One of the recent projects out of our Design Fellows Program is about creating a culture of coaching on campus. Whereas the project focuses on facilitating a faculty coaching program and there are already plans to pilot the program with new faculty members, the opportunities for coaching on our campus can extend beyond faculty coaching. For instance, in what ways can coaching be used when advising students? How can coaching be used to help campus community members advance in their careers? How can we help our students learn about coaching so they can embody it in their future professional roles?
Knowing more about what coaching is and is not may be a good place for us to start. Aguilar suggests “a coach helps build the capacity of others by facilitating their learning” (p. 19).
According to Aguilar in The Art of Coaching, coaching is not a way to ensure a particular program is enacted, it is not a way to fix people, it is not a way to provide therapy, and it is not consulting (p. 19).
The Center for Corporate and Professional Development at Kent State University suggested ways in which coaches differ from mentors. Mentoring-mentee relationships may be for a long period of time. The mentee sets the agenda and often asks the mentor questions. There are shifting and changing outcomes (Kent State University, 2021).
The coach-coachee relationship is a bit different. Often, it is a short-term relationship in which a coach with a specific expertise is partnered with a coachee. These partners co-construct the agenda to best meet the coachee’s specific and measurable performance goal. The coach asks specific questions, and the coachee makes decisions about next steps (Kent State University, 2021).
You may seek out a coach for a specific reason. Perhaps a colleague has a lot of conference experience, and you want to know more about how to submit conference proposals. Perhaps you want to enhance the way you incorporate asynchronous elements into your face-to-face classes, and you have heard that a colleague is an expert in this area.
Or maybe you have expertise in a particular area and you want to be a coach. You might have a unique pedagogical approach that you want to share with your colleagues. You may be able to create a warm, nurturing classroom environment, and you want to share how you do it.
The opportunities for a culture of coaching are limitless.
We would love to hear more about what you think about a culture of coaching here at Etown, and stay tuned for the next blog in the series: Coaching through a Design Thinking Lens.
References
Agular, E. (2013). The art of coaching. San Francisco: Wiley.
Kent State University. (2021). Know the difference between coaching and mentoring. Retrieved from https://www.kent.edu/yourtrainingpartner/know-difference-between-coaching-and-mentoring