Faculty Development Assistant

A Faculty Development Assistant is the operational support staff member for programs designed to improve college teaching. While faculty developers and instructional designers work directly with faculty on pedagogy and course design, the assistant ensures that those interactions can happen efficiently — that workshops are organized, communications are timely, resources are accessible, and the administrative details don't get in the way of the professional development mission.

The practical scope of the job is broad. On a typical morning, an assistant might update the workshop calendar on the center's website, send out registration confirmation emails for next week's active learning seminar, set up the Zoom webinar for an online session on assessment design, pull attendance data from last month's programs into a spreadsheet for the center director's annual report, and process a reimbursement request for a faculty member who attended an external conference with center support.

The best faculty development assistants develop genuine institutional knowledge — which faculty are regulars at programming and which are being reached for the first time, which academic departments are currently engaged in curriculum revision where additional support might be useful, which newer faculty hires came from teaching-intensive backgrounds and which came from research programs with limited pedagogical training. That contextual knowledge helps the center direct its resources effectively.

Instructional technology support is increasingly central to the role. As faculty development centers have expanded their work on online and hybrid course design, accessibility, and LMS-based assessment tools, the assistant's ability to provide basic technical guidance — how to set up a Canvas assignment with peer review enabled, how to record a lecture slide show for asynchronous delivery, how to run a Zoom breakout room session — has become genuinely useful.

The role is a legitimate entry point into higher education administration and instructional design. People who do it well, who develop the program coordination and technology skills the role requires, and who understand what faculty developers actually do are well-positioned to advance into more senior instructional roles.

Education:

• Bachelor's degree required (most positions)
• Common fields: education, instructional design, educational technology, communications, English, or any discipline combined with relevant work experience
• Some positions accept associate degree plus substantial relevant administrative experience

Experience:

• 1–3 years of administrative coordination, event management, or higher education support experience
• Direct experience with learning management systems (Canvas, Blackboard) is frequently listed as required
• Customer service or client communication experience in any context is relevant

Technical skills:

• Learning management system administration at a basic to intermediate level (course creation, enrollment management, assignment tools)
• Video conferencing platforms (Zoom, Microsoft Teams): session setup, breakout rooms, recording, and basic troubleshooting
• Screen recording and basic video editing tools for content creation support
• Survey tools (Qualtrics, Google Forms, SurveyMonkey) for program evaluation
• Website content management (WordPress, Squarespace, or institution-specific CMS)
• Microsoft Office and/or Google Workspace at a proficient level

Administrative skills:

• Event logistics: room booking, catering orders, technology setup coordination
• Budget tracking and processing: university purchase systems, travel reimbursements, vendor invoices
• Database and records management: maintaining contact lists, program records, and participation data

Knowledge that strengthens candidacy:

• Basic familiarity with evidence-based teaching practices and adult learning principles
• Understanding of ADA and accessibility requirements for digital educational content
• Experience in academic environments, even as a student worker or graduate assistant

Faculty development as a field within higher education has grown steadily over the past two decades, driven by institutional attention to teaching quality, student success, online education expansion, and accreditation requirements that increasingly include faculty development evidence. Centers for teaching and learning exist at most four-year colleges and universities, and many community colleges have invested in faculty professional development infrastructure as well.

The assistant-level role within these centers is a stable, entry-level position in higher education administration. Budget pressures occasionally consolidate support staff across multiple centers, but the core need for program coordination and operational support persists. Centers that expanded significantly during the shift to online teaching during 2020–2021 retained much of that capacity as hybrid and online modalities became permanent.

The most valuable direction for career development in this role is toward instructional design. Instructional designers — who work directly with faculty to design or redesign courses for quality and accessibility — are in high demand as institutions expand online offerings and face accreditation pressure to demonstrate course quality. Moving from faculty development assistant to junior instructional designer or instructional design coordinator is a well-established career path, particularly for those who build LMS skills and complete coursework or certification in instructional design (such as the Instructional Design Certificate from EDUCAUSE or an online Master's in Instructional Technology).

The alternative path is toward academic administration more broadly. Faculty development assistants who develop strong program coordination and faculty relations skills are competitive candidates for program coordinator or assistant director roles in student affairs, academic advising, or academic support programs — where the combination of higher education knowledge and operational skills they've built is directly applicable.

For those who are considering whether the role is a career or a stepping stone: both are valid. Long-tenured faculty development support staff at large research universities often earn competitive salaries with full benefits and find genuine satisfaction in being the operational infrastructure for programs they believe in.

Dear Hiring Committee,

I am applying for the Faculty Development Assistant position at [University's] Center for Teaching Excellence. I recently completed a master's degree in Higher Education Administration at [University] and spent a graduate assistantship in the university's teaching center, where I coordinated the new faculty orientation program and supported a workshop series on active learning course design.

In that assistantship I managed the logistics for a two-day new faculty orientation that brought together 35 incoming tenure-track and full-time lecturer hires from across the institution. My responsibilities included coordinating with 12 facilitators across sessions, managing the Zoom setup for the three participants who attended remotely, preparing workshop materials, and collecting and analyzing feedback across the two days. I also managed the center's Canvas site, which hosts asynchronous professional development modules for approximately 200 enrolled faculty.

I am comfortable with the LMS administration side of the work — I can set up Canvas assignments, manage enrollments, troubleshoot access issues, and use the data tools to pull participation reports. I have also gotten interested in accessibility as I've learned more about universal design for learning, and I have taken an EDUCAUSE workshop on captioning and document accessibility that I found applicable to the center's work.

What draws me to faculty development is the role it plays in student success that isn't always visible. When a faculty member learns to redesign a high-DFW course using evidence-based practices and the next cohort of students passes at a higher rate, that outcome traces back partly to the professional development that made the course change possible. I find that causal chain meaningful and I want to work in the infrastructure that makes it happen.

I look forward to speaking with you.

[Your Name]