Educational development for responsible graduate students in the neoliberal university

Abstract

In this article, we examine how our work in educational development, specifically in graduate student training, enacts the logic of neoliberalism in higher education in Canada. We approach this examination through a collaborative autoethnographic consideration of and reflection on our practices and experiences as educational developers, the design and delivery of a graduate student survey and our own experiences of and identification with ‘self-actualizing graduate students’. Further, we illustrate how neoliberalism shapes the work of teaching and learning centres resulting in offering programming, which compels graduate students to act in ways that can be read as responsible and capable of navigating an increasingly bleak academic labour market. Throughout the article we call attention to the ways in which our role as educational developers may either reinforce or disrupt neoliberal discourses. While we urge a critical approach, we also reflect on constraints to such criticism.

Keywords:

• autoethnography
• graduate student professional development
• higher education
• neoliberalism
• teaching assistant

Notes

1. Graduate student teaching programming may consist of workshops on teaching, courses on higher education, online and print resources, peer networks, mentoring, observation, small group peer teaching exercises amongst other forms of professional development. Graduate student programming can be likened to faculty development related to teaching. However, graduate student programming may highlight the varied teaching roles graduate students take up (teaching assistants, graders, lab demonstrators, instructors) and that they wish to take up in the future (typically, permanent faculty positions).

2. This reporting structure will change in 2013 with the new head of the CLL holding a senior administrative position (Associate Vice President) and an academic appointment.

3. At our institution, staff and faculty are distinct groups. Faculty are teacher-researchers; staff hold a wide variety of positions including but not limited to maintenance, student services, administration and educational development. These are distinctions and hierarchies – staff are often limited in the type of intellectual work they can do by both position and policy. For example, staff may not be primary researchers on projects that require ethical approval, and staff work is conceived of as the property of the institution.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Marie Vander Kloet

Marie Vander Kloet is an educational developer at McMaster University. She completed her doctorate at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto; she researched nationalism, wilderness recreation, masculinity and whiteness. She is currently investigating accessibility in teaching and learning centre culture, and graduate student professional development and sessional instructing.

Erin Aspenlieder

Erin Aspenlieder is an educational developer at the University of Guelph. She completed her PhD in English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University. She researches graduate student professional development and teaching assistant training.