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Coaching Faculty to Winter the Storm - Moore Than Coaching | Faculty Success Coach
Reframing Faculty Success

Coaching Faculty to Winter the Storm

  • January 13, 2025
Coaching Faculty to Winter the Storm - Jenny Moore

There’s a dusting of snow on the ground here in San Antonio which means the city is officially CLOSED for the morning. A quiet blanket of white (and today’s campus closure on the first day of the semester) gave me the opportunity to reach into my Reading Slush Pile, a thick stack of educational development resources.

The Chronicle’s Apocalyptic Outlook on Higher Ed

I’ve just finished reading The Chronicle of Higher Education’s Special Report, “The Outlook for Higher Ed Now.” It reads like something apocalyptic, I’ll admit.  The Chronicle’s report is not a resource I would place in front of one of my early-career colleagues. (they might run away screaming in fear of our situation.) But it was a helpful read as a newly certified Faculty Success Coach.

Here’s the report’s intro: “The academic year ahead presents no shortage of challenges. Colleges face cultural, financial, and political headwinds that force leaders to answer existential questions:

  • What is the purpose of higher education?
  • How can we best educate students to thrive in a world altered by artificial intelligence, civil disruption, and climate change?
  • How can we shore up enrollments suppressed by anti-higher-ed rhetoric and a federal financial aid crisis?

Those are big questions that will take our institutions a lot of resolve and collaboration to undertake. I’m fully on board.

A Personal Commitment to Faculty Success

Two years ago, in preparation for some of these challenges I could feel growing and metastasizing at my own institution, I expanded my service interests to include Faculty Success. After 15 years at my Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI), my journalism/communication students were highly successful in their internships and coursework, and I became deeply invested in providing other faculty the support, coaching, and mentoring that is necessary to translate teaching into Student Success.

Training for the Challenges Ahead

Over the last two years I’ve spent hundreds of hours studying and training in order to support faculty take on these major institutional, professional, and personal challenges. First, as part of a service trajectory, I jumped into the work of our Center for Academic Innovation as a Faculty Fellow. Over the last two summers, I took courses with the extraordinary Dr. Katie Linder, https://www.higheredcoaches.com/. Through Katie and our growing community, I learned the skills, tools, and ethics of the coaching profession, all tailored for the higher education context.  Thanks to Dr. Linder and new colleagues I’ve met across the U.S., I now have a deep toolkit to help faculty think deeply about their priorities, values, and actions.

Celebrating a New Milestone

Finally, great news! I’ve successfully completed my coaching certification through the International Coaching Federation (ICF). This was the last step in “feeling official” and deepening my practice by writing about topics on Coaching and Mentoring. “Reframing Faculty Success” is a place to chronicle my continued learning and provide Higher Ed Faculty with continued support and resources. I look forward to continued learning, conversation, and opportunities to support you as a faculty success coach.  

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