KENNESAW, Ga. | May 7, 2019

With the increasing demand to excel at teaching, researching, and service, faculty can become overwhelmed. On one hand, faculty need to stay current in their field and be aware of practitioner advances, but on the other hand, faculty are required to produce quality research. As universities evolve faculty research loads are often increased as well as the expectation to remain innovative in the classroom. On top of this, faculty are asked to provide service in many different forms from leading student groups to being committee members as well as being involved in the community at large. For faculty entering their second, third or more decades of teaching, inspiration, and energy can be difficult to muster.

How can a faculty member meet the increasing performance expectations and not get burned out in the process? Finding a way to combine the areas of teaching, research and service can be the key to not only excelling but also avoiding exhaustion. The answer starts in an unlikely place - Professional Development.

Tyra Burton, 2017 Betty L. Siegel Teaching Award recipient, explained, "As faculty, we often don't think about professional development for the subject area we teach. In 2012, I realized social media was going to be a game-changer for marketing, and in order to prepare my students for the digital world that was coming, I needed to learn more. This meant stretching out beyond academia. In the past, I thought of professional development as learning innovative teaching methods or better ways to write grants, but the need to stay current in my field changed my perception and, in the end, set me up for achievements in several areas."

Burton applied for the Holder Professional Development Award through KSU's Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL). This grant allowed her to attend several professional social media conferences and workshops. "I was the only academic anywhere in sight. Instead of feeling like an outsider, the practitioners were excited to talk to me and offered advice and help." The opportunity to make professional contacts for the board of advisors, student internships and jobs, guest speakers, and research are some of the overlooked benefits of professional development activities. Burton received help from Topher Kohan with The Weather Company, "he guided me on my choices for conferences and introduced me to his colleagues. More importantly, because we developed a professional relationship, he joined the department's board of advisors, mentored students, and still is a guest speaker in my classes." Dr. Scott Widmier had a similar experience when he attended an Atlanta American Marketing Association event where professionals were wanting to connect and offer help to the newly relaunched Kennesaw Marketing Association.

The knowledge gained at the conferences and workshops helped Burton to design new classes for Coles College, Professional Education, and the Honors Program. Burton suggests, "If you want to try something different or outside your normal field, the honors program offers great opportunities to develop seminar classes. The first time I taught social media it was in the honors department." From that initial honors class, Burton eventually developed two full courses centered on social and digital media. When creating a new course, building in innovation from the ground up provides faculty highlights for annual reviews as well as opportunities for awards, presentations, and research. Looking to find inspiration to spruce-up your classes? Try the University of Georgia's Innovations in Teaching Conference on October 25, 2019, in Athens.

MKTG 4520 Social Media Marketing was developed to introduce students to social media from a businesses perspective. 4520 lays the groundwork for MKTG 4570 Advanced Social Media Marketing, a course centered on real-world application and preparing students for careers in digital marketing. Students gain additional knowledge in paid social and search as well as creating original written, audio, video and visual content. Projects are team based with team leaders selected through an application process. Teams are tasked with two projects: creating a new website and client-based work. Team websites must include blogs, podcasts, and video content. Social media accounts are created to promote their websites and drive organic traffic. The second project involves working with a real-world client to accomplish a goal related to paid social or paid search. Guest speakers including course alumni, industry experts, and board of advisor members speak to students on a range of topics including job search, real-world projects, and how to stay current. The knowledge Burton gained both through professional development and CETL was key in designing the courses.

There are numerous resources both technological and people-based at the university that can help provide inspiration and assistance when discovering new areas for teaching and research. Inspiration may just be around the corner. 2016 Coles College Creativity in Teaching award winner Sandra Pierquet saw a brief paragraph in an advertising publication that sparked her interest in brain activity and marketing. There was a huge question mark about why so many people "ran" away from ads at every opportunity that needed answering. She was introduced to the Coles BrainLab by Dr. Adriane Randolph, and together with her advertising class, they did work on how the brain perceives ads. This led to the creation of the special topics Neuromarketing class in which students do academic research focusing on the Consumer Purchase Decision Process and the brain. 

KSU's University Information and Technology Services also offer numerous resources for both faculty and students. Over the years, Burton has taken numerous courses through UITS from Excel pivot tables to podcasting to Adobe Creative Cloud programs. "Not only have I been able to expand my skill set, but I've also been able to create unique learning opportunities for my students in class on Adobe Photoshop and InDesign programs with UITS instructors." UITS extensive training opportunities can be found on their webpage.

An area that is often unnoticed by faculty looking for outlets for research is the Scholarship of Teaching (SoTL). Dr. Michele DiPietro, Executive Director of KSU's CETL, and Hillary Steiner, CETL's Interim Associate Director for SoTL, describe SoTL as "focusing on the systematic inquiry into student learning and/or one’s own teaching practices in higher education. As scholarship, it must be methodologically sound, use research methods appropriate to the discipline, be peer reviewed and evaluated, and be disseminated as scholarly work." SoTL offers academic faculty of all disciplines an area to research, present and publish. Burton said, "I've been lucky enough to participate in two SoTL retreats, and I hope to participate again in the future. These retreats offer dedicated time and help to get a SoTL project off the ground and well on its way to publication submission or data collection. There are also several conferences in the local area focusing on SoTL to present classroom innovations as well as to get to know more about research opportunities." Started in 1993, the Research on Teaching and Learning Summit will be held at KSU center on October 18, 2019 offering faculty a convenient way to learn more about SoTL. CETL also has numerous opportunities to compete for funds for course redesign, learning communities, and travel to SoTL conferences.

Burton described the impact of professional development as "For me staying connected to what is happening in the marketing world outside of academia has presented me with numerous opportunities for personal and professional growth. I feel confident the students in my courses have a solid foundation of skills desired by employers in the digital space. Beyond that, staying connected to the profession has opened areas of research and innovation for me as well. After over 25 years of teaching in higher education, I'm still excited to go into the classroom. I'm still learning. I'm still being inspired, and that passion can help to ignite my students desire to aspire to learn and excel." 

A recipient of the 2017 Betty L. Siegel Teaching Award, Tyra Burton is a Senior Lecturer of Marketing at Kennesaw State University where she specializes in bringing real-world experiences into the classroom to prepare students for careers in digital marketing. She was a 2017 University Outstanding Teaching Award Finalist, as well as a past recipient of Coles College's awards for Faculty Career Advisor, Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching, and Innovations in Teaching. A frequent workshop presenter, Tyra speaks on various issues related to social media and pop culture. She co-wrote Socially Engaged: The Author’s Guide to Social Media and is the Director of the Coles College Digital Media Competition. Tyra serves on the board of a local writers’ organization as the Director of Conference and co-chairs a four-day event for writers in the Atlanta area.