Reframing Academic Development for the Ecological University: From ‘Change’ to ‘Growth’

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript provides a commentary to the discussions on academic development. It discusses specifically how moving from framing development as change to framing it as growth and from being an academic towards becoming and academic would affect how we see the university ecosystem and the role of third space academics. The author takes many analogies from ecology and related fields and uses them successfully.

The article is based on outstanding knowledge of literature on academic development (at least in the UK and Australia) and the author’s long working experience in the field. Further, the author has comprehensive understanding of ecology, complexity and related fields to construct plausible analogies. At the same time the author is aware of the possible pitfalls of analogies.

All in all, the manuscript presents a well-constructed statement for allowing more diverse sustainable academic careers and describes how this would support growth of academic developers.

The only points needing clarification are

• line 195 where “SoTL-type enquiry” should be written open. In my opinion this would serve readers coming outside UK.
• figure 2 and / or text on lines 297–342. r and K are well explained, but α and Ω of the figure remain unexplained. The figure and text should in-line.

Author Response

Comment: 

The manuscript provides a commentary to the discussions on academic development. It discusses specifically how moving from framing development as change to framing it as growth and from being an academic towards becoming and academic would affect how we see the university ecosystem and the role of third space academics. The author takes many analogies from ecology and related fields and uses them successfully.

The article is based on outstanding knowledge of literature on academic development (at least in the UK and Australia) and the author’s long working experience in the field. Further, the author has comprehensive understanding of ecology, complexity and related fields to construct plausible analogies. At the same time the author is aware of the possible pitfalls of analogies.

All in all, the manuscript presents a well-constructed statement for allowing more diverse sustainable academic careers and describes how this would support growth of academic developers.

The only points needing clarification are

• line 195 where “SoTL-type enquiry” should be written open. In my opinion this would serve readers coming outside UK.
• figure 2 and / or text on lines 297–342. r and K are well explained, but α and Ω of the figure remain unexplained. The figure and text should in-line.

Response:

Very many thanks for your positive comments

I have expanded "SoTL" as requested

I have explained in the text that α and Ω need not be explored in this context.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for preparing and submitting this manuscript. I found it an intriguing thought-piece - particularly the notion of academic development being concerned with long-term management of stasis alongside academic developers' encouragement of academics to challenge the status quo.

I have made some comments and suggestions for minor changes in the manuscript. I do believe, however, that the abstract needs considerable reworking. At the moment it is filled with technical language that does not entice a reader to persist with the article - in stark contrast to the conversational tone at the beginning of the introduction.

This manuscript builds on your considerable work in this field (as a side note, perhaps your self-citations ought to have been blinded for review) and provides, as stated in the manuscript, an interesting counter-narrative to the dominant narrative of academic development.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Comment 2: Thank you for preparing and submitting this manuscript. I found it an intriguing thought-piece - particularly the notion of academic development being concerned with long-term management of stasis alongside academic developers' encouragement of academics to challenge the status quo.

I have made some comments and suggestions for minor changes in the manuscript. I do believe, however, that the abstract needs considerable reworking. At the moment it is filled with technical language that does not entice a reader to persist with the article - in stark contrast to the conversational tone at the beginning of the introduction.

This manuscript builds on your considerable work in this field (as a side note, perhaps your self-citations ought to have been blinded for review) and provides, as stated in the manuscript, an interesting counter-narrative to the dominant narrative of academic development.

Response: Thank you for engaging with the text and offer such supportive comments.

I have edited the abstract to reduce the technical terms included. 

I have considered all the comments made within the text