A PLC (Professional Learning Community) is a very effective method of professional development for faculty and professional staff.

A PLC consists of several basic traits:

• Usually cross-disciplinary (often combining faculty and professional staff)
• 8-12 members or less (plus two facilitators)
• Active, collaborative learning experience
• Regular structured scholarly activities (with a scholarly text as focus)
• Semester-length (though some run a year)
• Payment of a stipend (plus allowance for food and sources)
• Creates an end product (e.g., scholarship, conference, presentation, syllabus revision).