Sep 28, 2023
A Protocol for Developmental Faculty Coaching at the University Level
Author. Timothy J. Hartigan, Ph.D., U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer, Kabarore Teacher Training College
Date. January 2023 (Updated March 2023)
Abstract: New faculty at higher education institutions do not regularly get feedback on how to grow as a classroom instructor. This article discusses developmental faculty coaching, which can be broadly categorized as professional development. It as personalized professional development but not faculty evaluation per se. This type of coaching is generally used with new faculty, who may have content-area expertise, but they lack knowledge of andragogy and experience teaching university students. This coaching protocol was developed through direct observation of over 400 in-person and online classes of over 100 new and returning adjunct faculty at small higher education institution in New York State, USA. A pre-observation, during observation, and post-observation protocol is outlined for the faculty coach and the instructor being coached. It is suggested that developmental faculty coaching be made available to all new higher education instructors and to those more experienced instructors who request it. Recommendations for future study include collecting data on individual instructors or a cohort of new instructors through qualitative and/or qualitative research. This might yield insights into how new instructors grow as excellent faculty members.
Keywords. Faculty coaching, developmental coaching for academic professionals, higher education professional development
About the author. Tim Hartigan worked as a developmental faculty coach for over four years at a higher education institution in the U.S.A. He has coached over 100 faculty in the areas of sciences, social sciences and humanities both in person and online. He is currently serving as a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer at Kabarore Teacher Training College, Gatsibo, Rwanda.
What is developmental faculty coaching? Developmental faculty coaching can be defined as personalized professional development for faculty members in higher education. While coaching can be employed with mid- and late-career instructors, new faculty are most often the beneficiaries of coaching. It primarily helps those who have advanced degrees and subject-area content expertise but have not been taught how to teach higher education students. Their lack of training or courses in andragogy and adult education often leads to instructors teaching in the way that they were taught in their bachelor’s, master’s or doctoral degree programs.
Farghaly and Abdelaziz (2017) provide an alternate definition of coaching, saying it is “a form of supervision targeting unlocking a person’s potential to maximize his performance” (p. 46). Farghaly and Abdelaziz state that it is the client who articulates goals, but oftentimes new faculty do not know what they don’t know about teaching, their students or an institution, so they cannot say specifically what they hope to achieve by being coached. Rather, it is the coach’s job to frame the growth that will occur by spelling out benchmarks of success through discussion and feedback based on rubrics.
Benchmarks that new faculty can achieve can be divided into teaching, learning and assessment. Teaching benchmarks may include delivering the material that is supposed to be covered per the syllabus or tracking calendar in several modalities or with supports such as handouts or slides. Learning benchmarks may include students articulating what they have learned either orally or in writing. Assessment benchmarks may be developing the ability to use both formative and summative assessments in class and avoiding ‘Yes/No questions’ when checking for understanding of material.
Oftentimes faculty misunderstand coaching as a punishment of sorts rather than a way to enhance their teaching skills. They may feel that if they are smart enough to teach university students, they are smart enough to figure out how to teach them effectively. One skill that a developmental faculty coach must have is the ability to communicate their focus – to improve teaching, learning and assessment in classes – in a way that gets the person being coached to not be defensive or apprehensive about the coaching process. Coaches do not want to add stress to an already stressful job. Furthermore, the coach must convey that the focus is not evaluative or punitive in that the coach does not have a say in if the faculty member should be retained or rehired. Those decisions are made by program managers, deans and other administrators.
In addition, developmental faculty coaches should not be considered as a ‘teaching police force’ or part of a quality assurance taskforce. While coaching provides feedback based on a rubric, faculty are not given a number or letter grade after being coached. The coaches do not use monetary or employment rewards either.
Developmental faculty coaching is often confused with mentoring and coaching for tenure. The former is a process where a senior colleague shares professional and institutional knowledge, and listens and gives career advice to a junior colleague, while the latter is a highly specialized form of coaching from senior to junior faculty to help achieve promotion and tenure by advising on how to document effective teaching, research, scholarship, service and innovation. Finally, while coaches have to be open to listening to complaints and difficulties experienced by the faculty member, coaching is not counseling. The parameters of a coaching session should reside within the sphere of teaching methodology and practice.
A secondary focus of developmental faculty coaching is to instill an institution’s philosophy of teaching in its instructors. This can either be taught to new hires through an explicit set of andragogical values or something inferred from an institution’s mission. The university may articulate values and how they should be taught. For example, an institution may ask that faculty promote critical thinking while using a flipped-classroom approach. Some new instructors do not know where to begin, so the coach is instrumental in bridging the gap between faculty orientation and their first class by explaining what the university wants from the instructor and how they want it delivered in the classroom.
There are several metaphors coaches use to describe the coaching process, but the easiest one to grasp is that of an athletic coach. Imagine if you wanted to run a long-distance race, such as a marathon, but were only an occasional jogger. Where would you begin? You would hire a personal running coach! In this case, a coach, presumably a long-distance runner, would advise on an achievable plan and provide benchmark strength and conditioning goals. In addition, the coach would give advice about diet, competition and sports psychology.
Literature Review. Perhaps the idea of developmental faculty coaching can be best situated in Vygotsky’s (1978) ‘Zone of Proximal Development,’ which is the area beyond what one can learn on one’s own. Vygotsky, a psychology theorist, believed that children develop because of social interactions. He held that interactions with a sympathetic person, such as a teacher, or technology, spur development. In this context, if there were no developmental faculty coaches, new instructors would learn how to teach more effectively through a ‘trial and error’ method and by getting feedback from students in a variety of ways, such as end-of-semester evaluations. Using a coach extends the reach of what one can learn on one’s own.
Developmental faculty coaching is an understudied area and there is a dearth of scholarly material on it. Much of the research on faculty coaching deals with coaching in an online environment. This is because teaching online is a relatively new modality and because teaching face-to-face and online effectively require different areas of focus. Dana et al. (2010) put faculty coaching under the umbrella of quality assurance. They studied how to improve the teaching performance of online faculty through screen recording technology. Their results showed that faculty were open to and appreciative of positive feedback and constructive criticism. Bedford et al. (2014) also considered faculty coaching in the online context but emphasized peer relationships as the source of feedback with the goal of increased collaboration. Garrison et al. (2000) developed the Community of Inquiry framework to look at three distinct ways – teaching presence, social presence and cognitive presence – that faculty can create community in online classrooms. Their framework serves as an effective rubric for coaches to evaluate faculty.
Other researchers have looked at coaching in a variety of contexts in higher education. Huston and Weaver (2008) considered peer coaching as a form of professional development for mid- and late-career faculty. One interesting study looked at developmental coaching not from the perspective of improving faculty performance, but to try to improve student performance. Hunt and Weintraub (2004) looked at the effects of coaching on undergraduate business students by MBA students.
Characteristics of faculty coaches. To be effective, developmental faculty coaches in higher education should have several characteristics. First, the coach should be a trained teacher with knowledge of adult education. This pool of expertise is part of what the coach draws on to improve teaching, learning and assessment in classes. The coach should also have taught at the same or a similar institution, showing they have “walked the walk,” as faculty are leery of experts coming into their classroom who have not taught similar students to their own. Another characteristic of faculty coaches should be the ability to provide general professional development to all faculty. This can be done through in-person or online trainings, instructor roundtables, blogs or newsletters. A skilled coach should also be a good listener and communicator, getting feedback from the instructor after a class and then accurately pointing out the strengths and weaknesses of a given lesson.
Just as faculty should prepare their philosophy of teaching, so too should a coach prepare their philosophy of coaching which they can share with their coachees. Since most people being coached have not been coached before, this document states how the coach thinks about coaching and should explain the process of what is done before, during and after an observation.
Who gets coached? Faculty can directly request a coach, but coaches are usually assigned to new faculty shortly after orientation. Administration may also assign a coach after student complaints. Developmental faculty coaches should work closely with administration to figure out who needs continued coaching because sometimes faculty need more than one semester of coaching to become proficient in all of the areas they must master to teach and run a classroom effectively. Oppositely, coaches should be able to advise administration that a faculty member does not need coaching anymore because of repeated demonstration of effective teaching.
How is coaching conducted? Developmental faculty coaching can be done in person or through an online platform. The benefits of in-person coaching are that the faculty member can share their thoughts and get feedback immediately after a class. While developmental faculty coaches take a seat in the back of the classroom and work as unobtrusively as possible, a couple of downsides are that some new instructors find the coach’s presence intimidating and that students may wonder who the visitor is at the back of the room and why they are taking notes. The benefits of coaching through an online platform are that it can be done without disrupting the class or it can be recorded for future analysis. Faculty skilled at online instruction can share their desktops and handouts to allow coaches to see all that they do in class. A drawback of online coaching is that the coach does not get a complete sense of the classroom dynamic as the camera is generally pointed toward the wall behind the instructor’s station.
Pre-Observation protocol. All faculty coaching visits should be arranged at least a week in advance and there should not be unannounced visits. An email or an online calendar invitation is a way that both parties can agree on and remember when the visit will be. It is not uncommon for a faculty member to postpone (or “prepone”) a coaching visit for many reasons. Among the most common reasons for putting off a coaching visit are sickness, absence from class, testing and student presentations for the majority of a class period, or a change in the lesson so that the instructor is providing individual tutoring, such as writing conferences, instead of instruction. Before the observation, the coach shares the rubric they will use and the instructor shares any materials (lesson plan, handouts, videos, etc.) they will use to make the lesson effective.
During observation protocol. If the observation takes place in a physical classroom, the coach arrives 15 minutes or so before class begins to secure a place at the back of the room and to answer any last-minute questions the instructor might have. If the observation is in a virtual classroom, the coach still attempts to be the first one into the meeting so that there is a small amount of one-on-one time with the instructor to answer questions, remind the instructor about upcoming deadlines or university-wide announcements, or give last-minute advice about the lesson.
There are many ways for a coach to note what a faculty member is doing well and what needs to be improved. One suggested method of notetaking by the coach is to use a three-column approach. A time stamp goes in the first column, starting with when the coach and instructor enter the classroom. The main center column is to describe what is happening in class and important things being said by the instructor and students. The third column is a space where the coach can make shorthand notes of points to address, both of praise and constructive criticism, with the instructor. If the class is online, the coach can record a transcript of the class with the permission of the instructor but should delete this immediately after the summary report is written and sent back to the instructor. An example of a three-column notetaking system is in Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Example of Three-Column Notes for Faculty Coaching
Time Activity Comment
11:45 T. directs students to open up a notebook and use a pencil, not a pen, for accounting problems Good advice
11:45 T. dictates key accounting formula, ‘Assets = Liability + Owner’s Equity’ Ask students what ‘Assets’ are equal to. Let Ss tell you the formula in their own words
11:47 T. “Did you read Unit 2 in the textbook?” Avoid ‘Yes/No questions’ and putting adult Ss on the spot
Post-observation protocol. After each coaching session, getting written or oral feedback is suggested from the faculty member. Written feedback has a couple of advantages. First, the instructor may be teaching back-to-back classes and may not have time to debrief or collect their thoughts immediately after a lesson. Also, faculty may want to wait for a period, say 1-2 days, to think deeply about their class. The process of writing helps the faculty to coalesce their thoughts. If the feedback is oral, it can be done as soon as the students have left the classroom or over the phone shortly after the coaching visit.
The feedback faculty provide can be from open-ended or structured questions. The purpose of this part of the coaching process is to align what the instructor saw and what the coach saw. Faculty regularly identify what was done well and what were missed opportunities in the lesson but are often too harsh in their self-assessment of how well they taught. The coach’s role is to structure a short discussion, between 5-10 minutes, to listen to the instructor’s view of how class went, to provide constructive criticism and give teaching tips. There are several questions a coach may ask to structure the dialogue. Sample questions include:
1. What went well and what didn’t in today’s class?
2. How well did your teaching match your lesson plan?
3. How do you know there was good teaching, learning and assessment in this class?
4. What percentage of time did you speak as opposed to the students in class?
5. Would you say that the students were getting what they paid for from this class?
6. Did the class reflect the values the institution prizes?
Any question that generates reflective discussion is a good one. The first question is the most basic and provides a framework for both faculty member and coach to share feedback. The second question speaks to preparation. While K-12 educators must regularly submit lesson plans to an assistant principal, there is no hard and fast rule about how professors should prepare for a class. The third question gets at the heart of the matter – education is completely focused on teaching, learning and assessment. Evidence of all three should be present in each class. There is no correct answer for the fourth question; rather, it is a measuring stick to help the faculty member consider how students’ voices may be more involved in class. This gets at the shift away from lectures to more active learning and student-centered learning. The fifth question focuses on the value of the class in the larger framework of a student’s education. If, for example, an instructor spent large parts of class reading from a textbook or in sharing anecdotes that were not germane to the lesson, then that does not provide educational value. The sixth question speaks to alignment of the institution’s values with those of the instructor. It is suggested that the coach sticks with no more than three questions so as not to overwhelm the faculty member being coached.
New faculty members may not be able to answer post-observation reflection questions well right away, so a suggested practice is for the coach to ask and answer the questions after the first observation, and, if three observations are done during a semester, the coach can follow the “I do/We do/You do” protocol, gradually allowing the faculty member to get practice in answering the questions. Through this method, the coach will ask and answer the post-observation questions after the first observation. After the second observation, both the coach and the instructor answer the questions. After the third and final observation, the instructor answers the questions.
Oftentimes, faculty members are harsher critics of themselves than a coach is, so it comes as a surprise and a relief when a coach can point out several positives in a lesson along with constructive criticism. After that first session, the faculty member knows what the coach is looking for, can answer the questions using the language of educators, such as formative assessment and checks for understanding, and can focus on improving in those areas.
In addition to the post-observation feedback, a written summary of the effectiveness of the instructor and the lesson should be provided shortly after the class, but certainly no later than five days after the lesson so that the instructor can incorporate the feedback into their next lesson. Generally, this summary tells the faculty member what was observed, evidence of good teaching and missed opportunities, and teaching tips. Faculty do not have to reply to this summary although coaches are impressed by those who do take the time to note steps they will take to improve their teaching.
The written summaries have a couple of benefits besides the obvious one of providing evidence of good aspects of an instructor’s teaching and where they have room to grow. If the summary is kept in a central database, deans and other administrators can quickly read a report to get an understanding of a new faculty member’s strengths and challenges. A second use of these reports are that new faculty often need evidence of their teaching ability to apply for other jobs. These reports also provide the basis for letters of recommendation as the person being coached often develops a strong bond with their coach.
Who benefits from faculty coaching? There are several audiences or constituencies who benefit from faculty coaching. The first group is faculty. Faculty, while experts in their fields of study or practice, may not have taken any courses on educational philosophy or pedagogy. The faculty coach can let them build on what they know about teaching, learn what they don’t know, and help the instructor transform into a more effective educator. Next, students benefit because, through coaching, classroom instruction becomes more focused, with a wider variety of activities, and a closer link to course objectives. Finally, administrators are always concerned about the quality of their educational product. Faculty coaching allows them to gain direct feedback about an instructor’s performance.
How to choose a rubric. If an institution has thought deeply about its teaching, it will have developed guidelines and rubrics. Faculty coaches can work with these guidelines or rubrics to ensure what the institution values is being conveyed in the classroom. Rubrics are suggested frameworks for the feedback, but if one is not handy, a rubric can be created by molding the educational philosophy of a department, school, or university to specific criteria. Rubrics can also be created using the Community of Inquiry model (Garrison et al. 1999) and the ‘Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education’ (Chickering & Gamson, 1987) as guides.
Figure 2.
Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education Rubric
Principle Description Example
Encourages Contact between Students and Faculty Knowing each other promotes involvement in the course Instructor use of students’ names or nicknames and knowledge of their interests
Develops Reciprocity and Cooperation among Students Instructor designs classroom activities that are collaborative and social Student-to-student reviews at the end of class or role-plays to apply learning
Uses Active Learning Techniques Students are actively engaged in learning and not passive recipients of information Flipped classroom method or project-based learning
Gives Prompt Feedback Keeping students regularly informed of their progress in class Setting a date to return homework, usually within a week, or using a learning management system so that students can track their course grade
Emphasizes Time on Task Time + Energy = Learning Providing time management tips for studying and links to resources, such as tutors in learning centers
Communicates High Expectations Expect a level of student achievement and you will get it Linking the importance of mastering course content to success in a career
Respects Diverse Talents and Ways of Learning Students learn in different ways Students can learn material from lectures, reading or videos
Where there is no coach. Faculty often wonder what to do after they have been coached and the coach has moved on to newer faculty or if the institution does not provide a coach. While it is always wise to keep the coach’s contact information handy, there may be times when an instructor would like to think deeply about their teaching but doesn’t have access to a coach. In situations like these, faculty can still try a few things to get a window or a mirror on their teaching. First, choose a rubric to evaluate yourself with. Then, digitally record or use the record function on any word processing document to record your class (as with all recordings, let your students know you are doing this first, though). The transcript of your class will point out many things to you, including how long you spent on tasks and if there are phrases or fillers you overuse. Another way to get coaching is to ask a student to note something particular about your class, such as how long you spent on the overview of class, on the lecture and on any related activities. This will help you structure your class more effectively. Another thing that students can do for you is to keep track of your questions. For instance, one student may note how many ‘Yes/No questions’ you ask, and another might note the number and kinds of questions that use higher-order thinking skills from the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy.
Limitations. Because a faculty member cannot be simultaneously observed and not observed, one wonders if the lesson observed by the faculty coach would be the same one delivered if the coach was not there. The Hawthorne Effect, or Observer-Expectancy Effect, which occurs when a research subject alters their behavior because of knowledge of the presence of an observer (Merrett, 2006), is something which needs to be considered here. While developmental faculty coaching is not a part of systematic research study, both instructors and students may consciously or unconsciously change their behaviors in the presence of a coach. The coach may increase levels of anxiety in the instructor or students, contributing to a decreased level of performance. On the other hand, the instructor may use more effective teaching techniques, or the students may make a greater effort in class in the presence of the coach.
Suggestions: Anecdotal evidence suggests that new instructors really enjoy the help in improving their teaching. It is suggested that developmental faculty coaching be made available to all new higher education instructors and to those more experienced instructors who request it. The coach’s value lies in helping the instructor learn through a mentor-mentee relationship and not by trial-and-error in the classroom.
Recommendations for Future Studies: Because developmental faculty coaching is personalized to a single instructor and not studied systematically for either qualitative or quantitative data, a social science research approach might yield insights into how new instructors grow as individuals and as cohorts. An in-depth study of how an instructor or a cohort of new instructors progressed from a novice to expert teacher(s) would be beneficial to individual instructors, departments and higher education institutions.
Summary. In summary, new faculty can develop teaching proficiency more quickly by working with a developmental faculty coach. The main goal is to improve teaching, learning and assessment in a classroom and at an institution by having a coach work closely with a new instructor for an entire semester. There are parts to the coaching process that happen before, during and after the coaching visit. After a visit, the coach should spend time with the faculty member pointing out strengths and growth opportunities.
References
Bedford, L., McDowell, M., & DiTommaso Downs, L. (2014). Enhancing faculty
performance through coaching: Targeted, individualized support. Higher Learning Research Communications, 4 (4).
Chickering, A. W., & Gamson, Z. F. (1987). Seven principles for good practice in
undergraduate education. AAHE Bulletin, 3, 7.
Dana, H., Havens, B., Hochanadel, C., & Phillips, J. (2010). An innovative
approach to faculty coaching. Contemporary Issues in Education Research, 3(11), 29-34.
Farghaly A, & Abdelaziz A. (2017). Coaching as a tool for personal and
professional development in a problem-based learning medical curriculum: A qualitative study. Education in Medicine Journal. 2017;9(3): 45–53.
Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (1999). Critical inquiry in a text-
based environment: Computer conferencing in higher education. The Internet and Higher Education, 2(2-3), 87-105.
Hunt, J. M., & Weintraub, J. R. (2004). Learning Developmental Coaching.
Journal of Management Education, 28(1), 39-61.
Huston, T., & Weaver, C.L. (2008). Peer Coaching: Professional Development for
Experienced Faculty. Innovative Higher Education, 33, 5–20.
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26(1), 143-146.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher
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Sep 28, 2023
Rejuvenating the Peace Corps: A View from the Field
by Tim Hartigan
About the author: Tim Hartigan finished his Peace Corps service in Rwanda in July. He trained pre-primary and primary school teachers for the Rwandan Education Board at Kabarore Teacher Training College. Tim is a graduate of Dartmouth College where he majored in English. He lives in Buffalo, NY.
The Peace Corps is officially retirement age. Like a lot of 62-year-olds, it seems pretty set in its ways. Here’s a view from the field on how to rejuvenate this grand American institution.
Many notable Americans as well as people who live in your neighborhood have served in the Peace Corps. Nearly a quarter of a million Americans have served as PCVs since 1961. At its peak in 1966, over 15,000 volunteers were serving. Now there is about a tenth of that number in the field, but the number of “Kennedy’s Kids” is increasing again as the organization and the countries they serve in bounce back from the Covid-19 pandemic.
In addition to the volunteers that serve for the standard 27 months (3 months of training plus 2 years of service), a small number of Peace Corps Response volunteers are serving. I was one of four Response volunteers in my cohort serving for one year in Rwanda, a country in East Africa about the size of Vermont. “The kids,” as we (2 Boomers and 2 Gen-X-ers) call the 13 Health and Education volunteers, are super-smart, culturally sensitive and speak Kinyarwanda really well. We enjoy serving with them.
Despite a proposed budget for Peace Corps that approaches half a billion dollars, we still make what our host country national counterparts make – so in my case that was about $200 per month, the same as my Rwandan teacher trainer counterparts. We also get a sum of money set aside for us to help us readjust to life at home when we finish our service. Response volunteers get $500 for each month of service, $100 more than the two-year volunteers.
Peace Corps has three goals. Host national government ministries identify areas of need and then the Peace Corps provides them with qualified peoplepower. That’s the first one. In Rwanda, there are two programs, Health and Education. Programs in other countries include Youth in Development, Agriculture, Community Economic Development and Environment.
The second and third goals have to do with cultural exchange. This involves sharing aspects of U.S. culture with host country friends and co-workers while serving, and then telling Americans about our experiences when we return home, either through formal presentations, perhaps at a school or church, or informally with family and friends.
I had an almost daily built-in cultural exchange. My landlord’s 7-year-old son, Manzi, was infinitely curious about the things in my house. He tried my dental floss, shave cream, iron and toaster but, luckily, he never figured out how to pull the pin and depress the handle on my Peace Corps-issued fire extinguisher. He’s fascinated by dinosaurs and asked me, in English, if they exist in another dimension. Manzi serves as a cultural broker between me and his father, who doesn’t speak much English.
From a top-down perspective, Peace Corps is meeting its first goal. Considering development from the bottom up, however, I’ve found it very difficult to engage staff in supporting projects that I and my Rwandan colleagues thought were important. It may seem strange to hear me say that Peace Corps Rwanda isn’t effective at grass roots development, especially since all of the American administrative staff are former volunteers.
Speak to any returned volunteer and they will tell you that one of the most impactful parts of their Peace Corps service was doing a project. Whether agricultural, educational or related to small business, these projects are the legacy of the volunteer who helped create them.
There are two avenues of project grant funding available to volunteers, the Small Project Assistance grant through USAID and the Peace Corps Partnership Program. Applying for these grants is cumbersome and most volunteers will only be able to get one project funded in their two years because the Peace Corps only allows them to apply in the one-year window in the middle of their service. They may not apply for two grants at once and cannot reapply for a second grant until the monitoring and evaluation are complete on the first grant. For Peace Corps Response volunteers like me, SPA and PCPP funding is unattainable because we serve for about a year.
I believe Peace Corps would be a more effective organization if it ‘stood on its head’ for a while and looked at grant funding from the perspective of the volunteer. Grass roots development is relatively inexpensive, puts money at the most local level, strengthens the community where the volunteers serve and leaves a lovely red, white and blue footprint.
Here are six low-cost suggestions to re-energize the Peace Corps from the bottom up:
Create a database of grant-funded projects done by earlier volunteers. New volunteers, many with the ink still wet on their college diplomas, may not even know what projects are possible to do. Most have never worked in community development, but if they can see what their PCV predecessors have done in different countries and in different contexts, that can spark “What if we did this?” discussions with their co-workers. This also has the advantage of showing new volunteers how projects are written and evaluated, how budgets work, and to learn what community connections are necessary to complete a successful project.
Earlier this year, I discussed raising animals on campus with our dean. He told me what was wrong with rabbits, cows, and goats, and he said that raising chickens for eggs would be the best solution for increasing protein in students’ diets. Most of the over 500 students on our residential campus are children of farmers, so taking care of animals is second nature to them. I requested a copy of a successful chicken coop grant application from the Peace Corps Rwanda admin. You would have thought I was asking for plans on how to build a nuclear reactor. It took six weeks for staff to provide me with a successful grant (for raising goats and chickens) and it was so heavily redacted that it was useless.
Allow crowdsourcing of funds to support projects. Strangely, Peace Corps does not allow volunteers to crowdsource funding. Most two-year volunteers are digital natives and crowdsourcing is natural to them. Peace Corps recently shut down a project by my nearest volunteer neighbor, Sandra, who was trying to purchase expandable shoes for her primary school students, some of whom were outgrowing their shoes too quickly and had to resort to flip-flops. Her dean ordered her students to go barefoot rather than wear plastic sandals. This didn’t sit well with the big-hearted volunteer. She did a little research and found a company that makes “shoes that grow” so that students could adjust the straps and not have to pass on their shoes every time their feet grew. She connected the dots to create a useful project. She solicited funds from Rotary International, family, friends and friends of friends back home. When the Peace Corps Rwanda country director got wind of it, he reminded her of the Peace Corps policy, asked her to cancel the project and to return the over $6,000 raised to the donors.
There is no better way to tie in the second and third goals of Peace Corps in real time than in trying to do a project such as Sandra’s. Americans do want to help others in distant places, but often don’t know how. Imagine how wonderfully educational it would be for Ms. Smith’s third-grade class in Sheboygan to raise funds to support a volunteer’s project. This funding avenue should be opened now.
Create a ‘Friends of Peace Corps.’ Many returned volunteers have created groups that raise money to support projects in their countries of service proposed by current volunteers. For example, The Friends of Peace Corps Thailand, my first country of service over three decades ago, has raised $137,000 over the past 20 years. These funds have been used to support nearly 150 projects. PCVs propose a project and Returned Peace Corps Volunteers can fund them based on project type or location.
Unfortunately, there is no ‘Friends of Rwanda’ group. Also, some have served in countries that no longer host volunteers, but are in a position to help. Peace Corps or the National Peace Corps Association could create an umbrella fund for returned volunteers who want to support projects proposed by current volunteers, regardless of country or program, which bypasses SPA or PCPP funding.
Allow Peace Corps Response Volunteers to apply for grants immediately. There were four of us in our Peace Corps Response cohort, the youngest of whom was born during the Nixon administration. All of us are former 2-year volunteers and we are all experienced in our fields. Unfortunately, the Peace Corps grant funding model does not accommodate us because it is geared toward two-year volunteers, who cannot apply for a grant during their first six months of service, as they are getting settled into their jobs and communities, or during their last six months, as they are getting ready to leave. Since grant applications are reviewed quarterly and volunteers cannot work on two grant-funded projects at the same time, this means that it would be hard to do more than one project during the normal two-year service. As most Response volunteers serve a year or less, this model does not work for us and it makes applying for a grant, doing a project, and then evaluating its success almost impossible. Peace Corps should allow Response volunteers, who need less time adjusting cross-culturally and to new work schedules, and who have expertise in assessing community needs, access to grant applications as soon as they are settled in at site.
Give PCVs access to and practice with mini-grants. To give new and Response volunteers a chance to see how grants function in their community, one-time small grants of up to $200 should be made available to them after a month of service. For an Education volunteer, these grants could be used for weekend leadership camps, entrepreneurship competitions, guest speakers or field trips.
Not every volunteer wants to do a grant, but for those who do the wall that they have to scale to access SPA or PCPP funds can seem daunting. Mini-grants would get volunteers the hands-on experience they need to tackle something bigger or get them to realize that grant-funded projects are not what they want to do at their site.
Connect PCVs in Neighboring Countries. Peace Corps has a wonderful program, World Wise Schools, which connects host country students to U.S. school children. However, language levels, different school and vacation schedules, set-up time between teachers, and time differences can pose a problem (Kigali is currently 6 hours ahead of New York and 9 hours ahead of California). I tried WWS during my first service in Thailand, but I just couldn’t make it work with a school in Woodbridge, Virginia. While connections such as these are infinitely easier to do in the digital age, I didn’t attempt a WWS connection this time around because we were reminded of the program in March, just as students at my school were about to go on break.
It would be great if volunteers could connect to other volunteers in neighboring countries. Four of the seven member nations of the East African Community have Peace Corps Volunteers. My students would really like to meet their age peers in Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya in video chats and for competitions such as debates, which are popular in Africa. The desire to do this is there and it costs almost nothing.
Are the best days of Peace Corps behind it? No, but change is necessary. Those of us who served know that Peace Corps is a superb expression of American goodwill but refocusing it to look at development through the eyes of volunteers is vital to rejuvenating the organization. The Peace Corps promotes invaluable shared work bridging cultures and helps us remember that, despite differences, we are all one human family, or as the Rwandans aptly say, “Turi kumwe” – “We are together.”