Designing institutional change: the commitment to quality as a Nation goes to College. (Greater Expectations).

Introduction

Greater Expectations: The Commitment to Quality as a Nation Goes to College is a multi-year AAC&U initiative to define the aims of a twenty-first century undergraduate education and to discover the best strategies for achieving those aims.

Introduction

IN ITS REPORT, Greater Expectations: A New Vision for Learning as a Nation Goes to College, the national panel of AAC&U's Greater Expectations initiative describes a new academy for the twenty-first century. At the center of this new academy is a liberal education--at once engaged and practical--that prepares all students to become intentional learners. For such rigorous study, enlightened policies will be required, policies that support both quality education and student success. Also needed is an expanded implementation of practices that engage students in learning and improve their achievement. The comprehensive change called for in Greater Expectations will be accomplished through concerted effort among education's various stakeholders. As leaders in such collaborations, individual colleges and universities will need to model the intentionality they expect from students.

The following essays chronicle the stories of three institutions that have advanced far along the path to intentional practice. Each campus followed a distinctive, effective strategy of change: At Worcester Polytechnic Institute it was launched by a revolution; at Richland College a long-term leader empowered individuals by creating a culture of innovation; and at King's College transformation occurred through evolution, using general education as a lever.

These self-reflective campus stories emphasize the importance of clarifying goals for student learning, and of adapting teaching, organizing the curriculum, and providing academic supports in the service of those learning goals. The consonance of institutional goals, structures, systems, and resource allocation constitutes the intentionality of successful functioning.

Colleges and universities such as these commit to supporting and sustaining their innovations. They recognize that to impact all students, effective programs must move from the margins to the core of campus action. Their creative faculty and staff members find inspiration everywhere, then modify good ideas for their own campus cultures. As commitment to greater expectations for all students drives their continuous transformation, such institutions embody lifelong learning. From their successes we can glimpse the reality of the new academy emerging from a shared vision of contemporary education.

Seven Steps to Sustainable Change at WPI 

WILLIAM R. GROGAN AND RICHARD VAZ The period between World War II and the upheavals of the late 1960s was one of quiet scholarship and genteel student life on most campuses, as the Eisenhower years flowed by. Then, a burst of issues and events changed the academic scene dramatically: Sputnik, the Civil Rights movement, the Berlin Wall, Vietnam, the assassinations of the Kennedys and King. The academic world, from Paris to Berkeley, went into a collective spasm. All the old values were challenged; students and faculty sought change in all directions.

Launching a new program

At a most unlikely place, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, an island of tranquility during much of this tumultuous period, a remarkably innovative program was developed by a small group of young, idealistic faculty. The program was to change every aspect of the university. The curriculum was essentially eliminated, replaced by three "qualifying" projects and a one-week terminal competency examination in the major field. The three required projects included one in the humanities, one in the student's major field, and one, an interdisciplinary project relating science or technology to social concerns and human values. There were no fixed curricula, no required courses, no traditional grades; each student and advisor worked our a program in response to each student's goals and interests. The entire academic infrastructure of the university was redesigned to support this educational system.

The changes at WPI were brought about not by a sense of crisis, but rather by a gnawing determination that there must be a better way of educating students. At that time, the organization of the university was an old-fashioned and brittle structure that begged for a revolution. The president and dean were very powerful, and all faculty decisions were made by an executive committee consisting of the department heads, appointed for life, who adjusted the curricula and created the agenda for faculty meetings. The faculty were not tenured and had little voice in policy, promotions, or much else.

The president, frustrated by the department heads, appointed six faculty to a planning committee to draw up a plan for the future of the university. After one year, the committee presented a scenario to the president and faculty for fourteen different paths the institution could consider, and then its members all resigned. They left it to the faculty to elect its own planning committee, which proved to be a critical step in the process of reform since it was now the faculty's own planning committee. This was to be the first of seven steps in the progression to sustainable change.

The six-member committee was young and represented a faculty mixture from engineering, mathematics, science, and the humanities. The committee was anathema to many of the department heads, whose authority was to be rapidly eroded by its proposals. The committee's first policy presentation to the faculty was a statement defining undergraduate educational goals for WPI. After deliberation, the goals were formally approved by faculty, administration, trustees, and students. This statement established the design criteria for the entire WPI undergraduate program for years to come, and became Step Two in helping sustain change: acceptance of clearly defined educational objectives.

Concurrent with the academic development, another revolution was taking place with the formation of a strong faculty governance structure to replace the rule of the department heads. Faculty loyalty had always been an attribute of WPI; many faculty were alumni with connections to alma mater at least as deep as that to their disciplines. Now, there was ownership as well. Working parallel to the academic planning committee, another faculty group created proposals for a tenure system and also created elected faculty committees on promotion, academic policy, research and graduate studies, advising, and academic operations. Once established, the new governance structure tended to lock in place many of the new initiatives and formed the Third Step in reinforcing sustainable change.

After much debate, the faculty voted by a ratio of 2:1 to accept the radically new curriculum, called the WPI Plan--and thereby changed every aspect of academic life. While the vote attained the required majority, one-third of the faculty, including virtually every department head, opposed the program. Although some faculty never relented in their opposition, a growing number--including some department heads--saw that the Plan was there to stay. Realizing they could play an interesting part in its operation, they lent their support, some even becoming valuable contributors. A Fourth Step in creating sustainable change was building advocacy through the realization that opposing change would not stop its progress. Those charged with implementing the changes at WPI never waivered in their belief that their program would succeed. Even the most skeptical critics do not like to be left on shore when the ship leaves port.

Implementation

The first stage of implementing the Plan took five years, during which period WPI essentially operated two colleges. The implementation was directed through the newly created post of dean of undergraduate studies, a position filled by an engineering professor who had been a member of the planning committee. The newly created faculty committees played a critical role, along with the hybrid General Implementation Committee, a mixture of faculty committee chairs and academic administrators who met for twelve years under the chairmanship of the new dean. The Fifth Step in sustaining change was to establish continuity of leadership in the formative years.

Adaptation

In an atmosphere charged with idealism and dedication, the WPI Plan was created, and the realities of human nature, resource issues, and fatigue threatened to become limiting factors. Initial faculty concerns about finding projects proved unwarranted, as each project spawned new opportunities, both on- and off-campus. After fifteen years of diligent effort to make the competency examination work, however, it was phased out, replaced by distribution requirements in the majors. Some ardent supporters of the Plan saw this as a major philosophical retreat, and many alumni and faculty were angered. For a number of pragmatic reasons, however, the change was necessary to sustain other essential characteristics of the program. Through the years, other less dramatic operational changes have also been accepted, but the educational concepts based upon the original goals statement have remained.

Step Six in achieving sustainable change is that innovations be allowed by their creators to evolve and grow and that subsequent modifications be accepted.

Step Seven, necessary for establishing sustainable innovation, is the need to accept compromise, when necessary, to institutionalize the innovation. In the era when the WPI program was created, the world was full of experimental programs, or "Colleges Within." When reformers--often with brilliant ideas--moved on, their programs usually died. At WPI some original Plan elements were traded off--the university now has grades and some programs have required courses--but the educational concepts based upon the original goals statement have remained.

The WPI Plan as institutionalized by that fateful faculty vote of two to one has endured, remaining remarkably faithful to its original objectives of thirty years ago. The seven steps outlined here were initially set in motion from the top, but each had its basis in grassroots faculty involvement and ownership, and each was motivated by educational objectives defined in terms of what graduates would be able to do. In the past three decades, many institutions have begun to look for ways to better achieve learning outcomes, but few have been able to effect transformative change. Perhaps the most important lesson of the WPI Plan is simply that fundamental and sustainable change is possible, given the right combination of vision, compromise, and commitment.

WILLIAM R. GROGAN is dean emeritus of undergraduate studies and professor emeritus of electrical and computer engineering, and RICHARD VAZ is associate dean of interdisciplinary and global studies and associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

Institutional Transformation at Richland College

RAYMOND P. CANHAM AND CAROLE N. LESTER Colleges and universities often find it difficult to live up to the mission they set for themselves. Richland College's mission is deceptively brief: teaching, learning, and community building. To meet the challenges involved in these three activities, Richland seems to be constantly in a self-induced state of flux. In some cases, the agent of change at the college is Richland's long-serving president, Dr. Stephen K. Mittelstet. In others, because of a culture he has promoted that encourages innovation, other administrators, faculty or staff are the instigators.

Often, our institutional transformations have meant focusing on the things we do well and then exploring ways to do them better. One recent change involved the consolidation and expansion of "special programs"--themselves individually transformational in the past. Another involved efforts toward institutional improvement during the process of Richland's latest re-accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

Academic enrichment

In 1997, the college created the Office of Academic Enrichment, bringing together existing programs introduced over a period of many years into one administrative area and providing a testing ground for new programs. This consolidation had advantages for both the college and the students. The college benefited because all of the special programs, which are cross-disciplinary in nature, could be promoted, assessed, and strengthened through one office under the year-round direction of one administrator. The centralized administrative structure also allowed faculty development opportunities that encouraged broader participation in the unique pedagogies common to each of the programs. The advantages to students included an increased emphasis on the existing programs, an expansion of the number of classes offered within them, and the opportunity to experience new learning challenges as additional programs were developed.

Each instructional program in Academic Enrichment encourages innovation in the curriculum, active student participation, and the use of pedagogies that enhance student success. The programs now include honors, global studies, mind-body health, learning communities, service learning, fast track, and the newest of our enrichment programs, peace studies. While classes are usually identified as belonging to just one of these programs in the course schedule, they are often designed and taught with more than one model in mind.

Richland's honors program is the longest-running enrichment program. For over twenty years its seminar-based classes have encouraged students to formulate interesting questions, tolerate diverse points of view, become more effective listeners and critical thinkers, and draw meaningful connections between educational and life experiences. Some classes are team-taught, involving faculty from different disciplines who demonstrate to students (and to themselves) the benefits of bringing together those with different ways of thinking through the questions under discussion. Honors classes are open to all Richland students who have been assessed as ready for regular college coursework.

The primary purpose of the global studies program is to help prepare students to succeed in our increasingly diverse society. Classes are based upon the following dictum: Because we function in several communities at the same time--home, work, and school--each of us plays a significant role in the search for answers to problems that are directly connected to major global issues. These include ecological balance, social and economic justice, intercultural understanding, democratic participation, and the impact of technology. These and other issues are the themes of global studies classes. These classes also allow students the opportunity to relate service in the community to work in the classroom by providing the option of participating in service-learning projects through a variety of local agencies.

Mind-body health refers to the integration of the mind (our thoughts, attitudes, and emotions) and the body (our physical self) in having an impact on our overall health and wellbeing. Classes designated mind-body health are taught within the traditional curriculum. Some by their very nature deal directly with mind-body health (e.g. Yoga), while others have mind-body health as a core theme or approach (e.g. Writing for Wellness), but all provide opportunities for students to explore the "inner landscapes of their lives."

Most of the learning communities offered at Richland College are theme-based classes that cross traditional departmental lines. The typical community college student is a commuter who comes to the campus, takes a number of isolated classes, and then returns home. Learning communities provide these students with an opportunity to learn within a supportive community of engaged students and involved faculty. They normally involve two or more faculty from different disciplines teaching an outcomes-based class that offers six to twelve hours of credit in transferable coursework. With guidance from a faculty team using collaborative learning techniques, students become active rather than passive learners. Learning communities provide students an integrative experience and increase the collaboration of students with each other and with faculty during the learning process.

The service learning methodology integrates required service in the community with academic instruction as it focuses on critical, reflective thinking and civic responsibility. Service learning projects involve students in organized service that addresses local needs while developing their academic skills and sense of civic responsibility.

The fast track program allows students flexibility in managing class schedules and their other commitments. Classes are scheduled primarily in four-week blocks in such a way that students can earn their Associates degree in twelve months taking day classes or in twenty months taking evening classes. The fast track articulation agreement with the University of Texas at Dallas promotes easy transfer to our neighboring four-year university.

Peace studies is the most recently introduced enrichment program. Its curriculum is intended to cultivate students' capacity to work towards appropriate stewardship of the earth, to develop their desire to create just societies, and to enable them to sustain healthy human relationships that overcome violence through conflict resolution. In connection with the peace studies program, Richland has planted seven peace poles, of more than thirty that are ultimately planned, in celebration of the more than ninety languages known to be the native tongues of Richland College students.

Quality enhancement

During preparation for Richland's re-accreditation in the spring of 2002, it became apparent that there needed to be a more concentrated, collaborative effort directed towards increased student success at the college. As we looked at all college operations and considered how to promote student learning, some areas seemed to invite transformation. Through the formation of Quality Enhancement Planning (QEP) teams, we considered the student experience from the moment of intake until graduation and decided upon ways to make positive changes. Teams of faculty, staff, and administrators from across the campus met regularly and suggested improvements that addressed the needs of both students and the institution as a whole. The immediate outcomes included greater efforts at "intrusive advising," monitoring of student performance, and expanded use of innovative teaching techniques such as collaborative learning. The result of these and other changes was a demonstrable improvement in student retention and academic perf ormance-within one semester of implementation.

From a QEP team suggestion, one change involved the tutoring center, formerly known as the Center for Independent Study. It became the Center for Tutoring and Learning Connections, a change not in name only. The CTLC began offering study-skills and content-specific "connections" workshops for a variety of core courses. These workshops, conducted for small groups of students by highly qualified content specialists, are designed to connect all of the elements associated with being a successful student, both in and out of class. Workshop topics such as critical thinking and problem solving are made subject-specific, and, when combined with others such as test anxiety and time management, help provide students the tools they need to succeed in all of their courses.

The science faculty, still seeing an unmet need, then created the Science Corner in a space adjacent to the science laboratories, where they could provide drop-in tutoring for students in science courses. Faculty in accounting and economics, foreign language, and history and government then also began specialized tutoring centers. These efforts served not only to impart additional knowledge to students who utilized the facilities, but also to more fully integrate the student body into the life of the college. As in the case of the learning communities described previously, our population of commuter students has become more involved with the faculty, each other, and the college as a whole, by spending more time on the campus engaged in worthwhile learning activities.

The key element in all of these efforts was that faculty, staff, and administrators came together to examine the way in which the college operated on behalf of its students and to improve those services that they found wanting. The Richland community is convinced that this latest transformation in the way the college operates to promote student learning will be long-lasting and meaningful. Richland College has had a reputation for being an innovative and ever-changing institution throughout its thirty-year history. Rather than creating an atmosphere of weariness or concern, continuing transformation is celebrated at Richland as a wholly appropriate way for the college to serve its students and its broader community for the decades to come.

RAYMOND P. CANHAM is dean of mathematics, science, and the behavioral sciences, and CAROLE N. LESTER is dean of instruction, at Richland College of the Dallas County Community College District.

The Story of Institutional Transformation at King's College

JEAN O'BRIEN AND EDMUND NAPIERALSKI

The first seed of transformation was planted when a graduating senior announced to the academic dean, "There is more teaching going on around here than learning and you ought to do something about that." King's College, a small, private, liberal arts college, in Wilkes-Barre, PA, made a conscious and deliberate effort to create an invigorated teaching and learning environment.

Our story begins in the early 1980s when the faculty began reconceptualizing the Core Curriculum. There was general dissatisfaction with the old Core that was really a smorgasbord of classes lacking coherence, integrity, and a plan for learning. The new Core Curriculum was designed to ensure that students engage in cumulative and transferable learning in three general areas: the transferable skills of liberal learning (e.g. critical thinking, effective writing); traditional disciplines and interdisciplinary perspectives (e.g. natural science, literature and the arts); and informed believing and acting (e.g. philosophy, theology).

One important factor that ensures the success and ongoing development of the new Core was the creation of faculty project teams. Each team oversees a portion of the Core and promotes faculty commitment to and ownership of its ongoing efforts and success in enhancing student learning. Extensive faculty development processes were undertaken to support the faculty in developing strategies that help students become active or intentional learners as described in the Greater Expectations initiative.

Faculty were encouraged to attend assessment conferences and workshops, nationally known speakers were invited to campus, and numerous in-house workshops were held on topics such as writing and critical thinking across the curriculum. The latter is significant because faculty teaching the effective writing and critical thinking courses for our first-year students were also teaching other faculty what was covered in their courses, thereby enabling a truly cumulative curriculum. For the most part, the faculty welcomed these development opportunities as they defined themselves as a teaching faculty, and sometimes their efforts were rewarded with small stipends made available through grants.

As the transformation process continued at King's College, we realized that in order to have a genuinely coherent and cumulative learning experience for our students we would need to explicitly link learning in the core curriculum to learning and faculty expectations for students' progress through the major program. Several strategies were successfully adopted. One major strategy we used to accomplish this end was to develop Competency Growth Plans (COP) for each of the seven transferable skills of liberal learning; all major disciplines embedded these skills in courses for the major from the first through the senior year. The transferable skills that we focused on include critical thinking and problem solving; effective writing; technology competency; effective oral communication; quantitative reasoning; library and information literacy; and moral reasoning. Each competency growth plan outlines how students will develop these skills year-by-year and course-by-course. In this way, faculty designed the curric ulum as a matrix of subject matter and skill development integrated into the same courses, with increasing expectations for students' knowledge and abilities as they progress through the college experience.

The second major strategy that we use to enhance curricular coherence and the development of intentional learners is the Sophomore/Junior Diagnostic Project. Each major has designed a project that is related to its field of study and that takes place in a required course; the project enables faculty to discern the likelihood of success in the major as well as the student's attainment of the transferable skills of liberal learning developed in the Core. A recent faculty survey showed that they found this strategy to be especially effective in providing feedback to students on their strengths and weaknesses so that students might enjoy a greater likelihood of success in the careers to which they aspire. Should weaknesses be identified, students are referred to the Learning Skills Center or the Office of Career Planning and Placement for help in overcoming these deficiencies.

A third strategy is the combination of departments developing Goals for the Major along with the Senior Integrated Assessment. Each department is asked to articulate the goals for the major, that is, what students in their field should be able to know and be able to do by the time they graduate. How well these goals have been met can be determined by the student's performance on the senior integrated assessment. These projects are embedded in a senior capstone course and are designed to reflect the student's mastery of the subject matter and methodology of the discipline as well as sophisticated levels of competence in the transferable skills of liberal learning.

Each of these strategies has enlivened the teaching and learning processes at King's College. By using these strategies the faculty has become more learner-centered rather than instructor-oriented (Barr and Tagg 1995). They are in a continual process of revising their expectations and course work based on the performance of previous classes of students. Project teams for the core curriculum learn what worked and what did not-and revise the core accordingly. Faculty in the majors learn from the sophomore/junior diagnostic project what students are able to do upon entering the major, and from the senior level integrated assessment, what students about to graduate know and are able to do. Students thereby receive the benefits of a curriculum that is revised to enhance their learning and abilities as liberally educated persons. Thus, the academic enterprise is constantly transformed and improved.

In other ways as well, the transformation of the academic enterprise continues at King's College. As the Greater Expectations Report notes, "Complex capacities like creativity and reflection are honed as students encounter knowledge in new contexts and open-ended or unscripted problems" (32). At King's we thrive on such challenges as faculty and students have enthusiastically embraced problem-based learning (PBL) and community-based learning (CBL). For example, in an environmental studies course, students will redirect and stabilize a stream bank, solving the problem of its interruption by erosion. As to community-based learning, a recently hired Spanish professor has coordinated a project in which her students translate necessary government documents from English to Spanish for the use of non-English speaking residents.

Besides PBL and CBL, the faculty at King's are supported in their initiatives to include students in their scholarly research. The psychology, neuroscience, biology, political science, marketing, and criminal justice departments are replete with examples of actively involving students in faculty research. These projects often result in student presentations at conferences and publications in scholarly journals, a great opportunity for students to actively participate in original research that adds to disciplinary knowledge.

Finally, King's College has devoted financial resources to support faculty in their efforts to innovate curriculum and teaching strategies that enhance student learning opportunities. The faculty have initiated a Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT), an idea developed at AAC&U's first Institute on Campus Leadership for Sustainable Innovation.

In all of our efforts to sustain faculty innovation, to enhance teaching and learning strategies, and to transform undergraduate education, we have been supported by senior administration, a recognition of the need for a wide variety of faculty development opportunities, an acceptance of the advantage of both internal and external learning opportunities, and the recognition given by financial and other forms of appreciation for faculty innovation. These, combined with a structure of internal communication to convey what is and is not working and the acceptance of new forms of teaching and learning, are strategies that have worked to transform King's College from a teacher-oriented to a student-oriented learning culture.

JEAN O'BRIEN is professor of psychology arid EDMUND NAPIER ALSKI is associate academic vice president at King's College.

WORKS CITED

Association of American Colleges and Universities. 2002. Greater expectations: A new vision for learning as a nation goes to college. Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities.

Barr, Robert and John Tagg. 1995. From teaching to learning: A new paradigm for undergraduate education. Change, November/December.

ANDREA LESKES is AAC&U's vice president for education and quality initiatives and director of the Greater Expectations initiative.