Challenges and Sustainable Development of Mid-career Educators

Dear Colleagues,

Those of us in academia know the very real tensions that exist as we work our way along the path to the professoriate. We started as aspiring academics full of questions and an innate curiosity as we sought to carve out our identities in academia. After much discipline and sacrifice, we earned the coveted tenure track position, learning how to navigate our fields and the myriad roles and responsibilities that accompany being a faculty member in higher education. The goal, of course, is to earn tenure and promotion to help to “ease” some of the pressure that accompanies membership in academia.

Once that hurdle is overcome, however, comes the ill-defined mid-career stage—a stage that brings with it expanding roles and expectations, and the inclusion of administrative and other leadership responsibilities. Mentoring departmental colleagues and institutional newcomers is required of mid-career faculty to ensure a strong pipeline of dedicated, professionally focused peers.

The reality is that mid-career faculty members and administrators know and see the importance of creating a more diversified portfolio of faculty development supports; one that accounts for career stage and disciplinary needs and differences. Nevertheless, institutional structures, policies, and supports leave much to be desired. What key stakeholders fail to realize is that investing in mid-career faculty is not just an individual investment, it is an organizational investment. Opportunities abound to better align organizational (institutional) imperatives and priorities with individual (faculty) needs and goals.

The focus of this Special Issue is on mid-career faculty. We seek research and practice that emphasize the importance of social sustainability and/or thriving of faculty, whether associate or full professor, firmly situated in the mid-career stage. We welcome manuscripts that feature the experiences of mid-career faculty or the professional development programs that are aimed at providing them with much needed support and resources. We are looking to include manuscripts that represent different institutional and disciplinary settings and targeted faculty populations.

We look forward to reading your submissions!

Prof. Vicki Baker
Dr. Aimee LaPointe Terosky
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• mid-career faculty
• faculty development
• faculty experience