Formal faculty development activities are necessary in order to train a corps of faculty that possess the skills and competencies required to implement the principles of PRME. This includes activities that enhance a faculty member’s knowledge of responsible management theory and practice, increase awareness among faculty of the hidden and implicit dimensions of teaching business, and building capacity in faculty to incorporate issues of justice, inclusion, and sustainability in their teaching.
To address these issues, a working group consisting of the PRME Champions leadership group, co-led by the Copenhagen Business School (CBS), Babson College, and the Indian Institute of Higher Education (IILM), conducted a two-year long research effort, gathering information through interviews and a survey from 160 educational institutions worldwide. These institutions reported that PRME-related faculty development was highly relevant and many stated that they had some informal faculty development activities already in process. However, a closer look at the results showed that often such efforts are casual, rather than formal, and are limited by constraints of resources and institutional context. The report recommends that, in order to meet the intensifying challenges of the global landscape, schools of management commit time and resources to incorporate more formal faculty development programming around the Principles for Responsible Management Education.
The report encourages faculty to consider the “hidden curriculum” in each classroom—that is, the implicit and explicit messages sent by faculty—by addressing the following questions: “What implicit messages are students likely to receive if I (deliver, integrate, assess, joke) in this way?” and “Does my teaching confirm students’ existing points of view, establish new ones, transform them, or encourage them to critically reflect on the habits and assumptions that create them?” In this way, faculty are encouraged to critically reflect upon the full range of messages being sent beyond the simple delivery of “content” in a classroom, in order to better ensure consistency and coherence in the emphasis upon responsible management.
The guide also provides a six-step tool for designing and implementing PRME-related faculty development initiatives:
| Step 1 | Commit to PRME-related faculty development: It is essential to first generate commitment with top management, department heads and leaders of academic development initiatives as well as faculty members more broadly. Commitment should extend beyond voicing dedication to providing financial and non-financial resources. |
| Step 2 | Assess faculty development needs: The second step is to measure faculty’s interests, abilities and efforts in relation to PRME-related faculty development with faculty as well as with students. This should provide not just a baseline and an idea of where to focus faculty development but can also reveal champions within the area of PRME among faculty. |
| Step 3 | Define faculty development goals: the third step is to define and formulate the outcomes your educational institution would like to achieve which are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely. |
| Step 4 | Implement faculty development: The fourth step is to implement the training activities which can take many forms depending on what best suits the educational institution. Activities should ideally include reflections from faculty and stimulate open discussions. |
| Step 5 | Measure the impact of faculty development: The fifth step is to establish the measures and then monitor the faculty development activities. |
| Step 6 | The sixth step is to communicate the results of PRME-related faculty development internally and externally to foster continued commitment and increase awareness. |
To view the full guide click here, or email Elizabeth Goldberg, a co-leader of the group at egoldberg(at)babson.edu
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