Development of Professional Community of Practice in Higher Education Staff: Identity, Meaning, and Community in Academic Operations

The Academic Operations team within the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University, like many teams, is in the process of navigating great change. This change comes not only from within the organization but also as a result of external factors, such as the adoption of a hybrid work schedule. The purpose of this action research project was to discover what effect a series of workshops had on participants’ perception of their professional community, identity, and meaning. This lens was adapted from Wenger’s (1998) work on communities of practice. The data for this project was collected through asynchronous surveys, in-person activities and group discussions, and individual exit interviews. This workshop series was conducted over a six-week period with two weeks dedicated to each concept: community, identity, and meaning. Within these concepts, one week was dedicated to online, asynchronous data collection and one week was dedicated to in-person, synchronous data collections. The findings of this study reveal how individuals can leverage service-oriented identities and a sense of community to build resilience and navigate a complex and ever-changing environment of policies and procedures. Further, participants highlighted the importance of effective leadership in creating the conditions for professional communities of practice to thrive. These findings indicate the necessity for clear institutional structures that facilitate open and effective communication, pathways for growth of professional skills and responsibilities, and how a balance of active and tacit forms of community engagement is needed to adequately support the community of practice.