The goal of this paper is to contribute to theorising the complex concept of students as partners (SaP). This is important because SaP has far-reaching implications for higher education, but as yet there appears to be insufficient understanding about what exactly partnership is, and what it can legitimately claim to achieve. 'Partnership' may not be best for describing situations where students work with academics, due to hierarchical differences that result from unequal levels of expertise and knowledge. SaP further sometimes appears to be an elite idea benefitting small numbers of students. Moreover, the volume of concepts associated with SaP makes it too expansive to form a coherent theory, rendering critique hard. Because SaP embodies admirable values, it can be hard to argue against. Finally, we examine the extent to which SaP might devalue the role of the teacher and of knowledge.

From the very beginning, since the publication of our first volume, there have been calls in IJAD for a holistic approach to academic development. Back in 1996, Brew and Boud noted that ‘the necessary emphasis on teaching has distracted attention from the fact that university teachers are facing many other complex demands’ (p. 17). They highlighted diversity in the range of backgrounds of academics and their increasingly diverse range of roles, as well as the growth in the number of casual and contract staff. As a result, Brew and Boud (1996) called for new frameworks for academic development to emphasize negotiation and flexibility. More than twenty years later, Sutherland (2018) responded to what she terms the persistent calls for a more holistic approach to academic development echoing through the literature: an approach that would consider the whole of the academic role, the whole institution, and the whole person. Such a holistic understanding is also reflected in IJAD’s working definition of academic development (https://www.tandfonline.com/action/ authorSubmission?show=instructions&journalCode=rija20#working). The articles in the current issue all engage, whether explicitly or implicitly, with the complexities, challenges, and opportunities of a more holistic understanding of academic development work, one that is also more relational in character. Relationality is present in academic development practice, although rarely made explicit in role description. For example, when you meet an academic developer passionate about their work, it becomes clear that care, community, and quality are foundational to their philosophical and professional approach. Those drawn to the academic development profession are often individuals who experience the joys of teaching and serving their community by holding space for impactful conversations and experiences. Relational pedagogies drive academic development work, as confirmed by significant work in IJAD and in the field more broadly, including recent special issues on approaches to fostering communities of practice (Mårtensson & Roxå, 2015) and professional conversations (Pleschová et al., 2021). This work is underpinned by philosophies of care, with holistic, person-centred ontologies that inform academic developer work as ‘influencing agents’ (Debowski, 2014, p. 50) across capacity building, policy writing, and change enabling practices. It also becomes clear just how complex our work is. While many, perhaps most, of us still work in centralized units that focus on professional development of teaching, a holistic approach to academic development also embraces those in positions that emphasise educational technology or researcher development. A range of development services that specialise in one domain, or stretches across several dimensions of teaching and research work, seeks greater alignment to support the complexities of faculty work that may include teaching and research roles. Adding to the complexity of academic development work, staff in higher education institutions are affected by the socioINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR ACADEMIC DEVELOPMENT 2023, VOL. 28, NO. 2, 119–123 https://doi.org/10.1080/1360144X.2023.2203960

Much if not most work in the scholarship of teaching and learning is focused on measuring student learning and improving teaching quality. This is valuable, but a careful reading of foundational texts in the field shows that from the beginning another guiding motivation in SoTL went beyond the “didactic” yet is less apparent today: a commitment to addressing the urgent needs of the world. In this article, we trace how over time this second focus became less important as the professionalization of SoTL, likewise present from the beginning, became emphasized more and more. We then ask, how can we reconfigure SoTL theory and practice to retain the benefits of the didactic yet recover—or perhaps rediscover—SoTL’s purposes and potential to contribute to the great challenges facing students, communities, and the world? We propose that Edward Said’s argument for the worldly orientation of the public intellectual as “amateur” reveals how SoTL might resist his four pressures of professionalization: narrow specialization, certification of expertise, co-option by power, and intellectual conformity. Being alert to these pressures can help us to do SoTL with what Kasturi Behari-Leak calls a “situational ethos” that integrates the curiosity and passions of academics with the goals of students and the needs of the world.

Disciplinary knowledge lies at the heart of academic work. However, connecting academics’ disciplinary knowledge to their professional development as teachers has been a longstanding challenge for (research-intensive) universities. This is reflected in criticism of the practices that aim to support the professional development of university teachers. In order to create better connections, a deeper understanding is needed of how academics’ disciplinary knowledge relates to the development of their teaching. In this paper, we therefore aim to advance theoretical insights about how academics’ disciplinary knowledge connects to their professional development as university teachers. We do so by providing a conceptual analysis of teacher expertise and teacher knowledge perspectives. Literature discussed as part of the teacher expertise perspective provides insights into how knowledge is structured in order to perform teacher tasks. In our discussion of the teacher knowledge perspective, we include bodies of literature about teachers’ knowledge base to explore the role of disciplinary knowledge in how to teach and about powerful knowledge to explore the role of disciplinary knowledge in what to teach. Insights from these bodies of literature can, from a teacher knowledge perspective, offer theoretical underpinnings for connecting academics’ disciplinary knowledge to their professional development as university teachers. Adaptive expertise and practical knowledge are identified as concepts that include elements of both teacher expertise and teacher knowledge perspectives. Based on the conceptual analysis, we identify and discuss three aspects related to supporting the professional development of university teachers where attention to connection with teachers’ disciplinary knowledge is important.

The vexed issue of the ‘impact’ of academic work, and of academic development (AD) itself, remains a perennial challenge for our field (Bamber & Stefani, 2016; Chalmers & Gardiner, 2015; Moya, Turra, & Chalmers, 2019; Sutherland, 2015). A recent IJAD editorial (Sutherland & Hall, 2018) recognizes the importance of impact, while at the same time seeking to problematize or at least to question it. As Sutherland and Hall point out, ‘we declare in our “Aims and Scope” that our journal’s goal is to improve the quality of higher education internationally and it is important that we continually ask ourselves as scholars and practitioners of academic development if we are achieving this goal’ (p. 69). Measuring this impact by providing evidence of the difference that we make has been a concern since the early days of IJAD (for example, Kreber & Brook, 2001). While inference measures are weak, such as participant perception (or satisfaction) and participation numbers, in neoliberal times they in truth are still – and perhaps increasingly – valued institutionally to determine what the so-called ‘ROI’ (return on investment) of our services is, since these are indicators that are easily measured. But do such metrics enable us to measure what we value, or do they instead just allow us to measure what is easily measured? And do we then end up valuing what we (can) measure instead of measuring what we value (see Biesta, 2016)? To adapt a distinction from the student success literature (see, for example, Lipka, 2019), while access (and widening access) to AD is important, and while participant satisfaction and participation numbers certainly matter, to what extent do they indicate actual success? Given these issues, a prior question when it comes to measuring impact must involve considering the ‘normative validity’ of our measurements: a separate concern from their ‘technical validity’, or whether we are measuring what we intend to measure. Normative validity is a question of values and educational purposes (Biesta, 2016), of reflecting on ‘what constitutes “impact”’ and how we ‘sustain’ what we value (Sutherland & Hall, 2018, p. 69) before designing interventions to measure it, and so it requires paying more attention to the question of what ‘impact’ looks like. What are we trying to achieve, and why? What do we value as academic developers, and where can we make a difference? How do we value the rich knowledge and deep expertise of academics in higher education, whether in research universities or other post-secondary settings? And how (if at all) do we as academic developers connect our work, which more often than not will be focused on academics’ teaching, with priorities and values oriented toward research and the discovery of new knowledge? In this time of great disruption for the world in general, and for higher education and AD in particular, how are we dealing with the manifold challenges resulting from the pandemic, technological changes, and the straitened finances of many universities? These questions all ultimately concern not just how effective we are (technical validity) but whether what we do matters and why (normative validity), and they need to be posed INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR ACADEMIC DEVELOPMENT 2021, VOL. 26, NO. 1, 1–6 https://doi.org/10.1080/1360144X.2021.1876337

Contexts, knowledge, and theory matter for faculty development (also known as staff, academic, or educational development) because of the complexity of higher education and therefore of faculty professional development. This paper attempts to unpack this complexity by examining higher education contexts more closely, in particular: academic identity in relation to research and the discipline, change management in higher education, and the importance to academic development of valuing teaching in a coherent, integrated, and holistic way. The paper is framed by two ‘big ideas’, that of pedagogical content knowledge (Shulman, 1986, 1987), and that of learning as acquisition and participation (Sfard, 1998). I end by providing examples of practice underpinned by these ideas and considering implications for academic development.

In late August 2021, academics and students of two prestigious liberal arts programmes at the National University of Singapore (NUS) received an email message. Yale-NUS College and the University Scholars Programme are two distinctly different programmes intended to provide students with a high-quality cross-disciplinary education, a core priority of NUS. While not entirely unexpected, faculty, students, and parents were nevertheless taken aback by news of a merger between these two programmes, and the matter ended up being discussed very widely, including in parliament. The ‘merger’ was officially justified as part of a larger reorganization of the university into colleges that would enable greater crossand indeed, transdisciplinary collaboration in research and education. The point of starting our editorial with this anecdote is twofold. First, it suggests the ‘supercomplexity’ (Barnett, 2000) of the contemporary university and the higher education landscape within which we, as academic developers, find (or sometimes lose) ourselves. Second, it explicitly connects this high level of complexity with what Bass (2020, p. 6) calls the ‘wicked problem of learning’. Recognizing learning as a wicked rather than a tame problem means recognizing that higher education has ‘many interdependent complexities and a dynamic set of questions requiring extensive, ambitious, and unrelenting interdisciplinary investigation, innovation, and imagination, as all wicked problems demand’ (Bass, 2020, pp. 11–12). This requires a bigpicture orientation to transdisciplinarity and ‘convergence research’: it is precisely because of this that NUS is reorganizing. As the ‘broader context surrounding the core activities of academic development – teaching and learning – is becoming more organizationally complex’ (Stensaker, 2018, p. 257), how might we as academic developers address this complexity proactively and meaningfully? How might we be part of, and indeed shape, this complexity? Doing so requires a strategic orientation to academic development. The idea for this special issue first arose in 2018 during a course on strategic academic development (hereafter AD) in the context of Singapore higher education. The course, run by the Swedish academic developers Katarina Mårtensson and Torgny Roxå, was conceptualised as a professional development opportunity for participants, all of them academic/educational/faculty developers from across Singapore institutions. It was further planned as a vehicle for connecting participants in order to cultivate a scholarly community of practice of academic developers. Course participants could submit papers – developed from their course projects – for possible inclusion in the special issue, although the call for papers went beyond these participants and the majority of contributions do not derive from them. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR ACADEMIC DEVELOPMENT 2021, VOL. 26, NO. 4, 389–404 https://doi.org/10.1080/1360144X.2021.1995120

Academic development (AD) is increasingly being oriented towards an integrated approach to academic practice (AP), given arguments for the importance of integrating research, learning, and teaching. Given the complex and evolving character of AD as a profession, it is important to understand the conceptions of AD held by academic developers, who can play a key role in supporting conditions for such integration. This comparative case study explores conceptions of AD and the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) held by academic developers at two universities in Hong Kong and Singapore, and examines the extent to which these conceptions support an integrated AP. The findings show that not all conceptions recognise the importance of integration; moreover, though in both cases aspects of integration come to the fore, there are gaps that militate against a fuller understanding of integrating teaching and research. The study has implications for future AD practice and raises questions about using SoTL as a means of fostering teaching and research integration.

Megan Anakin, University of Otago, New Zealand Jenny Baechler, Dalhousie University, Canada Vicki Baker, Albion College, United States Veronica Bamber, Queen Margaret University, United Kingdom Linda Barman, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden Fran Beaton, University of Kent, United Kingdom Elizabeth Beckman, Australian National University, Australia Amani Bell, University of Sydney, Australia Maureen Bell, University of Wollongong, Australia Rebecca Bennett, University of Huddersfield, United Kingdom Johanna Bergqvist, Lund University, Sweden Klara Bolander Laksov, Stockholm University, Sweden Agnes Bosanquet, Macquarie University, Australia Chrissie Boughey, Rhodes University, South Africa Angela Brew, Macquarie University, Australia Christine Brown, University of Wollongong, Australia Derek Bruff, Vanderbilt University, United States Tony Burch, Independent Consultant, Australia Megan Burnett, University of Toronto, Canada Rachael Carkett, University of Bath, United Kingdom Susan Carter, The University of Auckland, New Zealand Chng Huang Hoon, National University of Singapore, Singapore Sue Clegg, Leeds Metropolitan University, United Kingdom Alison Cook-Sather, Bryn Mawr College, United States Peter Copeman, University of Canberra, Australia Gail Crimmins, University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia Roisín Curran, University of Ulster, United Kingdom Shelda Debowski, Independent Consultant, Australia Michele DiPietro, Kennesaw State University, United States Claire Englund, Umea University, Sweden Tereigh Ewert-Bauer, Dalhousie University, Canada INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR ACADEMIC DEVELOPMENT 2019, VOL. 24, NO. 4, 382–384 https://doi.org/10.1080/1360144X.2019.1661670

At the ISSOTL Conference in Bergen, Norway (October 2018), we were privileged to have heard a lecture by Professor Elizabeth Minnich, on “People who are not thinking Are capable of anything: What are students learning, how are students learning it, and does it make them better people?” As a follow up, in November 2019, Chng Huang Hoon (then-ISSOTL Vice President - Asia Pacific) invited the ISSOTL community to field their questions for Professor Minnich. Questions from four ISSOTL members were received. TLI has provided the platform to enable us to continue that important conversation. The participants are: Elizabeth Minnich, philosopher, author, teacher, Distinguished Fellow (Association of American Colleges & Universities). John Draeger, Professor of Philosophy and Director, Teaching and Learning Center, SUNY Buffalo State, USA. Torgny Roxå, Associate Professor and Academic Developer, Excellent Teaching Practitioner, Centre for Engineering Education, Faculty of Engineering, Lund University, Sweden. Johan Geertsema, Associate Professor (University Scholars Programme) and Director, Centre for Development of Teaching and Learning, National University of Singapore. Chng Huang Hoon, Associate Professor (English Language & Literature), Associate Provost (Undergraduate Education) and Director (Chua Thian Poh Community Leadership Centre), National University of Singapore. This conversation is in 3-parts: 1) Part One: Thoughtfulness, Thoughtlessness, Thinking and Teaching 2) Part Two: Thoughtlessness, scholarly reflection, and Outcomes-based teaching and learning 3) Part Three: Intensive and Extensive SoTL

The articles in this issue are all firmly situated in the complex world of higher education. Each contribution explores a challenge that has the potential of being turned into an opportunity. Thus,...

This volume addresses issues relating to different types of ‘moving beyond’ – beyond viewing academic developers as ‘mere’ service providers; beyond ‘surface’ approaches to evaluation; beyond forma...

This paper critically considers the attempt by a research-intensive university in Asia to draw on and make public the practices of teaching award winners in different disciplines through the use of narrative vignettes. More specifically, this paper examines what the vignettes suggest about the connection between award-winning teachers' conceptions of teaching (CT) on the one hand, and scholarly investigations of practice on the other, and to what extent the vignettes meet the aim of using the scholarship of teaching and learning as an instrument of effective academic development. Content analysis of the vignettes revealed that award-winning teachers' CT tend to focus predominantly on enhancing learning, followed by encouraging collective knowledge creation and transmission of knowledge. A two-dimensional framework was also used to analyse the vignettes along a tacit-integrated continuum and within an intuitive-reflective frame of inquiry. The findings are discussed in relation to teachers' perception of their impact on students' learning and ways to enhance their own practice, with implications for teaching awards, documentation, and dissemination of high-level teaching achievement.

This essay considers the relation between academic development, the scholarship of teaching and learning, and educational research. It does so with reference to questions of academic identity and disciplinary expertise, arguing that as developers we need to consider carefully the ways in which we frame how we approach attempts to foster reflective practice through the scholarship of teaching and learning. Rather than positioning SoTL as educational research, it may make more sense to approach it strategically as a means of development oriented towards more local levels of practice.