What’s New

Members of the Professional Development Center and Wake Forest University Chief Human Resources Office, Carmen Canales, recently completed a certification granting them permission to issue and debrief the FourSight Thinking Profile assessment.  The assessment determines an individual’s preferences among the four-step innovation process.  The four steps in FourSight’s innovation process are:  clarify, ideate, develop, and implement.  The assessment is simple and can be completed in less than 10 minutes.  Debriefing sessions can be done for individuals or teams.  These sessions explore the four steps in the process as well as the many different combinations of preferences.

As our University community is encouraged to drive innovation, this tool is a fantastic new addition for individuals and departments to heighten their awareness for where their preferences lie.  The tool and its related skill sets help support creative thinking, collaborative problem-solving, and cultures of innovation.

For more information about the assessment, please contact John Champlin at chamjj@wfu.edu.

Wake Forest University’s Professional Development Center partnered with the Association for Talent Development to celebrate Professional Development Emphasis Week December 7-11.  The planning committee organized class room and online learning opportunities to fit five themed days:  Mindful Monday, Tech Tuesday, Work Tools Wednesday, Thrive Thursday, and Fun Friday.  The goal of the week was to inform and energize our campus community around professional development and learning.  As an institute of higher education, it’s critically important that we offer opportunities for our faculty and staff to grow personally and professionally.

Highlights of the week included faculty-led workshops on “The Practice of Mindfulness” and “Humor and Your Health.”  Additionally, the Professional Development Center utilized social media (#PDEWFU15) to promote the week’s events and to collect entries for a wellbeing-themed photo scavenger hunt.  Staff members Shannon Ashford and Michele Kurtz of the Office of the Dean of Students won Thrive gift gags for completing the scavenger hunt’s 8 required tasks.

Many thanks to all of the facilitators and attendees for participating this week and throughout the year!

For the third year in a row, John Champlin, Assistant Director of the Professional Development Center, led a session for Forsyth Technical Community College faculty and staff for their Professional Development Day.  The theme for the day was “Expanding Your Horizons” and John led a class on Professionalism that helped attendees dispel some professionalism myths and broaden attendees’ conceptualization of who a professional is and what a professional does.  The class, which utilizes Bill Wiersma’s Seven Mindsets of Trusted Professionals, challenged participants to consider professionals in the context of the work they do on a daily basis.  “It is a pleasure and an honor to work with Abbie Emms and Tracy Auman of the Talent and Knowledge Development Team at FTCC to help make sure their event is successful.”  said John.  “I look forward to further collaboration.”

The Wake Forest University Professional Development Center recently partnered with professional and organizational development colleagues from across North America to form the Organizational Development Consortium (ODC).  The ODC will consist of colleagues from higher education institutions, whether their focus be on learning, training, professional development, or organizational development for faculty and staff.  Members will be committed to sharing best practices in an effort to see our institutions succeed.

The idea for such a group grew from the Professional and Organizational Development Conference hosted by the Professional Development Center at Wake Forest for since 2010.  The original idea for this conference was to bring together people who are doing similar work to have more focused conversations than other professional conferences sometimes allow.

The ODC will continue to hold yearly conferences and will likely explore more frequent regional events.  The 2016 ODC Conference will be held at Colorado College in Colorado Springs August 7-9.  The 2017 conference will be held in May on the Wake Forest University Campus.  The event will rotate between the WFU campus and other ODC member campuses every other year.

Registration for the 2016 conference opens April 18th.

The Professional Development Center at Wake Forest University was happy to welcome attendees from across North America for the 5th Annual Professional and Organizational Development Conference.  What began as a small gathering of colleagues in 2011 has grown to a nationally-known conference drawing learning and organizational development professionals from 28 higher education institutions from the United States and Canada.  From March 8th through 10th, colleagues networked, shared best practices, and collaborated on various professional and organizational topics.

The event began on Sunday afternoon with “The PDC Story,” an opportunity for attendees to learn more about WFU’s Professional Development Center and its programs.  The group then moved to Zick’s for a welcome reception on one of the first beautiful spring evenings of the year.  After dining and conversing on the patio overlooking Hearn Plaza, the conference case study was introduced and participants were given time to discuss the case with their diverse groups.

Monday morning conference-goers gathered in Kirby Hall for the conference sessions which included:

• “Excel at CC” presented by Lisa Brommer from Colorado College
• “Human Performance Technology in the OD Setting” presented by Nathan Strong from the University of South Carolina
• “Transforming Performance Management” presented by Wanda Hayes and Randall Lucius, both from Emory University
• “Building Bench through Knowledge Transfer” presented by Jackie Greenlee from Guilford Technical Community College

The last session of the afternoon featured a Roundtable Discussion on various topics:  the Great Colleges to Work For survey, staff mentoring programs, employee onboarding, useful assessments, HR Liason/Representative programs, and more.

Tuesday morning six groups presented on how they would hand the fictional organizational development case study that presented three challenging people/departments for a newly hired leader.  The presentations were extremely well done and presented multiple facets of OD and different approaches to difficult situations.

The Professional Development Center staff offers its deepest appreciation for the individuals who were able to attend!

Additional conference photos can be found here.

Attendee quotes:

“”This conference exceeded my expectations on every level!  I have already told several colleagues about it and encouraged them to attend next year.  The effort and care you put into planning and facilitating speaks volumes about  WFU’s deep commitment to learning and development.”

-Susan Coan, Director, Organizational Development and Learning, University of Alabama at Birmingham

“This was the best conference I have attended. From the handwritten welcome note, to the facilitated round table discussions every aspect of this conference was thoughtful and robust.”

“I felt this conference was a huge value for a low cost, much more so than larger conferences.”

Institutions in attendance:  Appalachian State University, Bucknell University, Colorado College, Concordia College, Elon University, Emory University, Forsyth Technical Community College, George Mason University, Guilford Technical Community College, James Madison University, North Carolina State University, South Piedmont Community College, University of Alabama, University of Alabama at Birmingham, University of Denver, University of Georgia, University of North Carolina – Asheville, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina – Greensboro, University of Richmond, University of South Carolina, Virginia Tech, Wake Technical Community College, Western University

On Friday, February 13, the 2015 CORE Honorees were recognized for their achievement at a luncheon held at Graylyn International Conference Center.  Nine individuals from across campus completed the necessary requirements for CORE Certification.  In attendance were supervisors and colleagues who have provided guidance and support to the honorees as they attended classes and workshops focused on personal, professional, and community development.

The 2015 CORE Honorees include:

John Champlin, Professional Development Center

Robin Godwin, Sports Medicine

Tomma Guastaferro, Professional Development Center

Karen Logan, Physics

Ellen Meachum, Registrar’s Office

Barbara Meredith, Office of the Provost

Leslie Spencer, University Theater (not pictured)

Steven Wicker, Instructional Technology Group

Kim Widener, Financial Services

CORE, which stands for “Cultivating our Organization to Realize Excellence,” was launched in September of 2011 as an outcome of the climate survey to offer more sustained developmental options for faculty and staff on campus.  CORE is built around 5 competencies that are meaningful and relevant to our campus:  communication, community, leadership, organizational acumen, and personal progression.

An article describing the Professional Development Center’s partnership with the Wake Forest Human Resources Team was featured in the Winter 2014-2015 edition of The Higher Education Workplace magazine. The periodical, published by the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources (CUPA-HR), highlights best practices being utilized by Higher Education institutions across the United States.

PDC Team Member, John Champlin, wrote “Growing Staff in the Forest” after being asked to submit an article detailing the Career Planning Series utilized at Wake Forest University. This series was also the topic of the PDC’s most recent presentation at the 2014 CUPA-HR National Conference in San Antonio, TX.  “I’m honored that we were able to spotlight the fantastic collaboration of the Recruitment and Organizational Development Team,” John said.  “We strive to provide a workplace that fosters growth and development opportunities.”

The Career Planning Series (which includes classes on Resumes, Cover Letters, Interviewing, Career Planning, and Navigating the Recruiting and Hiring Process for Managers) continues to be successful and will be offered again in April of 2015.

The full article is available here.  Many thanks to The Higher Education Workplace magazine and CUPA-HR for this opportunity.

On October 15th, faculty and staff members of Forsyth Technical Community College gathered for their biannual Professional Development Day.  The theme for the day was “Leading Others with Impact.”  For the second year in a row, PDC staff member, John Champlin, was asked to lead a session.  In front of an audience of about 55 faculty and staff gathered in an auditorium at the Oak Grove Center on the FTCC campus, John presented his workshop entitled “Winning with People.”  Based on John Maxwell’s book of the same name, this class offers tenets for building strong relationships with friends, family, coworkers, and even strangers.  Individuals in the audience engaged in discussion about the idea of giving with no strings attached and the critical importance of first starting with a healthy idea of one’s own value.  “I was very much impressed by the wonderful examples brought to light by the attendees.  They made the concepts come alive that helped other people grasp the information.” says John, Manager of Recruitment and Organizational Development.  “I’m very thankful for the invitation to come and speak with the faculty and staff at one of WFU’s neighboring institutions of higher education.”

Andrea Ellis, Director of Recruitment and Organizational Development, and John Champlin, Manager of Recruitment and Organizational Development, attended the 2014 CUPA-HR National Conference in San Antonio, Texas in late September.  While there, they presented during a concurrent session on the topic of “An Unusual Cross-Utilization of HR Resources.”  The session outlined the “Career Planning” series that was launched in the fall of 2012 and the collaboration between the recruiting function and the professional development function within the Wake Forest Human Resources Office.  The series has been extremely successful and has grown to include five different career-oriented classes and a number of small-group coaching events.  Additionally, John and Andrea detailed the “Facilitator-Expert Model” of presenting.  The approximately 35 attendees were engaged in the discussion and remarked how applicable this model could be at their institutions.  This marks the third year in a row that a member of the Professional Development Center has presented at the National CUPA-HR Conference.

While at the conference John and Andrea were able to catch-up with colleagues from across the nation including several attendees of the Professional and Organizational Development Conference held annually at Wake Forest University.  In particular, congratulations to Anne Meyer and her team at Texas A&M University for receiving the HR Innovation Award presented by PeopleAdmin!  This same award was presented to Andrea Ellis at the 2012 CUPA-HR National Conference for her creation of the Professional Development Center at Wake Forest University.

The Professional Development Center was recently featured on Inside WFU, the home page for all important Wake Forest University happenings.  The Q&A was organized by Kim McGrath, Associate Director, News & Communications.  The questions provided by Kim were insightful and educational for the campus community.  Insight was provided into how the PDC selects classes, popular courses, and how individuals across campus can offer a class.

Professional Development opportunities are an important part of occupational well-being, one of the eight dimensions of wellness included in Wake Forest’s Thrive initiative.  Staff and faculty members who take advantage of development opportunities are more engaged and are able to bring the best of who they are to the workplace.

Q&A Link:  http://inside.wfu.edu/2014/07/the-pdc-empowers-wake-foresters-to-learn-grow-and-have-fun/