Live Session from  June 10, 2026

Overview: 

In this webinar, DA Global convened a panel of researchers, practitioners, and organizational leaders to examine professional development in international education — what it actually looks like across institutions, what the research tells us about who participates and how, and what it would take to treat it as a genuine strategic priority rather than a line item. The conversation moved across three areas: how we define professional development, what organizational investment really means, who gets access to meaningful growth opportunities — and how to measure the impact of that investment.

Moderator:

• Lily Lopez-McGee, Ph.D., Senior Advisor, DA Global & Senior Director, Howard University

Panelists:

• Stacey Hansen, PhD Candidate, Educational Policy & Leadership, University of Albany
• Roopa Rawjee, Ph.D., Executive Director, Office of International Engagement, Illinois State University
• Noelle Baldwin, Assistant Vice President for Access & Strategic Partnerships, IES Abroad

We talk a lot about professional development. We practice it a lot less. A recent conversation with researchers and practitioners revealed how global education actually invests in its own people and how to more effectively demonstrate the fruits of those investments.

The webinar, Investing Inward: Professional Development as a Strategic Priority in International Education started with a question that sounds simple: when you hear “professional development,” what comes to mind?

Polled responses from attendees told a familiar story — conferences, degrees, workshops. These are the things we tend to budget for, advocate for, and recognize. But they represent only one slice of how professionals actually grow.

Research in workplace learning distinguishes between formal learning (degree programs, structured training), non-formal learning (workshops, webinars, certifications), and informal learning — the kind embedded in daily work. Informal learning looks like talking through a hard situation with a colleague, reading an article on your lunch break, or taking the lead on something you’ve never done before. It’s routine, invisible, and almost never called “professional development,” even when it’s doing exactly that work.

Mapping everything a team is doing is key — daily responsibilities alongside stretch activities — in a single shared document. For many managers, just making that list is eye-opening. Professional development is already happening. It just isn’t being named.

This matters because what we name, we invest in. And what we leave unnamed, we tend to defund.

A lot of conversations about professional development get stuck at “we don’t have the money.” And yes, budgets are real. But the most useful parts of this webinar pushed past that framing.

Professional associations are more than conference organizers. They’re hubs — of resources, of structured learning, and perhaps most importantly, of people. The informal learning that happens in a hallway conversation or a side channel years after a conference is often more lasting than any session content. For early-career professionals especially, plugging into these networks is a way to build knowledge and capacity without starting from scratch.

But the return on sending someone to a conference depends almost entirely on what happens when they come back. Expecting people to present what they learned, connect it to team goals, or share it across the organization turns a single person’s experience into a collective asset. That expectation costs nothing to set — and makes a real difference.

Other examples from the discussion: leveraging existing partnerships to share resources across departments; pooling funds with peer organizations to create grant opportunities neither could sustain alone; connecting a team member to a local community program that builds the exact skills their role requires. None of these need large budgets. They need managers who take professional development seriously enough to look beyond the obvious options.

The research is also clear on one thing that should sharpen any ROI argument: funding professional development is cheaper than the cost of losing good people. Professional development contributes to job satisfaction, individual performance, and retention. The math usually favors investing.

Research has found that men are offered professional development opportunities more frequently than women, and full-time employees have significantly more access than part-time staff. Seniority and hierarchy quietly shape who gets invited, nominated, and encouraged — often without explicit criteria, which means often without accountability.

And then there’s the more personal layer: whose request gets approved? Who gets sent to the conference? Whose idea of professional development gets taken seriously? These decisions happen in one-on-one conversations and team meetings all the time, and without intentional structures, they tend to reflect existing biases rather than challenge them.

The antidote is transparency — being clear about how these opportunities are allocated and why. So is expanding what counts as legitimate development, which itself carries historical weight: narrow definitions of “professionalism” have always served some people better than others.

One reframe that resonated: the annual performance review as a stay interview. Not just an evaluation of what someone did, but a genuine conversation about what keeps them there, what they need to grow, and what gaps exist between their current role and where they want to go. Held in a climate of psychological safety, that conversation is one of the most powerful professional development tools available — and it requires no budget at all.

• Expand what counts.  Informal learning is real learning. Name it, track it, and treat it with the same seriousness as a conference registration.
• Build a culture of sharing.  When someone attends a training, expect them to bring something back — to the team, to the organization. One person’s experience becomes a collective asset.
• Use the review differently.  Ask what people need, not just what they did. That conversation is a stay interview, a needs assessment, and a PD roadmap all in one.
• Check the distribution.  Who’s actually getting professional development opportunities on your team? Build structures that make the answer equitable and visible.
• Connect professional development to goals.  SMART goals, job description reviews, and explicit ties to organizational priorities make the investment legible — to your team, and to leadership.
• Remember that managers are learners too.  Professional development isn’t just for early-career staff. Building a learning culture means modeling it at every level.

Additional Resources

• 3 strategies for retaining a diverse staff workforce
• A Comprehensive Guide to Creating Continuing Professional Development Opportunities for Employees
• How to Empower Employees: 8 Best Practices Great Managers Use

This session is part of DA Global’s practice area focus on People Development and Success, which examines individual capacity, team effectiveness, and the operational conditions that allow excellent work to scale.