Faculty Development Services
Duran Consultingsm offers faculty development services that enhance teaching quality and allow undergraduate, graduate, executive education, and professional programs to develop and maintain distinctive competitive advantages.
Throughout the academic world, teaching quality is seen as an overall indicator of program quality, and it is an important component of national program ranking systems. As the media environment changes, students’ expectations change. To meet these expectations, faculty members must perceive and respond to these changes in a manner that works, genuinely and reliably, with their personalities. The skill to do so involves delivering substantive course content using communication and presentation skills that even the most distinguished faculty members may lack. Teaching evaluations reflect classroom lapses. As a result, program rankings can suffer due to underperforming faculty.
“I worked with Alexandra over a period of two years, during which she provided me with invaluable advice on a number of undergraduate and graduate courses that I taught. I really can’t recommend her highly enough! What makes Alexandra such a great coach is that not only is she extremely experienced in terms of understanding and handling the multiple sophisticated facets of teaching a course (from course-material preparation and in-class delivery, to day-to-day professor-student interactions), she also seeks to understand and genuinely cares about the professors/instructors whom she works with. This allows her to tailor her coaching to the specific personality of the individual instructor and brings the very best out of the instructor, rather than merely dishing out standard advice that one could easily read from self-help books. Thanks a lot, Alexandra!”
Assistant Professor, Marketing, Ivy League Business School
This is a world that Duran Consulting knows well. For years, Ms. Duran has coached faculty members of leading undergraduate and graduate schools in the United States and beyond. Duran Consulting programs offer academic institutions the means to develop their faculties using a method proven to show results quickly in terms of real world classroom performance, improved teaching evaluations, and enhanced program rankings.
“Working with Alexandra was a transformational experience. An Ivy League business school can be very demanding. But her boundless faith in me, disciplined energy and shrewd reading of the politics of the classroom were invaluable. Thanks to our joint work, I developed the presence and leadership that are needed to excel in MBA education.”
Former Ivy League Business School Assistant Professor,
Currently Lecturer, Department of Management, London School of Economics
Duran Consulting’s faculty development services are provided in a manner that reflects each institution’s history, character, and circumstances. As such, these services include coaching of individual faculty, workshops, seminars, and guided discussions, on or off campus, that deliver rapid improvement in teaching quality, with corresponding improvements in student evaluations and program rankings.
“Needless to say, your coaching was a huge help. Because you efficiently identified the changes that would make the biggest difference, my colleague and I were able to materially enhance the class for our students and ourselves. At the same time, you kindly, but firmly, disabused me of the notion that I could get away with anything in front of the students; all those little fluff details that I must have figured nobody would notice were, of course, always noticed by somebody. I now realize that it takes very little additional effort for someone who is otherwise prepared to also be polished. I’m certain that the dramatic bump in my student evaluations will be sustained, if not further improved, as a result of your tremendous help. Thanks again!”
International Business Consultant;
Adjunct Associate Professor, highly-ranked Graduate Business School