How far would you go for a reserved parking space?
The question arose during a discussion of low- or no-cost incentives for faculty members. If there's no money for awards or meals or conference travel or even branded T-shirts or water bottles, how do we encourage faculty members to do things that need to be done?
The snarky response is why do we need incentives to do the right thing? If attending pedagogy workshops or engaging in research or professional development is going to make us better at our jobs and, over time, improve the level of excellence on campus (as if excellence were a measurable substance doled out as a reward for our best efforts), then we ought to do these things without regard for rewards.
But! Everyone is already doing so much that one more thing feels like an unjust imposition, and sometimes it takes just a slight nudge to move people toward doing the one small thing that might make a difference. We all know that the way to get students to attend an outside-of-class event that will enrich their learning is to order a bunch of pizzas. The promise of coffee and donuts can lure faculty to a morning meeting, and a free lunch can make a three-hour workshop look more attractive.
But when there's no such thing as a free lunch, what can we offer?
This is where the reserved parking space idea comes in: put the names of all the attendees in a hat and draw one; the winner gets to pick out a campus parking space and park there for a month. Our staff recognition program provides a similar incentive, and winning staff members enjoy finding a parking space marked with their name, available whenever they arrive on campus for a whole month. The only cost is the portable sign to mark the space.
Would faculty go the extra mile in hopes of earning their own parking space, even temporarily? Or are there other low-cost ways to incentivize participation in enrichment activities? Somebody needs to find out, and I think that someone is going to be me. (But what is my incentive for pursuing this project?)
2 comments:
One of the things I've learned from the psychology of motivation is that it helps to try to keep the reward close to the desired activity; extrinsic rewards can actually stifle motivation. An example that fortunately worked really well in my own life: when my son was learning to play drums, I'd reward his practice by getting him yet another part of the drum kit, one at a time.
At any rate, I was imagining maybe you could team up with the registrar's office to raffle off a professor's preferred final exam time slot for a course, or a preferred classroom for the upcoming semester? Just brainstorming here . . .
Those are tempting ideas...the classroom one might work but final exam time slots are arranged according to some mysterious calculus known only to a select few. No one wants to mess with it because it bites back.
Post a Comment