The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions and attitudes of academic faculty and administrators in departments or schools of nursing in the City University of New York (CUNY) toward faculty development in the areas of: (1) classroom teaching, (2) clinical teaching, (3) research, (4) service to the institution, (5) community service, and (6) leadership. The value of the following faculty development programs for each area was assessed: (1) on-campus workshops, (2) off-campus workshops, (3) consultations, (4) leaves, (5) grants, (6) courses or seminars, and (7) special assignments.

The sample of the study were 12 nursing administrators and 106 full-time faculty in the 13 nursing programs in CUNY. The major findings of the study were: (1) Although there was general agreement between faculty and administration concerning the relative importance of the various faculty roles for retention, promotion, and tenure, with both perceiving classroom teaching as most important, there was disagreement over the role of research, with faculty seeing it as more important than administrators. (2) Both administrators and faculty agreed that research skills was the area in the greatest need for faculty development. The administrators perceived classroom teaching as the second area in greatest need of faculty development, while faculty members perceived service to the institution as the area second in need of development. (3) For every faculty role, the faculty consistently perceived greater need for faculty development than did the administrators. (4) Administrators and faculty members rated faculty development grants as the most effective method of improving faculty members. (5) The administrators ranked on-campus workshops in a tie for second place with off-campus workshops, while faculty members rated on-campus workshops least in effectiveness. (6) Although the administrators rated special assignments as weakest in effectiveness for improving faculty members, faculty members rated it second to development grants. (7) There was ordinal agreement between administrators and faculty on off-campus workshops, seminars, consulting, and sabbaticals, and leaves. For all development activities, faculty members perceived them as more effective than administrators. (8) Implications were derived for future research and for future development practices.