Judy Ashcroft helps establish faculty Professional Development Center at university in Saudi Arabia
Dean Judy Ashcroft was the team leader for designing the Professional Development Center (PDC) at the Prince Mohammad Bin Fahd University (PMU) in Al Khobar, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. On a consultancy basis, Dean Ashcroft was tasked with designing a teaching and learning facility capable of achieving the ambitious intentions of PMU’s Founding Committee. The defining characteristics of the PMU require a commitment to student-centered instruction and outcomes-based assessment as well as a pedagogy that prepares students for active participation in business and civic life. The PMU is a new university but these “new” elements must be developed to complement established Saudi cultural values. To this end, facilities in the Learning Resource Building will provide easy access to support services for administrators, faculty, staff, and students from separate campuses for male and female students. PMU has its Inauguration Ceremony on October 8, 2008.
“I enjoyed working with my two team members from other institutions,” said Ashcroft. “We had the opportunity to include the best features from our own experiences and to build in solutions before problems in structure, staffing, and communication could start. Seeing the pictures on the PMU Web site is very gratifying. I wish PMU all the best as they celebrate their inauguration.”
Another defining characteristic of PMU and the establishment of a PDC at that institution is the use of instructional technologies to provide current, engaging, and challenging instruction. A highly-skilled and collaborative technical staff in the PDC is prepared to take PMU faculty concepts and realize these activities and presentations in dynamic digital formats.
Student-centered teaching and pervasive integration of technology are aspirations that must be supported by more PMU resources than just the PDC. To that end, the PDC devotes time and talent to communicating the advantages of this new pedagogy and delivery and to building venues for discussion and cross-curricular collaboration; one is the University Committee for Integrative Learning. The faculty center also supports the work of many other units including the Preparation Year Program and the Capstone Program, and has a special collaborative relationship with the Learning Resource Center to support information literacy development.