The importance of considering institutional educational goals, organizational functioning, and adult personality development in designing faculty development programs is addressed. After a brief historical sketch of faculty development and the situation of the faculty member today. ethnographic descriptions of two universities and a liberal arts college are presented to illustrate how faculty members are conditioned and influenced by the colleges where they teach and conduct research. Ethnographies of faculty culture are presented for Stanford University, Mills College in California, and the University of California, Berkeley. In considering faculty members as both persons and as teachers, certain psychological or social-psychological background characteristics among faculty members are identified, and it is suggested that certain characteristics may differ systematically with the institution of employment. Stages of faculty development are also delineated which emphasize increasingly sophisticated and complex ways of conceptualizing social reality and integration of this complexity into stable personal structures. Situations where challenges confront faculty members in these times of social turbulence and student diversity, and changes of role or conditions resulting from innovations at colleges and universities are considered. Some issues in the relationship between theory and practice in faculty development programs are also addressed. (SW)