Leadership & Institutional Change

Change
Defining Change

First- and Second-Order Change

Reasons to Change
with recommended readings on the urgency for change

Requisites for Change

More on Barriers to Change

TOP
Defining Change

Dictionaries provide us with over thirty definitions of the word change including to transform, to
make different in form, and to replace or substitute. As an academic leader you are called on to
not only be a leader of change but to be sensitive the many reasons why change in programs or
procedures are not only needed but becoming more urgent. Change, both within and outside the
academy has become a way of life, a constant condition for those of us working in higher
education. Recognizing that successful leadership requires a wide range of knowledge and skills,
the academic leaders and scholars who developed the National Academy identified the specific
knowledge and skills required by those in leadership positions. Their efforts led to the range of
resources that are being provided and programs that are being offered.

While calls for research based higher education reform and innovation have been with us for
years, only recently have a number of forces, both inside of and external to the academy,
combined to increase the urgency for action.

TOP
First- and Second-Order Change

First-order change is doing more or less of something we are already doing. First-
order change is always reversible.
 Second-order change is deciding or being forced to do something significantly or
fundamentally different from what we have done before. The process is irreversible: once
you begin, it is impossible to return to the way you were doing before.

The characteristics of first- and second-order change

First-order change

o Adjustments within the existing structure

o Doing more or less of something

o Reversible

o Restoration of balance (homeostasis)

o Non-transformational

o New learning is not required

o Old story can still be told

Second-order change

o New way of seeing things

o Shifting gears

o Irreversible

o Often begins through the informal system

o Transformation to something quite different

o Requires new learning

o New story is told

References

Bateson, Gregory. Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity. New York: Dutton, 1979.

Bergquist, William. The Modern Organization: Mastering the Art of Irreversible

Change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1993.
TOP
Reasons to Change

After brainstorming on potential barriers to change, the forty educators designing The National
Academy's workshop on Leading Institutional Change: A National Workshop for College and
University Teams (January 2000) considered the factors that would facilitate the achieving of
significant and sustainable change. Here is their list of success factors, in the order in which they
were proposed, with some factors applicable to the institution as a whole, some to the change
initiative's leadership group, and most to both:

dissatisfaction with the status quo

a clear mandate

a spirit of shared ownership

skating to where the puck is or is going to be

crisis

availability of time (patience)

consistency of vision

opportunities for multiple venues for conversations

allocation of appropriate and adequate resources

open communication

a defined process

the will to engage

the will to implement

sufficient training

repeated articulation of vision

powerful and consistent metaphors

 assessment and willingness to adjust

celebration of approximations of success

continuous cultural change

a collective understanding of why and how change is being undertaken

recognizing the fear associated with change

an integrated and collective leadership

the right, the helpful data at the right time in the process

a focus on teaching and learning; a focus on students

anticipating sources of resistance and being prepared with responses

recognizing multiple cultures

tangible rewards for faculty engaged in change

linking all change efforts to mission

The resources of The National Academy for Academic Leadership can help you build upon those
factors for successful change that are securely in place on your campus, strengthen those that you
identify as underdeveloped, and develop those that would contribute to the success of your
change initiative.

The Urgency for Change: Recommended Readings

Bok, Derek. (2006). Our underachieving colleges: A candid look at how much students
learn and why they should be learning more. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press. 413 pp.

o The author, a former long-time Harvard University president, surveys the

condition of American higher education with respect to its ability to educate its
students at a high level and thus serve the human development needs of society.
Bok reviews the evolution of American colleges and undergraduate education,
faculty attitudes toward undergraduate education, and its purposes. He then
devotes eight chapters to various aspects of undergraduate education. These
include communication, thinking, character-moral development, citizenship,
dealing with diversity and a globalized society, and career development. Boks
arguments are well-thought out, and he demonstrates command of the relevant
professional research literature. The realities beneath public perceptions of
undergraduate education in America "are not as impressive as they seem. When
 one moves from opinion polls to direct evidence of student learning in college, the
reasons for concern grow clearer" (pp. 310-311). His book skillfully illuminates
these problems, describes his view of what institutions should be doing in
undergraduate education, enumerates important barriers to reform, and makes
proposals for change

Gardiner, Lion F. 1996. Redesigning higher education: Producing dramatic gains in

student learning. ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report vol. 23, no. 7. San Francisco.
Jossey-Bass [225 pp.] Available at
http://www.josseybass.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-187838063X.html.

o This review and synthesis of research on student learning and development

describes how students develop important abilities, the institutional qualities
required for this development to occur, and the educational effectiveness of
academe, specifically of curricula, instruction, academic advising, and campus
climate, and suggestions of researchers for substantially improving educational
qualityusing research to produce "dramatic" gains in student learning. The
primary purpose of this book is to provide conceptual tools and empirical
evidence for raising the level of urgency for change on campuses, and a wide
array of resources for improving quality and for designing assessments to monitor
quality.

Gardiner, Lion F. 1998. Why We Must Change: The Research Evidence. Thought and
Action, 14(1), pp.71-88. Available electronically at
http://www2.nea.org/he/heta98/s98pg71.pdf. Reprinted in 2000 in a retrospective volume
of this journal: http://www2.nea.org/he/heta00/f00p121.pdf.

o Intended to help increase the level of urgency for change on campuses, this article
reviews research on aspects of college student development and the effectiveness
of higher education in fostering that development. Numerous barriers to learning
and development are identified. The author suggests systematic application of
modern, research-based professional practices can help all of our students develop
to a high level, with a marked impact on society and the world more widely.

Hersh, Richard H., and Merrow, John (Eds.). (2005). Declining by degrees: Higher
education at risk. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 244 pp.

o This book, critical of the educational performance of American higher education,

is composed of topical chapters written by 16 different authors, each treating an
important area of concern for quality in higher education. These include, among
others, media coverage of higher education, public attitudes toward the academy,
admissions, liberal education, educational goals, a disconnection between students
and their colleges, and minority group students. Each editor provides a concluding
afterword.
 Field Guide to Academic Leadership 2002 (Robert M. Diamond, Editor.) Jossey-Bass,
San Francisco.

o The following chapter in the Field Guide are brief, to the point, and directly
related to the content focus of this section:

Chapter 1. Pressures for Fundamental Reform: Creating a Viable

Academic Future by Alan E. Guskin and Mary B. Marcy. A review of the
forces for change in higher education and the impact these changes are
having on faculty and faculty appointments.

Marchese, Theodore J., "Whatever Happened to Undergraduate Reform?" (2006).

Carnegie Foundation Perspectives #26. Palo Alto, CA: The Carnegie Foundation for the
Improvement of Teaching.

o A succinct review of the last two decades of higher education reform and of the
challenges now being faced by colleges and universities.

Newman, Frank, Lara Couturier and Jamie Scurry. The Future of Higher Education:
Rhetoric, Reality, and the Risks of the Market. 2004. San Francisco. Jossey-Bass. [303
pps.]

o Discusses the forces for change, the changes that are taking place and what
institutions and academic leaders must do to address them if higher education is to
maintain it compact with the public.

TOP
Requisites for Change

The following questions are designed to help you and your colleagues determine how ready your
college or university is for accomplishing substantive academic change. Everyone involved
whether the president, vice presidents, deans, chairs, key faculty members, or board members
should consider these questions about your institution from the perspective of his or her
particular role and with the different levels of specificity that role requires.

a. Does your institution have an effective mission statement, one that is consistent with its
institutional values, guides work throughout the institution, and addresses the needs of a
changing society?

b. Are there gaps between the mission statement, institutional practices, and the needs of the
publics you serve?

c. Are decision makers knowledgeable about research on teaching, learning, and student
development?
 d. Does the institution consistently encourage and support the use of best practices in
curriculum development, instructional design, and academic advising?

e. Is the institution committed to the systematic and continuous collection of data about its
stakeholders and units, about academic processes and outcomes and does it use these data
to improve programs?

f. Does the institution encourage and support the appropriate use of technology to achieve
learning goals?

g. Are the institution's decision makers able to use their interpersonal skills effectively in
interactions with other?

h. Are decision makers committed to supporting both formal and informal leadership and to
the critical role each plays in effecting change?

i. Do decision makers have the support and collaborative leadership of key members of the
administration, faculty, and staff?

j. Do administrators, staff and faculty members have appropriate and ongoing opportunities
for professional development?

k. Is the institution's financial and academic planning integrated to achieve the educational
mission?

l. Does the institution's reward system for faculty, staff, and academic units enable
achievement of the educational mission and priorities?

m. Does the institution have an effective, shared governance system consistent with its
mission and culture?

The National Academy for Academic Leadership has been established to help key campus
decision-makers become effective leaders able to work collaboratively toward meaningful
institutional change. Participants in our programs will learn more about themselves and their
institutions, about the complexities of change, and about issues at the heart of contemporary
higher education. They will gain the knowledge and develop the skills necessary to being
effective agents for change in times more and more often described as "permanent whitewater."

TOP
More on Barriers to Change

Leading educators from across the country, convened to design The National Academy's January
2000 workshop Leading Institutional Change: A National Workshop for College and University
Teams, brainstormed on the subject of barriers to change. Here is the resulting list of potential
barriers, in the order in which they were proposed and, because no particular institution or
change initiative was at issue, in general terms:

a tendency to mandate change from the top

organization-wide initiatives that lose sight of individual units

overwhelming people with too much at once

operating from wrong cultural assumptions

the desire for instant success on the part of the leadership

appropriate resources not available

change by memo with no discussion, no ownership

comfort with the status quo

constant reinforcement (celebration) of "how good we are": so why change?

a reward system that doesn't match reality

some people thrive on chaos and don't want issues solved

competing cultures: trustees, students, faculty, staff, each thinking they "own" the
institution and not agreeing in fundamental areas

a culture that supports working independently

a "public" image that does not fit with the reality internal to the institution

comfort with going it alone

an organizational structure that doesn't facilitate cooperation, that encourages competition

a habit of critique: faculty are more comfortable critiquing than working together

lack of knowledge on the part of leaders about team building, conflict resolution, the
change process, etc.

The National Academy offers resources that provide key campus decision-makers with the
knowledge and skills they need to be leaders for sustained, integrated institutional change that
significantly improves student learning.