LAUSR

How can we best define ‘academic development’? This question continues to provoke ongoing discussion amongst the IJAD editors (Baume, 1996; Bolander Laksov & Huijser, 2020; Leibowitz, 2014; Sutherland, 2018; Zou & Felten, 2019) and has resulted in numerous articles in this journal over the last few decades (see, for example, Andresen, 1996; Debowski, 2014; Gibbs, 2013). This question raises numerous further queries about academic development: What identities have we constructed and re/(de)constructed as academic developers? Where do we find academic development being enacted? Who conducts academic development and for whom? Is ‘academic development’ solely about teaching development, or can it (should it) expand to work with the interconnected whole of academic life including, for example, research and public engagement? How do students, faculty members, and academic developers from different contexts, institutions, backgrounds, and nationalities enact academic development for themselves and for others? What major challenges are academic developers now facing? One point is abundantly clear: a single answer to any of these questions does not exist. Academic development encompasses complex, multi-faceted identities, processes, and experiences for all those who engage in it. In 2021, the IJAD editorial team created a broad and dynamic working definition of academic development to describe our work across our institutions and around the world and that also reflects the breadth and depth of this work: