The Great Resilience: Notes on a Discussion Series to Cultivate Resilience for STEM

Posted: Mar 22 2024 by

Christine Broussard
University of La Verne

Elizabeth Ambos
Ambos Consulting

Jennifer Manilay
University of California-Merced

Casey Wright
Western Michigan University

Christine Broussard, University of La Verne, Elizabeth L. Ambos, Ambos Consulting, Jennifer O. Manilay, University of California - Merced, Casey Wright, University of Iowa

Higher education was hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, and as a result, many faculty, administrators, and staff quit their jobs. This Great Resignation produced upheaval at many institutions across the nation. Looking for a space to find hope and a positive outlook in the midst of instability, the Aligning Incentives with Systemic Change working group engaged in a series of discussions about resilience. During spring 2023, we looked for ways to cultivate personal and organizational stability in the face of the Great Resignation and its impacts on higher education. More

Learning from Change Leaders: Reflections from the 2023 Transforming Institutions Conference

Posted: Aug 7 2023 by

Madhura Kulkarni
Northern Kentucky University

Casey Wright
Western Michigan University

Casey Wright, Western Michigan University

Madhura Kulkarni, Northern Kentucky University

The Change Leaders working group led a workshop and hosted a breakfast conversation to bring together emergent and established change leaders at the 2023 Transforming Institutions Conference in Minneapolis, June 12-13, 2023. At the workshop, we met change leaders who are hard at work on their campuses in roles as faculty members, post-docs, educational technology staff, center for teaching and learning staff, STEM center staff, and university administrators. More

Learning from Evaluation of Effective Teaching Event: Perspectives on Aligning Incentives

Posted: Sep 23 2021 by

Rachel Renbarger
Western Michigan University

Christine Broussard
University of La Verne

Christine Broussard, University of La Verne and Rachel Renbarger, Western Michigan University

At the end of August, three ASCN working groups came together to put on an event called, "Evaluation of effective and inclusive teaching: How can teaching and learning center professionals be involved in change for social justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion?" (We will refer to social justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion as JEDI for ease throughout this post.) We heard from working group leaders Christine Broussard, Kadian Callahan, and Holly Cho, and a special guest, Susan Elrod. We were fortunate to have 100 participants join us for the session as well, who represented 77 different institutions. The purpose of this blog post is to give brief highlights regarding what we learned from this event. We recommend that if the topic and event interests you, please watch the recording and access the resources on the event page. More

Implementing Integrated Comprehensive Student Programs in STEM: Challenges and Facilitators from the CSU STEM Collaboratives

Posted: Mar 21 2018 by

Elizabeth Holcombe
Indiana University-Bloomington

Elizabeth Holcombe, University of Southern California

In my last post, I described the benefits of integrated support programs for underrepresented students in STEM. These integrated programs bridge organizational silos and build a unified community of support, in which faculty and staff work together to break down barriers to student success. The campuses that participated in the CSU STEM Collaboratives project saw increased student success and other organizational benefits as a result of creating integrated programs.

While integration across functional areas represents a promising strategy for supporting student success, it represents a new way of working in higher education. Implementing integrated programs presents some unique challenges that may not be evident when implementing other types of interventions. In this post, I will briefly discuss a few of these challenges, as well as some strategies that STEM Collaboratives campuses used to overcome them. More

Turning on the Thrive Channel to Accelerate Change in Higher Education

Posted: Mar 7 2018 by

Lorne Whitehead
University of British Columbia

Susan Elrod
Indiana University-South Bend

Susan Elrod and Lorne Whitehead Conversations about "institutional change" in higher education have become pervasive. This is probably because colleges and universities are under tremendous pressure - to graduate more students, to improve success of underrepresented minority students, to reduce costs, and to expand the benefits they provide to our society. Many state systems are engaged in developing performance-based funding metrics that are intended to promote achievement of specified goals. Others are engaged in major reorganizations that are merging or possibly eliminating campuses in service of larger goals that are important to the state, such as enhanced transfer, graduation or fiscal efficiency. This seems scary, but at the heart of all of this is a sound idea - since our society has a long history of improvement and undoubtedly there are still more improvements to make. And to do that, organizations must be adaptable; they must make changes for the better. Why then, is this so concerning for so many?

A key challenge is that achieving change in any organization is hard. It is complicated. It involves many levels of the organization. It is motivated by a variety of purposes. It is challenged by competing agendas. It is frequently stalled by a variety of obstacles.

Further, positive change requires a vision, strategy, and tactics. But most importantly, it requires effective change leadership. What does that actually entail? More