Professional development for university teachers: Adaptive positioning and multifaceted foci

Globalisation in higher education has cast academic development as one of the drivers of education transformation. Existing theoretical frameworks are employed together with experiential and reflective knowledge to analyse a case study contextually. The findings demonstrate how academic development is embodied organisationally and how its remit has expanded, identifying emergent developmental challenges. The work concludes that adaptive organisational positioning and expanded design foci have evolved to support multifarious professional learning needs in a dynamic higher education setting. Arguing that these conditions are occurring globally, it is suggested that greater flexibility, situatedness and self-directedness are necessary to assure responsive and sustainable practice into the future.