Changing mechanisms of governmentality? Academic development in New Zealand and student evaluations of teaching

Abstract

Academic (or educational) development is a relatively recent project in universities. In Aotearoa New Zealand there were two waves of foundation for academic development, separated by almost 20 years, during which time much in national and international higher education had changed. This article draws on empirical and archival data to propose that shifts between the two waves give insight into the changing mechanisms of governmentality at work for academic staff in higher education. In a particular case, the emergence and consolidation of a culture of student evaluation of teaching is used to illustrate how academic development has been implicated in those shifts. In the earlier period, from a marginal location, a more pastoral mode of power relations between the academic developer as an institutional change agent and the academic staff they worked with is evident, with an emphasis on voluntary participation from the latter. By contrast, in the later period, academic development has moved closer to the institutional centre and is participating in more disciplinary forms of power relations in its efforts to shape academic conduct towards certain ends. In this shift, a technology that was initially created and implemented by academic development for one purpose was ultimately taken up by the institution for quite another: it became part of the audit machine. While our data come from a particular case of practice within local national context, the cautionary tale offered here has salience for other academic development practices and other countries where academic development has had a similar story.