CHAPTER EIGHT:
LEARNING STAFF AND STAFF DEVELOPMENT[*]

• Purpose of Learning Staff and Staff Development
• Process of Developing New Designs for Learning Staff and Staff Development
• Connecting Learning Staff and Staff Development to Previous Elements in Design Process
• Key Concepts Regarding Learning Staff and Staff Development
• Design Specifications for Learning Staff and Staff Development
• New Designs for Learning Staff and Staff Development
• Summary

The purpose of this chapter is to describe and rationalize a set of design specifications for the learning staff and staff development for NDTYI. The recommendations regarding staffing and staff development are to follow from and be consistent with the design specifications for the previous design elements. The design specifications for staffing and staff development were formed from the results of a focus group interview with TYI staff and administrators, National Design Group observations and discussions, and a review of best practice and research in the United States.

Purpose of Learning Staff and Staff Development

To the extent learning experiences are planned and guided by someone other than or with the learner, there is a need for a learning staff. And for the staff to keep up-to-date with a changing context, changing learners, and changing knowledge base, the staff must be continually involved in renewal or professional development. The purpose of learning staff and staff development as an element of the design-down process is to underscore the importance of the staff to NDTYI. If an institution is not willing to make the needed changes in staff and the investment in staff development, then undertaking the NDTYI process is ill-advised. The attitude and competence of staff with regard to NDTYI are central to feasible implementation.

Process of Developing New Designs
for Learning Staff and Staff Development

The recommendations presented for design specifications regarding learning staff and staff development are carefully drawn from the design recommendations of previous elements of the design process as well as the focus group findings, National Design Group discussions, and the review of best practices and research. At this stage in the design process, the implications for each subsequent element in the design process are building to the point of being fairly prescriptive. A particular path is being taken with regard to the design of the TYI, and the usefulness of more general ideas from focus groups, and the review of best practices and research are more limited. Rather, the focus is more narrowly on the practices, insights, and research that is more or less specific to the direction being taken in the design process. With this in mind, the next section will review the results of the focus group interview on staff and staff development and the discussions of the National Design Group.

Focus Group Findings

The focus group on learning staff and staff development took place at Miami-Dade Community College at the same time, but a different place, from the focus group on learning partnerships. The interview was with faculty and administrators, including representation from the Teaching and Learning Center, which will be described later in this section as representing an exemplary new design for staff development. The focus group interview was formed around the question of desired features of staff and staff development when the learning process in TYIs was particularly effective. Key points made by the participants in the focus group were as follows:

• The learning staff should include everyone who is responsible for enhancing student learning--that includes all of the staff on the campus (e.g., full- and part-time faculty, secretaries, counselors, admissions staff, administrators) as well as those involved in setting up and mentoring internships and those at distance learning sites.
• Continued learning should be expected of all members of the learning staff.
• Staff development should be integrated with student learning and occur in multiple settings.
• Standards of excellence for staff development relating to various functional responsibilities (e.g., teacher, support service, administration) should be developed and used.
• Support services (e.g., someone to take over responsibilities while one is away for staff development) and time provisions should be available to enable staff to participate in staff development.
• Staff development should occur in a wide variety of ways, including job exchange, both horizontally and vertically in the organization, inside and outside the college.
• The community should be seen as a place for staff development.
• There should be a collegial approach to the way that staff operates, with much more interdisciplinary contact and contact between staff on campus and in other learning sites.
• There should be much wider involvement of the staff in the institutional decisionmaking process.
• A sound financial basis is critical to providing the needed staff and continued staff development.
• The cultures of the day school staff and the night school staff should be blended.
• Communication should be such that changes in business and industry and in four-year institutions do not come as a surprise to the TYI staff.
• Staff functions should include helping learners get jobs (e.g., placement) following training.
• There should be better use of staff resources; one way is to relate closely to the staff in K-12 schools and in four-year colleges and universities.
• Staff should have a strong voice in making decisions about staffing and staff development.
• There should be a more innovative, flexible, and creative staff for TYIs in the future.
• Staff should be able to teach, relate effectively with, and care about and respect students.
• Staff should believe that all students can learn and that students come already knowing some things.
• There should be an assessment process for staff to see that they have the skills needed initially for the responsibilities that they are undertaking and that these skills are kept up-to-date and advanced.
• Continued employment of staff should be based on performance.
• Staff members should be able to work as members of a team and do the needed research to resolve professional problems.
• Staff should be sufficiently entrepreneurial in order to design learning experiences that are successful for a wide range of students and with little failure on the part of students.
• Staff members should have a "home" in the institution, and it may not be the traditional departments; they should be able to form interdisciplinary learning communities.
• Staff should strive to give students multiple options to learn each area of competence.
• Staff should be informed about the world, involved with students, empathic to student needs, and flexible.
• Staff should belong to professional organizations and do externships in business and industry.
• Staff should be thought of and organized more into learning teams that are crossfunctional in makeup.
• Staff development should recognize nontraditional approaches to development--beyond the university class, workshop, or professional conference.
• Staff development for faculty should include development of leadership skills.

National Design Group Discussions

The National Design Group had the benefit of an oral summary of the focus group interview noted above and a site visit to two of the campuses of Miami-Dade Community College (including the Teaching and Learning Center, which was designed to support and deliver staff development) just prior to its discussion of the design specifications for learning staff and staff development. The following are the major points made during the National Design Group discussion of staff and staff development:

• Institutional research should be conducted and the results shared with all staff members so they are informed about the institution as they try to improve it and ensure accountability.
• Mid-management staff (e.g., presently in the form of department and division chairs) should be "point guards" for bringing and implementing the vision for the institution.
• In order to redesign an institution, it is probably necessary to change and redefine staff roles. Staff development should be in alignment with changes in staff roles.
• The culture of the institution should communicate that all staff members are responsible for learning and the success of the institution, all should take risks, and all should be rewarded.
• Staff development should be directly linked to student development.
• Gains in productivity as a result of staff and staff development decisions should be credited back to the unit making the decisions.
• Staff development should be a shared responsibility, with the staff members carrying some responsibility for it.

The above points of view from both the focus group and the National Design Group were used to draw out the implications of design specifications for prior elements in the design-down process as a basis for developing the design specifications for learning staff and staff development. The results of this deductive process are presented in the next section.

Connecting Learning Staff and Staff Development
to Previous Elements in Design Process

The strength of the design-down process is in assuring that each of the design specifications for each of the added design elements contributes to and enhances the specifications for previous elements. There is also the reverse process of checking-up to ensure careful alignment and coherence to the complete design. As with previous elements, the focus at this point is on explicitly examining the implications of the design specifications for learning partnerships (the immediately previous element) for the design specifications for learning staff and staff development. The implications appear to include the following thinking about staff and staff development based on each of the design specifications for partnerships:

• Aligns with Design Specifications for Learning Context, Signature, Outcomes, Process, Organization, and Partnerships: Staffing and staff development characteristics should follow from and reinforce the design specifications for previous elements.
  
  
• Enhances the Learning Experience: Staffing and staff development must be designed and executed in a way that keeps the learning experience a central and overriding concern. Staffing and staff development decisions must always look to the value added to student learning. When partners are involved in the learning experience (and this should be common practice), attention should focus on the staffing contributions that are and can be made by the partners and the staff development that may be needed by partners and institution-based staff to take maximum advantage of the partnership.
  
  
• Provides Mutual Benefit: Staffing and staff development must provide ways for all partners (i.e., learners, intra-insitutional or inter-institutional) to benefit. Benefits in the form of opportunities to contribute knowledge, support services, and other staffing resources should be recognized and sought.
  
  
• Includes All Stakeholders: Perhaps this partnership specification has the most significance for staffing and staff development. The implication is that the institution's staff extends far beyond traditional definitions of staff as all stakeholders become involved in the learning process. The boundaries between part- and full-time staff; between on- and off-campus staff; between evening or extension and day or regular class staff; and between faculty and student services, administrative services, and support services should begin to blur. The difference among these typical categories of staff should become less important as they are viewed more as a team or family of staff focused on providing the needed learning experiences. The affirmative action to include representation across boundaries of age, gender, socioeconomic status, geographic areas, and cultural diversity held out for partnerships should be clearly evident in staffing and staff development.
  
  
• Bridges Cultures: Staffing and staff development must address an openness and willingness to work across the cultures of the various partners. The skill at "border crossing" must be developed, recognized, and rewarded.
  
  
• Leverages Resources/Results in Synergy: Staffing and staff development should take full advantage of the potential contribution to the learning experience that can be provided through partnerships.
  
  
• Provides Many Ways of Contributing: Each partnership, actual and potential, should be scrutinized for its possible contributions to staffing and staff development.
  
  
• Builds Supporting Infrastructure: Staffing and staff development must insist that building and using partnerships and the infrastructure underlying partnerships are essential to the attitude and way of operating for all of the institution's staff. Care should be taken in staffing and staff development to build the communication patterns, trust, and commitments needed to enhance the number and quality of partnerships in the learning experience.
  
  
• Impacts the Entire Community: Staffing and staff development should recognize and advance the importance of understanding the nature of the community served by the institutions, its needs as a community, and effective ways of responding to these needs in consort with others.

Clearly, the design specifications for partnerships have implications for the design of staffing and staff development. The implications are basic to and have a significant effect on defining staff, how staff members must work together, and what it means to be and remain competent.

Key Concepts Regarding Learning Staff and Staff Development

Educational institutions no longer have a monopoly on learning and learning organizations. Corporate America is being called upon to form learning communities, learning companies, and learning organizations--systems where people are constantly upgrading their resources and updating one another about their current reality (Campbell, 1995, p. 14). The following discussion, taken from Campbell's work, was directed at a business and corporate audience, but the message seems applicable to NDTYI.

Organizations can achieve restructuring by creating new organizational processes that put all aspects of the organization in immediate interactive communication with one another. People from a variety of fields, including some whose values or work styles feel foreign or threatening, will learn with and from these interactions and through this interaction will develop a "more adequate, more complex" response to the given situation (Campbell, 1995). The new organization will require leaders who are comfortable sharing decisionmaking with people who have no special rank or position. It will mean sharing information with colleagues working on similar problems instead of keeping important discoveries to oneself to protect turf. The new organization will require high levels of trust in self and others, so that little time is wasted covering mistakes so that the organization and the learning can move forward. In fact, "The exploration process will require individuals who are trustworthy, change-worthy, and learn-worthy" (p. 24).

For individuals to change and to learn, the educational institution or learning organization will have to develop and foster trust. Galbraith and Shedd (1990) in the article, "Building Skills and Proficiencies of the Community College Instructor of Adult Learners," state that instructors must possess personality characteristics and interpersonal skills that engender an image of caring, trust, and encouragement. Referring to the learning organization, Campbell (1995) says that decisions based on adjustment rather than control will use information and experience. A fundamental question that learning staff will need to ask is, "What does the current situation require?" (p. 24). Knowing how to learn and the learning process will be more important than being right or knowing the right thing to do.

It is the end of "solo" instructors and the beginning of an era of team or ensemble players in the learning organization. Teamwork requires public learning (Campbell, 1995). To be a team player is to be a team learner, placing more value on the team's learning than on the personal needs to be right, to be accepted, or to be in control. Team learners listen, publicly acknowledge mistakes, share perceptions, participate in discussions that raise conflicts to the fore, respectfully differ in public, connect one another to the organization, and become partners to help the organization realize its goals.

The learning staff and staff development are key to the implementation of NDTYI. If the designs are to have congruity, the learning staff will manifest the same qualities and competencies as the learning outcomes, practice the learning processes, organize learning to support the learning process, and be responsible for continually building and using learning partnerships. Staff development will need to be consistent with these expectations:

American organizations cannot evolve any farther than the individuals who work in these organizations. If we want our institutions to be more change worthy, individual workers will need to undertake the personal learning necessary to perceive change as it is happening. (Campbell, 1995, p. 13)

Educational institutions as learning communities must be caring organizations that are interested in the potential of all members (Orlich, 1989, p. 1). A caring institution will invest in staff development to transform and to change.

The Learning Staff

NDTYI includes all staff in the definition of learning staff--support staff, student service, technical staff, faculty, and administration, as well as outside partners in the learning process. In 1995, the National Association of State Directors of Vocational Technical Education Consortium and University Council for Vocational Education convened a Task Force on Vocational Technical Teacher Education. Their report defined learning staff as "all those who engage learners in purposeful learning activities or operating the enterprises within which people learn" (p. 5). Cross wrote in the foreword to The Teaching and Learning Enterprise (Jenrette & Napoli, 1994), referring to a highly successful institutional reform at Miami-Dade Community College, that it was accomplished by "ordinary people." By this she means that existing learning staff, a biology teacher (Jenrette) and a social studies teacher involved in faculty governance (Napoli), both respected by their peers, directed the staff development program--the transformation of an institution.

The community colleges and technical colleges across this country are not going to make wholesale changes in staff; rather, the institutions implementing NDTYI will use a combination of staff development programs, role changes, new hires, adjunct faculty, and new partners to transform the institution. The major difference will be in the level of flexibility characterizing the organization in order to implement new design specifications. Flexibility is necessary because the learning staff will not be able to identify all the unplanned and unanticipated learning needs and opportunities of learners (Galbraith & Shedd, 1990, p. 10). Flexibility will mean flexible time, ability to change roles, and add or use different skills.

As stated earlier, there will be many outside partners in NDTYI. An example of an outside learning partner is the LaGuardia's Co-op Seminars for School-to-Work Programs (Grubb & Badway, 1995). The instructors came from different backgrounds, some from the college, some from local businesses. The students reported that they found the "true stories" of the workplace fascinating (p. 14). The instructors from the workplace were able to teach the customs and folkways of the workplace. Grubb and Badway noted that the outside instructors did not have access to staff development. NDTYI proposes to include the needs of all learning staff in the planning and delivering of staff development.

Current Composition

Of all staff in higher education, 20% are employed in TYIs. Of the TYIs, 91% of staff are employed in public institutions. The institutions that are less than two-year are largely private (70% private) (National Center for Education Statistics, 1996, p. 13). According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, 57% of TYI staff are faculty members. TYIs have a lower percentage of support service professionals than four-year institutions (18% in four-year institutions and 8% in TYIs) (p. 16). From 1970 to 1993, there has been growth in the number of faculty employed by TYIs due to an increase in the number of part-time faculty. In 1993, 64% of faculty employed in TYIs were part-time.

Table 2 is adapted from the National Center for Educational Statistics (1996, p. 9) to show the TYI totals for employees; men and women; full-time and part-time; faculty and non-faculty; and professional and nonprofessional.

Note: Professional staff include staff in the following occupational categories: executive/administrative/ managerial, faculty (instruction/research), instruction/research assistants, and professional (support services). Nonprofessional staff include technical and paraprofessionals, clerical and secretarial, skilled crafts, service/maintenance, and other employees. National Center for Education Statistics (1996), p. 9.

Source: U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, "EEO-6 Higher Education Staff Information" Surveys, 1989 and 1991; and National Center for Education Statistics, Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), "Fall Staff" Survey, 1989, 1991, and 1993.

Redefining Role

The role of the staff in NDTYI will need to be reconsidered and may be redefined in significant ways. Galbraith and Shedd (1990) described an instructor's role in the teaching and learning transaction as role model, counselor, content resource person, mentor, learning guide, program developer, and institutional representative (Galbraith & Shedd, 1990, p. 9). Other roles for learning staff will be navigator, facilitator, coach, and mentor. Staff will share roles within the institution and with external partners.

In NDTYI, those who do the work of teaching and learning will do less instruction and more facilitation of knowledge construction and problem solving with students. Learning staff will connect the learner to a learning context such as a hospital, private firm, or government agency, and in other instances the connection may be through simulations and case studies. The learning staff will serve as navigator in guiding the direction of the learning enterprise and individual learning through the vast storehouse of information now available. Among the learning team will be staff with pedagogical expertise and content expertise. The learning teams will require various skills, backgrounds, and expertise. These are not revolutionary concepts. In 1980, Knox suggested that the general characteristics and interpersonal skills for a facilitator of adult learning entail three areas of core knowledge: (1) knowledge of content, (2) knowledge of adult development and learning, and (3) knowledge of instructional methods (Galbraith & Shedd, 1990, p. 9).

The institutions that prepare learning staff will be encouraged to consider the principles proposed in the Task Force on Vocational Technical Teacher Education, Final Report (National Association of State Directors of Vocational Technical Education Consortium and University Council for Vocational Education, 1995). These include the following:

• Preparation for work and family as one of the primary goals of education
• Learner-centered, reality-based systems that demonstrate authenticity and serve as exemplary models for lifelong learning experiences
• Contextual, integrated learning experiences guided by learning enterprise workers and instructional processes that value the full potential of each individual, and reflect and accommodate diversity in contexts and learner styles (p. 12)

Beyond the Campus

The learning staff role is more easily understood in the context of the NDTYI learning environment. The learning enterprise will be the unit for delivering and managing the pedagogy around a unifying idea such as interest areas or occupational/industry areas. Enterprises will be self-defining groupings of learning staff and students. These enterprises will organize themselves around a set of standards or criteria that will be derived in conjunction with real work environments in the community. Members of the learning staff will have the ability to build teams as needed and collaborate with other enterprises both within the institution and outside--such as businesses. The role for the faculty will be to negotiate, to link, and to maximize resources by connecting with the community of interest outside of the institution.

A review of Cohen and Brawer's (1989) basis for hiring community college faculty found that "regardless of degree, titles, and types of programs, an emphasis on breadth of preparation and on people sensitive to the goals of the community colleges and the concerns of their students has been a standard recommendation" (p. 70). These characteristics will be valued in the NDTYI.

Responding to Signature

The first step in the design-down process is the learning signature, which articulates either graphically or in writing what is special or unique about the TYI. Cross (cited in Jenrette & Napoli, 1994) wrote that Miami-Dade Community College started the Teaching/ Learning Project in "textbook-perfect pattern, with a statement of agreement about the values of the college, and then went on from there to develop one of the most far reaching and potentially powerful reforms of our times--times that are critical of the quality of teaching and learning" (p. ix).

At Miami-Dade Community College, a clear delineation of college values was selected as a starting point. They reviewed the college's publications and written documents to identify both explicit and implicit values. A survey was developed and sent to all college personnel as well as a sampling of students and community members. Miami-Dade identified seven institutional values related to teaching and learning: (1) learning, (2) change to meet educational needs and to improve learning, (3) access while maintaining quality, (4) diversity in order to broaden understanding and learning, (5) individuals, (6) systematic approach to decisionmaking, and (7) partnership with the community. In the Miami-Dade experience, institutional values were the starting place for learning staff and learning staff development (Jenrette & Napoli, 1994, p. A-11).

Assuring Outcomes

Learning outcomes in NDTYI are integrative of subject matter areas and contextually linked or applied (because they are derived from real-world problems and opportunities). The learning staff must be able to integrate vocational and academic areas and work in interdisciplinary teams. The staff will be expected to demonstrate the outcomes expected of students.

The learning process operated by staff will involve a combination of instruction and construction, requiring that the learning staff be able to guide group problem solving. Galbraith and Shedd (1990) describe problem solving as critical questioning, critical incident exercises, role playing, crisis decisionmaking simulations, and discussion. NDTYI recommends including and moving beyond these pedagogical strategies to increase focus on knowledge construction (Gibbons et al., p. 6). Problem solving will move outside of the classroom to the community. It will be the equivalent of "on-the-job-training" for both the learning staff and the learner to gain needed skills and knowledge through "experience, trial and error, modeling, peer groups, collegial contact and collaborative efforts, as well as through self-directed study that utilizes human material resources" (Galbraith & Zelenak, 1989, p. 128). Integrated technology will blur the lines between learning and other life activities such as work, family, and community responsibilities, enabling the recasting of external relationships (Tapscott & Caston, 1993, p. xiii).

Attending to Process

"Just in time" learning experiences will involve the use of resources and talent to provide a "just right" response to the changes in knowledge, learning needs, and the learning situation. Learning experiences will be developed in the self-defining enterprises through intersecting sets of pedagogical and supporting skills.

In 1986, Daloz drew a picture of a learning staff that would develop learning interactions that are challenging, active, and supportive by maintaining standards and high expectations for adult learning. Students were to have challenging tasks that call for closure, while at the same time providing insight into how knowledge is applied to the learners' lives. Instructors should provide for realistic and varied practice opportunities that help adult learners persist and apply what is learned (Galbraith & Shedd, 1990, p. 11). Several authors support educational encounters that require the adult learner and the instructor to act and to think critically and reflectively (Brookfield, 1987; Galbraith & Shedd, 1990; Schon, 1983).

Stern and Tsuzuk (1996) discuss such an endeavor in their description of a career major as a coherent sequence of courses or field of study that prepares a student for a job by integrating academic and occupational learning; including school-based and work-based learning; and establishing linkages between secondary and postsecondary educational institutions.

Working with Adults

The more sophisticated the learner, the more the learning staff can work with the student's experiences instead of treating the student as an empty vessel (Johnson, 1991, p. 54). The current reality is that the average community college student is 29 years of age and most are employed (p. 54).

Learning staff will need to be trained in theory and skills of educating adults. In order to facilitate the interaction among the learner, the situation, and the content, the learning staff will need to be knowledgeable of the following:

• The Characteristics of Adults: motivation, physiology of learning, development tasks of adult learners, interpersonal development, aspects of aging, stress management, cultural strengths and differences, influence of personal situations, and the process of adult learning
  
  
• The Learning Situation: teaching strategies, learning styles, differences and similarities between men and women, ethnic groups, class orientation, group dynamics, career development, environmental considerations, organizational dynamics and culture, and the analysis of the societal and cultural context within which the learning will occur
  
  
• The Content of the Program: the purpose of the learning endeavor, needs assessment, evaluation of learning and program, curriculum planning, administration, marketing, and public policy (Saul, 1990, p. 51)

Knowing the Learner

TYIs already have a knowledge base in the field of adult education. The learning process that Brookfield (1985, as cited in Saul, 1990) recommends is praxis or an action reflection model. Brookfield writes, "praxis is at the heart of adult education; participants are involved in a constant process of activity, further reflection and collaborative analysis of activity, new activity, further reflection and further collaborative reflection" (p. 53). In a similar way, Johnson describes a strategy facilitating experiential learning as helping the student to "process out" the experience into learning (cited in Saul, 1990, p. 51). The basic experience must be worked over, processed, and dealt with in some manner in order for the student to learn from it. Johnson calls it moving from the experience, to the analysis of the experience, to the generation of a personal theory (p. 55).

Through facilitated learning or experiential learning, the learner will find fulfillment and be better able to manage change (Johnson, 1991). According to Johnson, these strategies will enhance the employability of the student. Employers are more impressed with students who are able to learn from their experiences--to learn on the job (p. 56). Increasingly employers want to be involved in student learning and are willing and able, with some support from educational institutions, to assume a substantial role in the education process (p. 56).

Experiential learning can be internships, cooperative education, service learning, and other outside-the-classroom educational programs. Experiential learning should include scenarios in which the student's experiences are the starting point of the learning, rather than simply the final application. A facilitative staff would manage to find the learning resources in each student's experiences (Johnson, 1991, p. 55).

Assessing Learning

Assessment in NDTYI will mean both diagnostic assessment to determine the needs of the learner, appropriate placement, and prior learning, as well as assessment for improving the learning process. Cross and Angelo's (1988) work is summarized in Classroom Assessment Techniques (see also Cross, 1988, 1993a, 1993b) as a means to maximize learning through frequent assessments of how well students are meeting the goals of instruction. Learning staff will need to have some level of proficiency in collecting data from students throughout the learning process for use in improving the learning process. Cross and Angelo (1988) offer 50 Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs), some for assessing course-related knowledge and skills; others for assessing learner's attitudes, values and self-awareness; and still others for assessing the learner's reaction to instruction.

Using External Partners

Saul (1990) encouraged TYIs to offer training for adult educators in the community, external to the institution. The many learning partners necessary to fulfill the implementation of contextual learning warrant consideration by the TYIs of developing training programs for community partners. Possible training topics include adult learning and adult development; techniques for teaching adults; focus on specific learner groups; focus on specific learning situations--basic literacy, training in business and industry, human resource development; research methods--action research, research application in practice, and the practitioner as researcher; management of internships; train-the-trainer; practitioners in literacy, working with volunteer agencies and business; lifelong learning skills; and self- and peer assessment techniques (p. 55).

Involving Internal Partners

NDTYI incorporates all staff in the discussion of learning staff. For example, Miami-Dade Community College chose the teaching/learning environment as one of its conceptual areas of focus in improving learning (Jenrette & Napoli, 1994). They recognized the role of support services in the following comments:

while highly skilled teachers and willing learners are required for excellent teaching and learning, high quality services are also essential to create an environment that facilitates teaching and encourages learning. Creating new environments is not necessarily the solution; it may be maintaining and modifying existing environments is more appropriate. The environments need to be supplied with equipment in good working condition, and there needs to be clerical and custodial services as well. In short, the commitment to excellence must be shared by all personnel whose efforts support the teaching and learning process, even in the most indirect way. (pp. 7-8)

Miami-Dade also recognized that the equipment and maintenance of the learning environment are of utmost importance and are often the most difficult budget category to support. Jenrette and Napoli (1994), offering Miami-Dade's experience, wrote,

Their Teaching and Learning Subcommittee recommended processes to ensure support of operational practices of all service areas: user feedback be solicited, faculty regularly be invited to talk with service providers, annual objectives be developed which include recognition of each area's contribution to teaching and learning, and that items relating to those objectives be included in the annual performance review of all service area personnel. (p. 8)

The Miami-Dade experience discovered that it was more challenging to relate and recognize the purchasing department, budget office, and personnel office relationship to teaching and learning (than other areas) (p. 8).

Prioritizing Staff Development

The staff development strategy at Miami-Dade Community College is comprehensive. Staff development is designed to revitalize careers and bring focus on the institution helping the individual learner to be successful. The effect was to create a successful learning environment for both students and staff within a complex, diverse urban environment with all of the attendant problems of lack of skills and limited access to technology and socioeconomic constraints. None of these conditions prevented the learning staff from creating an exciting and caring learning environment.

The learning staff of Miami-Dade recommended that staff development programs meet the following criteria:

• The system should be supportive and developmental in nature. Monitoring of performance provides for reinforcement of positive efforts and an opportunity for prescriptive intervention.
• Personnel decisions should be based on information obtained systematically and from multiple sources.
• Individual faculty members should be responsible for their own advancement (NDTYI would include administrative staff, student service staff, technical staff, and support staff). (Jenrette & Napoli, 1994, p. 10)

The main steps for the staff development program at Miami-Dade involved identification and agreement in the following areas:

• Institutional values
• Definition of excellence
• Goal setting
• Personnel policies (to encourage development and reward for performance)
• Orientation
• Mentoring
• Process for feedback
• Review
• Recognition
• Reward

In order to ensure a long-range institutional commitment to staff development and institutional implementation, Miami-Dade instituted Teaching and Learning Centers with full-time staff, including a director, support staff personnel, and a substantial budget, given the institution's size and commitments. The role and program focus of the centers were determined by those affected, faculty, and others (Jenrette & Napoli, 1994).

Influencing New Hires

Incorporating learning staff specifications into the institution begins with reviewing principles and practices for hiring and acculturating new staff members. Excellence should be defined for all areas as it relates to learning. Standards exist for faculty that can be used as models for definitions of excellence for other learning staff positions. Definitions of excellence give both the hiring committees and the applicants an opportunity to know what is expected. As suggested by Jenrette and Napoli (1994), from the definitions should flow the interview protocol "to elicit information about the critical aspects" of the learning staff's role.

Orientation and training will take on greater significance in NDTYI because of greater participation in and by community members in the learning process. Miami-Dade developed a faculty orientation program beginning with a week of workshops, presentations, and meetings conducted by appropriate personnel. New hires were given a separate contract, which paid them to attend the orientation and follow-up activities continuing through the first year (Jenrette & Napoli, 1994).

Mentoring is also a part of the Miami-Dade program for new hires. It is continued through the first year of employment. Mentoring enables the learning signature to be transferred from one "generation" of staff to the next and across areas. The extension of support and connection to the institution through mentoring reinforces the learning signature: "Mentoring improves and accelerates the process by which new faculty (and others) become knowledgeable about the institution, effective in their positions, and comfortable as members of the learning community" (Jenrette & Napoli, 1994, p. 9).

Crosstraining/Crossfunctioning

Just as business crosstrains its employees, NDTYI encourages crosstrained staff so that staff can be comfortable with role exchanges. Crossfunctional teams or task forces help to integrate the parts of the organization and can guide staff development. Job rotation promotes a continuous process of learning and staff development. It broadens the learning staff's knowledge in ways that open up new approaches to meeting the institutional goals. Crosstraining and role exchanges foster broad mastery of the process and understanding of each individual's contributions to the team and the team's contribution to the enterprise.

Continuous Quality Improvement

The learning staff is responsible to conduct continuous assessment of students to determine what changes are needed to improve the learning process and organization. One example of how continuous improvement can work in higher education comes from Marchese (1991, as cited in Cross, 1993b). Marchese was one of the first to publicly link higher education with Total Quality Management (TQM). He identified 12 major themes of TQM for higher education, while Cross and Angelo (1988) contributed classroom assessment techniques. Cross (1993b) combined the two works into 12 strategies for continuous improvement: (1) focus on quality through simple daily routines; (2) focus on student learning (i.e., the customer); (3) make changes or adjustments as the need arises; (4) understand the process and know how to improve it (i.e., cognition and human learning processes); (5) extend the mindset to know the background, preparation, and prior experience of students entering the classroom; (6) share and use data collected on the student with the student--for example, asking "how effective is the learning situation or learning interaction in meeting its goals and the student's needs?"; (7) eliminate rework or remediation by identifying weaknesses when they appear; (8) emphasize teamwork through self-directed workgroups--interact about what works and what does not work; (9) empower people to review work processes and to make the necessary changes; (10) invest in training and recognition; (11) make explicit the teaching goals--what students should learn; (12) hire leaders who are vision givers, listeners, team workers, committed to quality and customer needs, but are patient for long-term ends (Marchese, 1991, p. 6, as cited in Cross, 1993b, p. 19).

Design Specifications for Learning Staff and Staff Development

The design specifications for learning staff and staff development drawn from the focus group interviews, review of research and best practices, and the discussions of the National Design Group are shown in Exhibit 10.

New Designs for Learning Staff and Staff Development

Two illustrations of new designs for learning staff and staff development were suggested by the National Design Group. Both focus on staff development.

Center for Teaching and Learning

The Center for Teaching and Learning at Miami-Dade Community College has a long history of operation and impact on learning experiences available on its campus. The Center was established with much involvement of faculty and staff. It has its own space on the campus and provides a wide array of staff development opportunities for all categories of staff at the college--support staff, student services, faculty, and administrators. Training can be informal or through formal, credit-earning avenues done in consort with four-year colleges and universities. Competency profiles and standards have been developed for each classification of campus staff. Performance reviews and rewards are linked closely to competency development and demonstration. The Center has staff and technical assistance to support the staff development functions underway.

Spaces Designed for Staff Development

Maricopa Community College in Phoenix, Arizona, has set aside space for staff development that is exemplary in modeling the "classroom of tomorrow." The staff development space provides opportunity all in one area for display, collaboration, concentration, information access, product production, and relaxation.

Summary

NDTYI proposes that the role of each member of the learning staff be recognized and developed for its part in the learning experience. The learning staff is viewed as needing to share roles to provide institutional flexibility. Movements that are in keeping with this view of learning staff are high-performance work groups and professionalization of the workforce. At the same time, exemplary models of staff development, as found at Miami-Dade Community College, foster institutional change while strengthening and focusing the skills of staff to better support the goals of the institution.

[*] The initial draft of this section was developed by Sandra Krebsbach with advice from George Copa. Subsequently, changes and major additions were made by George Copa.