Should educational development seek to define itself as a discipline? What are the urgent conversations around our research and practice? Is the academy improving? 

In today's episode, I am excited to share my conversation with Michael Palmer and Lindsay Wheeler, Co-Editors of To Improve the Academy (TIA for short), which is the flagship peer-reviewed journal of the POD Network. It is an open-access, electronic journal that focuses on educational development practice and research. TIA publishes two issues annually with occasional special issues that respond to the profession and moment: Link to the Journal. 

Michael Palmer and Lindsay Wheeler, colleagues in the Center for Teaching Excellence at UVA, became the first ever Co-Associate Editors of To Improve the Academy in 2020 and now serve as the journal's first co-Editors. Michael, a Chemist by training, leads the Center for Teaching Excellence and has won numerous awards and recognition for his educational development scholarship and innovations. Like many POD Network members, my first encounter with Michael Palmer was the "Measuring the Promise" student-centered syllabus rubric that we use to both model and assess student-centered syllabi from faculty who go through our CDIs each summer.

Lindsay Wheeler, Assistant Director of Educational Development Research and Assessment, is a prolific and award-winning scholar in the field of educational research. Recently she was awarded the 2021 International Journal of Academic Development Article of the Year Award for her article, co written with Dorthea Back, titled: “Understanding the impact of educational development interventions on classroom instruction and student success”. Her approach to educational development research embraces collaboration as evidenced by some of her recent projects: the SoTL Collaboratory in Virginia, and the Pandemic Educational Development Research Collaboratory, which she co-leads with Eric Kaldor, in collaboration with educational developers from other four-year institutions, which focuses on documenting and reflecting on the work of educational developers during the pandemic

This article by Jamiella Brooks, Heather Dwyer, and Marisella Rodriguez, published in Faculty Focus, is mentioned in the interview 

Here is the transcript of our conversation.