was a foreign concept four decades ago, but is now an approach which developers actively sponsor when ensuring student representation in decision-making or in co-creation of the curriculum.
8-S framework.
ADs have developed holistic approaches (often intuitively) to the 8-S elements, knowing that changing any one of them affects others. For example, ADs doing the tricky job of responding to students’ NSS reviews of the poor timing and quality of their assessment feedback have displayed sophisticated juggling of all 8-Ss: they know it would be perilous to work at the Strategy and Structure levels, pushing the feedback policy through committees, while ignoring the “soft” elements of Skills (helping colleagues to provide good quality feedback for learning) and Shared Values (the importance of listening to what students are telling us), and failing to engage Staff in the process (perhaps to design a feedback protocol for their particular department). The policy “ball” bounces quickly down the implementation staircase and out the door, if we fail to take account of these contextual factors.
Apart from leveraging all the 8-S elements, ADs working strategically have learned to operate with and through the interacting layers of system activity (International/National, Institutional, School/Department/Programme, Individual Academic), while acting top-down (supporting institutional strategy), bottom-up (individual needs) and middle-out, engaging with those pivotal heads of department, year heads and programme leaders who make things happen locally (Trowler et al., 2002). This middle-out engagement is what Sally Brown (personal communication, 2025) calls the jacuzzi model of AD, coming from all directions at once in a therapeutic way. Here the example of metrics is illustrative, where academic developers working in Generation 3 started using data at all levels: institutionally, for the purposes of rankings and league tables, at subject level, when benchmarking across subjects, and for individual academics, in module or programme evaluation. So, another aspect of systems working is the ever-present demand for systematic evidence, and developers have become increasingly sophisticated in this area, as expressed by Groen et al. (2023, p. 81): Building in the systematic collection of data as part of their habitual actions, educational developers have begun to transform snapshots of practice (often taken every few years) into motion pictures of impact that serve the growing needs of reporting as well as increased interest in processes of continuous improvement.
I have written elsewhere (Bamber, 2013) about the “what and how” of evidencing the value of development activities. As for the why, funding follows institutional strategic priorities and evidence of impact. Many AD units have found that no evidence means no resources (Bamber, 2020).
Fostering Collaborations
The revised PSF (Advance HE, 2023) has accentuated “collaboration” as a core professional value, and this is especially pertinent for AD which as a “joint enterprise of academic developers and members of university communities” (Sutherland, 2018, p. 270) cannot be done to others, only with them. ADs have worked to foster collaborative cultures to achieve whole-of-institution change efforts (Thomas, 2020) by building dialogue and activities in the borderlands between communities. Arguably, in Generation 1 or 2 of AD, developers could “deliver” development in a uni-directional activity, through workshops or courses. Today they collaborate with anyone working under the same strategic umbrella; for example, ADs work with Careers colleagues and year tutors in support of Employability work, or the IT department and programme leaders on TEL projects. Promoting active learning necessarily involves a range of people around the table in pursuit of AL objectives; library staff, learning advisors, TEL support, student partners, placement and year tutors come to mind.
It is hard work to undertake joint initiatives with multiple departments, especially in the initial relationship-building stages, but it is imperative for cross-institutional understanding when investigating topics like the experiences of specific student groups. In some institutions, collaborative working is easier now that AD work is openly articulated and strategically aligned with institutional demands, rather than being a maverick, below-the-parapet activity, as it often was in earlier generations.
As well as who developers work with, the how of collaboration is changing. An insight from SEDA delegates was that lack of funding has shrunk formal collaboration, but informal collaboration has increased, and developers are working at every institutional level, building bridges with strategic friends in high places and forming communities of practice based on situated needs. This requires different skills and different paces of work, as expressed by one SEDA conference delegate who highlighted that working with academics offered opportunities for broader and long-term change and thus greater opportunities for impact, rather than working with senior leaders who functioned at a faster pace, but usually had their eye on the next big change.
An effective AD pace changer uses existing collaborative processes and mechanisms to find an appropriate pace and methodology and then persuade and engage those on different steps of the implementation staircase to work together. Where existing processes are unhelpful, new ones must be found, even if it is as simple as inviting colleagues for coffee.
Balancing Strategic With Operational Work
The foregoing demonstrates that strategy work cannot be neglected. Since universities enacted L&T strategies as a funding requirement post-Dearing (NCIHE, 1997), Generation 3 academic developers have been drawn into developing and meeting institutional objectives. But ADs of every generation have felt a duty of care towards colleagues as they support them individually in their learning, teaching and research activities. So, a particular challenge is avoiding being sucked into the vortex of strategic imperatives, to the detriment of support for individuals or programmes, or vice versa.
Making time for compassion is vital, as, otherwise, arguably, “we have managers creating a culture where everyone is out for themselves” (O’Brien & Guiney, 2018, p. 7), although senior managers are also caught between their own compassion and strategic imperatives. For both managers and developers, compassion does not come cheap. ADs will continue to struggle to balance institutional strategic priorities and personal advocacy, particularly in these times of constantly diminishing resources and staffing.
Conclusion
Looking back, universities have changed, and continue to change, in their structures, strategies, ways of doing things, and in all the elements identified by Trow (1973). Academic development has evolved through generations of change to meet these challenges. There is much to digest in considering where academic development has come from, what capacities developers have evolved along the way, and how they can keep true to their values (and sanity!), while moving forward. Times have been difficult, and it is hard to see how things can improve in universities in the current context. However, looking back over the evolution of AD, there has been daylight, and daylight must surely be there going forwards, as one delegate indicated - “focus on what we believe and uphold as there’s always light at the end of the tunnel.” Inspiration can, indeed, be taken from the SEDA conference community, whose contributions revealed (generally) positive attitudes and wisdom: “Despite the anxiety of the sector, I still love working in HE and especially AD!” This enthusiasm is important, but not enough in itself. Crossing our fingers and hoping for the best in hard times must be accompanied by continued reflection on past experiences to improve our skilled approaches to navigating the hard times to come.
David Baume (n/d) described academic developers as principled, pragmatic opportunists. Future generations of developers will continue to work in principled ways in everchanging contexts, navigating systems, evidence and cultures to leverage change, fostering collaborations, and balancing strategic–operational work. The future can’t be fixed, but developers’ capacities in these areas leaves them well placed to take Kierkegaard’s advice about understanding what is behind us, to inform the next generation of AD. They will reflect and, as one delegate said: “be brave and be the change,” while continuing to hone those impressive change capacities.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to the SEDA conference committee for the opportunity to discuss these important issues at the SEDA conference, and to delegates for their wisdom and willingness to share. I am indebted to colleagues who provided generous and helpful feedback on previous versions of this paper: Professor Sally Brown, Dr Rob Daley, Dr Mary Fitzpatrick. Professor Pam Parker and, particularly, Dr John Bamber.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.