Educational development for responsible graduate students in the neoliberal university

In this article, we examine how our work in educational development, specifically in graduate student training, enacts the logic of neoliberalism in higher education in Canada. We approach this examination through a collaborative autoethnographic consideration of and reflection on our practices and experiences as educational developers, the design and delivery of a graduate student survey and our own experiences of and identification with self-actualizing graduate students'. Further, we illustrate how neoliberalism shapes the work of teaching and learning centres resulting in offering programming, which compels graduate students to act in ways that can be read as responsible and capable of navigating an increasingly bleak academic labour market. Throughout the article we call attention to the ways in which our role as educational developers may either reinforce or disrupt neoliberal discourses. While we urge a critical approach, we also reflect on constraints to such criticism.