Encouraging Faculty Education Leads to Student Success

Learn how human resources at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College (NWTC) is helping faculty build education skills and knowledge for student success.

NWTC is a two-year technical college offering over 200 career-focused programs.  To ensure that students get the real-life advice and expertise that they need, the college recruits faculty straight from the industries that they offer degrees for.  While these faculty members are experts in their fields, they often lack the teaching skills they need to impart their knowledge effectively.  To remedy this, human resources at the college is focused on helping faculty build education skills and knowledge for student success.

In 2013, NWTC rolled out its Faculty Progression Structure (FPS) to provide ongoing training to instructors to ensure that their development did not go static.  According to Lisa Maas, vice president for human resources at NWTC, “[W]e wanted to make sure there was consistency in the knowledge and expertise of all our faculty around subject matter expertise, instructional excellence, and student success.”

The FPS model requires faculty to create an individual development plan that lays out their learning goals, as well as a plan for how they will achieve these goals, the resources they will need, and the timeline they will work with.  Each faculty member’s individual development plan holds them accountable and pushes them to develop their subject matter expertise, instructional excellence, and student success.

So why is NWTC’s faculty education system so unique?  Well, it marks one of the first examples of human resources driving faculty learning and development.  The success of the FPS model demonstrates how higher education institutions can benefit when they form collaborative relationships with human resources and adopt a more development-focused mindset.

This is what you need to know about NWTC’s human resources helping faculty build education skills and knowledge for student success.  Looking for a consulting firm with experience working with salary, legal, and other human resources issues?  Then don’t hesitate to contact the professionals at McKnight Associates, Inc.  We are ready to offer you hands-on human resources consulting for colleges, universities, medical centers, and organizations of all sizes.