August 17, 2006
A new name for Training & Development
Here’s a story easily told in a dozen words: Training & Development is changing its name to Professional & Organizational Development.
And since campus names tend to find their own level of informality, often expressed in acronyms, you’ll probably end up calling it the “POD” office. The name change becomes effective today, Aug. 17.
Elizabeth Warrick, office director, said she’s happy about the name change, which has been under consideration for some time. “One of the things that has always bothered me” about the old name “is its focus on training rather than the outcome of training,” said Warrick. “Our goal is to develop people professionally.”
Another reason for the change, Warrick said, is the office’s increased involvement in organizational development consultations for other campus units.
“When I came on board about eight years ago we were doing about 62 organizational development consultations a year, and now we’re doing over 300 a year — so that side of what we do has become much more significant,” Warrick said. “So we wanted to get ‘organizational development’ into the name because it’s so much of what we do — it’s probably a good half of our services.”
Among that array of services (which, by the way, won’t change with the name change) are classes in communications, professional and personal growth, supervision, human resource and career counseling and new employee orientations as well as many online “e-learning” classes.
Warrick said the name change is to some extent cosmetic. “We’re really catching our name up with the changes in the organization” over recent years,” but that the office also is looking into offering some new certificate course pathways.
But, she said, there also is an effort to bring the office into closer alignment with the Leadership, Community and Values Initiative, for which Warrick is a project leader. “We are hoping new things will arise out of the efforts.”
Web and e-mail addresses will change (mostly just replacing the phrase “traindev” with “pod,” Warrick said). On Aug. 21, the office’s new quarterly publication will hit mailboxes across campus. It’s called Professional Development Quarterly, or PDQ, where all quarterly courses will be listed.
Warrick said managers will also receive a new newsletter, called Leading Edge, in early September, which will highlight resources for managers and supervisors and provide information on organizational development and leadership.
“Our Web site will look different and our new name will be reflected in most everything we send out. However, in the interest of saving money and trees, Warrick said, the office will continue to use its large store of folders preprinted with “Training & Development” on them.
Also in the near future for the newly named Professional & Organizational Development Office is continuing to work on assessment of and evaluation of programs and services, Warrick said, “to get a handle on how well we’re doing.”
She added, “It’s basically quantifying what we have intuitively believed for years — that we are doing good work.”
