The posting below looks at several forces for change now impacting academic departments. It is from Chapter 2, Assessing the Pressures for Departmental Change, in Academic Departments: How They Work, How They Change by Barbara E. Walvoord, Anna K. Carey, Hoke L. Smith, Suzanne W. Soled, Philip K. Way, Debbie Zorn. ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report Volume 27, Number 8 Adrianna J. Kezar, Series Editor. 2000. Jossey-Bass
ASSESSING THE PRESSURES FOR DEPARTMENTAL CHANGE
The first of four steps for change this volume supports is to access the pressures for change. We mean assessment here to include the gathering and interpreting of information about the department's structures, outcomes, or environment for the purpose of improving the department. Pressures for change may come when the department sees that it is not prospering or not serving its mission effectively for its current constituencies, when old constituencies disappear or change their demands, or when new opportunities arise. The purpose of this section is to help departments in any of these situations.
National Pressures for Change in Higher Education
Not all departments face the same external pressures for change. The following paragraphs summarize some that operate nationally; each reader must access his or her own department's situation.
* Political and economic pressures
College costs to families have risen sharply in relation to family income as costs to colleges rise. Parents and students believe that colleges are expensive and wasteful (Goethals and Frantz, 1998; National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 1996a, Table 37; 1997b; Institute for Research in Higher Education, 1997; Reisberg, 1998; Pubic Agenda and others, 2000).
Government funding for higher education has decreased (NCES, 1997c, 1998), offset by a significant rise in federal funding for research (NCES, 1998).
Publics are concerned about student learning, access, graduation, productivity, and faculty work (Anderson, 1992; Schmidt, 1998a, 1998b, 2000; Smith, 1990; Sykes, 1988; Zemsky, 1993).
Stakeholders demand collaboration with business and industry and flexible delivery of education (Schmidt, 1998a, 1998b).
New for-profits compete on the basis of cost, flexibility, and curricular relevance, and they experiment with new departmental and faculty roles (Marchese, 1998; Winston, 1999).
Accreditors, legislatures, and boards increasingly demand evidence of student learning (Dill, 1998; Green, 1997; Michael, 1998; Schmidt, 2000).
* Technological advances
Beyond bricks and mortar and beyond the virtual university, visionaries imagine a "global learning infrastructure where millions of students interact with a vast array of individual and institutional suppliers through multiple technologies including the Internet, broadband cable, and satellite" (Heterick,
Mingle, and Twigg, 1997, p. 4). Some observers predict that technology will challenge the most basic assumptions behind traditions instruction (Privateer, 1999; see Bates [2000] for a discussion of technology issues for department chairs).
* The student population
Student bodies increasingly are female, part time, minority, and older than traditional college ages (NCES, 1996b, 1997a, 1998).
* Students' reasons for attending school
The percentage of students who view "developing a meaningful philosophy of life" as essential or very important has sharply declined (Astin, 1998).
* Students' expectations and attitudes
Contemporary students may view education as a product to be purchased, insist on quality, have only a temporary and provisional commitment, and see little need to spend time on campus beyond class contact hours (Levine and Cureton, 1998).
They are more individualistic: They want their own dorm room, and they do not socialize in large groups as much as previous generations (Levine and Cureton,
1998).
They desire personal growth and creativity (O'Connell, 1998). They are also technoliterate (Plater, 1995; Green and Gilbert, 1995).
* The academic belief system
Educational concerns, beliefs, and processes are being reexamined:
From a teaching to a learning paradigm: The pedagogical field is constantly infused with
new disciplinary insights, such as those from neuroscience (Marchese, 1998).
The historically dominant instructional paradigm is slowly being replaced by a
learning paradigm (Barr and Tagg, 1995) in which learning outcomes matter more than inputs.
Flexible time and space: New technologies allow transcendence of the boundaries of time
and space that led to the current structure of higher education. Reformers question whether education should rely any longer on credit hours as the measure of education (Ewell, 1998; Guskin, 1994; Plater, 1995).
Emphasis on interdisciplinary knowledge: The need for multidisciplinary approaches to societal problems encourages aggregations of disciplines into multidisciplinary institutions and, as well, increasing fragmentation within disciplines as researchers adopt new and diverse modes of inquiry (Plater, 1995).
* What do these pressures imply for departments nationally?
The pressures we have described lie behind the five demands for change we summarized in the introductory section: (a) improve undergraduate education, (b) collaborate across disciplines, (c) apply knowledge to community and workplace needs, (d) be more cost-efficient, and (e) use technology to provide education by alternative means. In addition, the department in a free society must protect core values, freely pursue knowledge, and question society's mores. It must balance the loudest demands with those not currently in the public eye, such as pure research. It must position itself to respond to the next round of demands. It must make faculty life rewarding and enticing for the next
generation that will have to staff higher education.
The Need for Assessment of Outcomes
External constituents are demanding not only that departments say they are doing good things and not only that they measure how hard they are trying, but also that they measure outcomes. Further, departments themselves, if they are to use their resources most efficiently to serve their missions, need information about the outcomes of their efforts. Gone are the days when it would suffice to
assume that all the work on inputs such as curriculum, hiring, teaching, and budget allocation must certainly be producing the outcomes hoped for.
Implications for Change
Departments differ widely. Not all need to change in the same ways, but in an environment so volatile and so demanding, most departments may have to do things differently and be something different. Assessment of the environment and outcomes helps the department to decide what changes are needed.
* Read the departmental environment
The wise practitioner will ask how the department gets its information about the national and regional environment. For example, is someone in the department reading and reporting information from such national resources as The Chronicle of Higher Education, Educause, the Pew Roundtable, and listservs such as that maintained by the TLT Group (aahesgit@list.cren.net)? Is someone bringing back information from national conferences and national journals? Is someone watching trends in relevant granting agencies and in the state legislature and the board of trustees? What do the institution's own president and offices of development, public relations, and institutional research know about the
environment, and how is the department getting and using that information? How is all this information integrated, discussed, and acted on within the department? What further information does the department's success in serving its rapidly changing world?
In addition to ongoing reports, a department might consider a retreat or strategic planning session. For example, a German department with which we have worked faced the imminent retirement of a cohort of faculty who had brought the department into the top ranks of reputation in research. The department had not been allowed to rehire enough top research faculty to replace them. Further,
the environment was changing in other significant ways, including new institutional resources devoted to undergraduate student learning, which the department had largely routinized and placed in the hands of adjunct professors and graduate TAs. To help the department examine its environment and decide on a new mission, structures, and strategies, the chair engaged Walvoord, and outside consultant, to lead a daylong retreat. Walvoord adapted a retreat model described by Schein (1992). She asked the department to name the various "pots" from which it received resources of reputation-for example, granting agencies, publications, undergraduate language requirements, and so on. Then small groups of department members generated, for each of these pots, what the department had to do to achieve those resources and how the resources themselves were changing. They wrote all this information on newsprint sheets and taped the sheets to the walls of the room. Then, literally surrounded by their environment, they assessed their situation. Alarm-the outcome the chair had wanted-led to plans for change to place more emphasis on undergraduate student learning. Such plans require further assessment-gathering specific data on undergraduate learning, exploring best practices in other language departments, and scanning the environment more carefully-but the on-day
retreat got the process started and catapulted department members' thinking to new realms.
The German department began with the "frame" of the department as a resource/reputation-seeking entity. Alternatively, using the frame of the department as a mission-driven enterprise, one may start with mission, then goals, then strategies. Missions explain what the department does, for whom, and what its focus is. Goals are targets relating to key indicators of departmental success derived from the mission. For example, a department may establish as its goal that it place 30% of its graduates in the top ten firms in its field. Strategies are the means by which the goals are achieved. When mission and goals have been defined, the department can ask, "How is our mission served or undermined by our reward system? By our organizational structure? Our recruitment and socialization of new faculty?" And so on. Again, this assessment integrates analysis of the external pressures, the department's
strategies, and outcomes such as student learning, national reputation, income from grants, and the like. Diamond (1993, 1999) outlines a mission-driven process of planning for change.
* Assess outcomes
In addition to reading its external environment, a "learning" department must assess its outcomes and determine how its structures and strategies help it to fulfill its mission. An extensive how-to literature addresses this process. Especially useful are Gardiner (2000) for an overview of the assessment of
educational effectiveness and Nichols (1995a, 1995b, 1995c) for extensive how-to guides. Tobias (1995) has formulated a set of review questions explicitly designed to help the department focus on the experiences of its undergraduate students. Banta, Lund, Black, and Oblander (1996) provide examples of departmental assessment practice. Watch for new materials from the American Association for Higher Education, from regional and disciplinary accrediting agencies, ongoing issues of Assessment Update, and proceedings of conferences such as AAHE's annual conference on Assessment and the annual national Indianapolis Assessment Conference. Other assessment resources are listed in Gardiner, Anderson, and Cambridge (1997).
Once the department members and/or external change agents have considered what sorts of change are needed, they must continue their exploration of how the department's own structures and cultures suggest strategies for change. Such exploration is the task of the next sections.
References
Anderson, G.L. (1976). Organizational diversity. In J.C. Smart and J.R. Montgomery (Eds.), Examining departmental management. New Directions for Institutional Research, no. 10. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Astin, A.W/ (1998). The changing American college student: Thirty-year trends, 1966-1996. Revisions of Higher Education, 21(2), 115-135.
Banta,T.W. (1996). Has assessment made a difference? In T.W. Banta, J.P. Lund, K.E. Black, and F.W. Oblander (Eds.), Assessment in practice: Putting principles to work on college campuses (pp. 342-349). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Barr, R.B., and Tagg, J. (1995, November/December). From teaching to learning: A new paradigm for undergraduate education. Change, 27(6), 12-25).
Bates, A.W. (2000). Giving faculty ownership of technological change in the department. In A.F. Lucas and Associates, Leading academic change: Essential roles for department chairs (pp. 215-245). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Dill, W.R. (1998, July/August). Specialized accreditation: An idea whose time has come? Or gone? Change, 30(4), 18-25.
Gardiner, L.F., Anderson, C., and Cambridge, B.L. (Eds.). (1997). Learning through assessment: A resource guide or higher education. Washington, DC: American Association for Higher Education. (ED 414 814)
Goethals, G.R., and Frantz, C.M. (1998). Thinking seriously about paying for college. AAHE Bulletin, 51(2), 3-7.
Green, K.C., and Gilbert, S.W. (1995). Content, communications, productivity, and the role of information technology in higher education. Change, 27(2), 8-18.
Green, M.F. (1997). Transforming higher education: Views from leaders around the world. Phoenix, AZ: American Council on Education, Oryx.
Heterick, R.C., Jr., Mingle, J.R., and Twigg, C.A. (1997). The public policy implications of a global learning infrastructure. Report from a Joint NLII-SHEEO Symposium, November 13-14, Denver, CO.
Marchese, T. (1998). Not-so-distant competitors: How new providers are remaking the postsecondary marketplace. AAHE Bulletin, 1997-1998, 50. (ED 425 677)
National Center for Education Statistics (1996a). The condition of education, 1996. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
National Center for Education Statistics (1996b). The digest of educational statistics, 1996. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
National Center for Education Statistics (1997a). The condition of education, 1997. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
National Center for Education Statistics (1997b). Current funds, revenues, and expenditures of institutions of higher education: Fiscal years 1987 through 1995. Report 97-441. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
National Center for Education Statistics (1997c). Federal support for education: Fiscal years 1980-1997. Report 97-383. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
National Center for Education Statistics (1998). The condition of education, 1998. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
Nichols, J.O. (1995a). Assessment case studies: Common issues in implementation with various campus approaches to resolution. New York: Agathon Press.
Nichols, J.O. (1995b). The departmental guide and record book for student outcomes assessment and institutional effectiveness (2nd ed.). New York: Agathon Press. (ED 410 796)
Nichols, J.O. (1995c). A practitioner's handbook for institutional effectivenessand student outcomes assessment implementation. (3d ed,). New York: Agathon Press. (ED 410 798)
O'Connell, J. (1998, March-April). Harnessing the new individualism. Workplace Visions, 4-6.
Plater, W.M. (1995). Future work: Faculty time in the 21st century. Change,27(3), 23-33.
Privateer, P.M. (1999). Academic technology and the future of higher education: Strategic paths taken and not taken. Journal of Higher Education, 70(1), 60-79.
Schein, E.H. (1992). Organizational culture and leadership (2nd ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Schmidt, P. (1998a, June 19). Governors want fundamental changes in colleges,question place of tenure. Chronicle of Higher Education, A38.
Schmidt, P. (1998b, July 24). States increasingly link budgets to performance. Chronicle of Higher Education, A26.
Schmidt, P. (2000, June 30). States set a course for higher-education systems. Chronicle of Higher Education, A27.
Smith, O. (1990). Killing the spirit: Higher education in America. New York: Viking Penguin.
Sykes, C.J. (1998). ProfScam: Professors and the demise of higher education. New York: St. Martin's Press.
Tobias, S. (1995, January 19). Department-based audit of undergraduate instruction. Paper presented at the American Association for Higher Education Forum on Faculty Roles an Rewards, Phoenix, AZ.
Winston, G.C. (1999, January/February). For-profit higher education: Godzilla or Chicken Little? Change, 31(1), 12-19.
Zemsky, R. (1993, May/June). On reversing the ratchet: Restructuring in colleges and universities. Change, 25, 56-62.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
(Courtesy of) TOMORROW'S PROFESSOR LISTSERV is a shared mission partnership with the
American Association for Higher Education (AAHE),
The National Teaching and Learning Forum (NT&LF),
and The Stanford Center for Innovations in Learning (SCIL)
No comments:
Post a Comment