Educational leadership: benefits of stepping outside the classroom

Although most educators have their greatest impact in the classroom, the increased need for diverse learning activities has created new opportunities for leadership. Moreover, many Tenure and Promotion Committees are finding that it is no longer sufficient to consider only lecture hours when evaluating a faculty member's contributions to the teaching mission of an institution. Accordingly, the career path for an educator in a college or professional school is evolving. A newly recruited faculty member may start out with traditional classroom responsibilities, but activities other than lecture, such as flipped classrooms, online resources, and peer-to-peer teaching, may be quickly added to the mix. As faculty members gain experience, they often progress to positions of curriculum design or program review within an institution. Similarly, there is a need for administrators who have participated in a variety of learning activities, and schools frequently recruit for these positions from faculty with such exposure. Many senior faculty members leverage this expertise to regional or national levels by authoring textbooks and online materials or serving on advisory boards, review committees, and governance in professional societies and funding agencies. Excelling in these leadership opportunities can have a profound effect on the success of promotion and tenure applications, and they reward a skill set that extends beyond the teaching and organization needed in the classroom.