5: Faculty Learning Communities: Change Agents for Transforming Institutions into Learning Organizations

In my 20 years of faculty development, I have found faculty learning communities to be the most effective programs for achieving faculty learning and development. In addition, these communities build communication across disciplines, increase faculty interest in teaching and learning, initiate excursions into the scholarship of teaching, and foster civic responsibility. They provide a multifaceted, flexible, and holistic approach to faculty development. They change individuals, and, over time, they change institutional culture. Faculty learning communities and their “graduates” are change agents who can enable an institution to become a learning organization. In this article I introduce faculty learning communities and discuss ways that they can transform our colleges and universities.