International Journal for Academic Development

Academic Development Through an Organisational Lens

Academic/Educational development units, such as Centres/Centers for Teaching and Learning (CTLs), have experienced a dramatic evolution over the past fifty years. Once positioned as support services, CTLs now must strategically navigate complex institutional and global landscapes. Apace with the growth of CTLs, the scholarship on educational and academic development organisations has developed significantly. Early work includes descriptive studies, such as Gosling’s (2009) study of educational development units at 40 UK institutions, and Holt et al.’s (2011, p. 9) look at “10 key points of leverage for the strategic leadership of teaching and learning centres” at Australian universities. Later work analyses CTL strategy, including Bitar and Davidovich’s (2025) study of Israeli CTL strategic positioning, Kenny et al.’s (2025) interviews of 22 Canadian teaching and learning centre leaders, Czerniewicz’s (2021) overview of six South African CTLs, Roxå et al.’s (2025) study of Central European universities, Sawhney et al.’s (2025) work on Indian TLCs and faculty competencies, and several articles and books on US centers (Mihai et al., 2025; Schroeder, 2011; Wright, 2023). Others look at organisational theory around CTLs and examine topics such as re-organizations (Kelley et al., 2017), space (Cruz et al., 2021), and governance (Wright).

However, although research from an organisational lens has grown – in quantity and theoretical complexity – much scholarship still rests on the perspectives of individual academic and educational developers. What can we learn from seeing educational development through its structures, or an organisational lens? We welcome empirical research, conceptual papers, systematic reviews, and reflections that apply organisational perspectives to understand educational and academic development.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

Organizational Structures and Their Evolution

• How can we understand educational/academic development structures like CTLs through organisational theory, and what can theory learn from CTLs?

Purpose and Strategy

• What are CTLs’ strategic approaches to institutional change and organisational development?
• How can academic developers catalyze changes in organisational cultures, such as cultures of teaching and organisational trust-building?

Comparative, Cross-Cultural, and Inter-Institutional Comparisons and Collaborations

•  How and why do CTL structures across institutional types or national contexts take different forms?

Origin Stories and Sustainability What are patterns in the stories we tell about the origins of our CTLs?

• What organisational theories can be helpful to CTLs frequently experiencing re-organisation? Why are CTLs so susceptible to re-organisation, in relationship to other units in the academy, and what might mitigate these stressors?

Labor and Employment

• How do CTLs choose to recruit, retain, manage, support, and allocate the work of their employees? 

The editorial team for this special issue is Mary Wright (University of Sydney, Australia), Laura Cruz (The Pennsylvania State University, United States), and Alexandra Mihai (Maastricht University, The Netherlands). Please contact Mary Wright ([email protected]) with any queries about this special issue.

Special Issue Team Bios

Dr. Mary C. Wright, PFHEA, is a Professor in the Division of Teaching and Learning (DVC Education & Students), University of Sydney, Australia. In 2017-18, she served as President of the POD Network in Higher Education. She is author of Centers for Teaching and Learning (2023) and co-author of Educational Development in an Age of Change (forthcoming, 2026), both Johns Hopkins University Press.

Dr. Laura Cruz is a Research Professor with the Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence at Penn State and a Fulbright Scholar with a visiting appointment at the University of Prishtina (Kosovo).  A former editor-in-chief of To Improve the Academy (the POD Network’s journal), she currently serves as the co-editor of the Journal of General Education.  She is also the co-editor of two recent collections: The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in the Health Professions (volumes 1 and 2) (Wiley, 2024).

Dr. Alexandra Mihai is Assistant Professor of Innovation in Higher Education in the Department of Educational Research and Development, School of Business and Economics, Maastricht University. Previously she worked as Learning Designer at University College London (UCL), Curriculum Designer at the Institute of European Studies, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) and led the Centre for Teaching Innovations at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin.