The Great Resistance: A Discussion Series about Higher Education’s Resistance to Change
Christine Broussard University of La Verne Elizabeth Ambos Consultant Melissa Haswell Delta College Stephanie Salomone Portland University Sharon Homer-Drummond, PhD Tri-County Technical College Christine Broussard, University of La Verne, Elizabeth L. Ambos, Ambos Consulting,Melissa Haswell, Delta College, BioQUEST, Stephanie Salomone, University of Portland, Sharon M. Homer-Drummond,ICF, NSF TIP SEATS
If 2023 was the yearthe Aligning Incentives with Systemic Change working group of ASCN engaged in a series of discussions about resilience, 2024 focused on another important "r" word – resistance – particularly as it pertains to higher education change processes. Using Brian Rosenberg's recent publication, Whatever It is, I'm Against It (Rosenberg, 2023) as a catalyst for engagement, spring 2024 saw discussion of chapters on the barriers to higher education changes; incentives that can drive or stop change; and potential pathways for change, even in very challenging times. In the fall of 2024, we offered a webinar on one such pathway to change, the Council on Undergraduate Research's NSF-funded Transformations project.

Using project principles to anchor changing departments
Joel Corbo, University of Colorado Boulder Courtney Ngai, Colorado State University Gina Quan, San José State University Sarah Wise, University of Colorado Boulder
The Departmental Action Team (DAT) Project supports departments as they make changes to their undergraduate programs. Project team members use the DAT Project's six Core Principles to guide their decision-making around change efforts. In this post we share why a principles-based approach supports successful change. This post is a great introduction for our free upcoming webinar on Tuesday, March 30, 2021 about facilitating change using the DAT model. Register for the webinar here

Creating new knowledge about change by combining research-based knowledge with the wisdom of practice
Kadian Callahan, Kennesaw State University; Charles Henderson, Western Michigan University
One of the core ideas behind the formation of the Accelerating Systemic Change Network (ASCN) is to create and amplify knowledge by fostering interactions between two basic types of people who are working to improve postsecondary education: change researchers and change agents. While there is some overlap in these groups, they mostly operate independently. And, more importantly, each has access to different ideas and types of knowledge. Through knowledge creation and amplification, ASCN builds capacity within and across these two groups to more successfully enact change in undergraduate STEM education. Specifically, ASCN uses the model of a "Knowledge Creating Company." This way to think about business organizations was first published by Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) who credited it for the success of Japanese companies in the 1980s and 1990s. It has since become highly influential in focusing businesses worldwide on the importance of knowledge and knowledge creation. In contrast to the Western approach to knowledge management, which views knowledge as explicit, Japanese companies place significant value on tacit knowledge.

A Framework for Assessing Teaching Effectiveness (FATE)
Shawn Simonson, Boise State University
In higher education, teaching evaluation is often inadequate and inaccurate, neither improving teaching directly nor incentivizing teaching improvement. Complicating this is that effective teaching is difficult to assess and one or two subjective measures do not accurately consider all aspects of teaching and are often nebulous without established standards. COVID-19 may actually have helped by drawing more attention to this and reducing resistance to change as people became uncomfortable with student course evaluations not telling the complete teaching story that faculty and departments want told.

Departmental Change: Engaging in a Change Initiative
Joel Corbo, University of Colorado Boulder; Courtney Ngai, Colorado State University; Gina Quan, San José State University; Sarah Wise, University of Colorado Boulder
The Departmental Action Team (DAT) Project supports departments as they make changes to their undergraduate programs. In previous posts, we described the principles that underlie the DAT Project and the initial stages of DAT formation. In this post, we'll share some of what DATs and facilitators do as they engage in a change initiative together. If you are interested in learning more, we are leading a free interactive webinar (Tuesday, March 30, 12-1:30pm EST) about facilitating change using the DAT model. Register for the webinar.

Shared leadership for student success at UW-Whitewater
Susan Elrod, Indiana University-South Bend; Jodie Parys, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater; Meg Waraczynski, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater
Colleges and universities across the country are facing increasing pressure to enroll, retain and graduate more students at a time when the environment for higher education is competitive and often contentious. In order for institutions to be successful in these student success endeavors, everyone must work together. We are all familiar with shared governance as a central tenet of higher education but those processes apply primarily to policy development and decision-making. We argue that shared leadership is required as a holistic approach to goal development and implementation of strategic priorities that foster student and institutional success. In this model, both administrators and faculty/staff leaders play key roles that are essential to the long-term success and sustainability of student success initiatives. Administrators provide a framework for initiatives as they relate to the broader campus community; foster connections between individuals engaged in similar work; provide strategic support and remove barriers to progress; and hold the campus accountable for achieving shared goals. Shared leaders capitalize on their discipline expertise and commitment to student success and program outcomes to fill in the pieces of the framework. They utilize their classroom and program experience to design, test, and apply proposed solutions and also retain ownership of the initiatives and solutions.

Reflections on the SMTI/ASCN Workshop on Diversity and Inclusion
Inese Berzina-Pitcher Western Michigan University Inese Berzina-Pitcher
Last month in partnership with the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU) we organized SMTI/ASCN Workshop on Diversity and Inclusion. × One of the major objectives of the workshop was to advance a dialog on diversity and inclusion in undergraduate STEM education between practitioners transforming institutions and researchers who are studying systemic change at higher education institutions. The workshop featured case studies of institutions that are making progress on increasing diversity and inclusion on their campuses. These case studies were used to stimulate small group discussion amongst all participants on what is working or not on their campuses. In addition, small group discussion by ASCN working groups also were offered. With a great interest we read reflections offered by the workshop participants and in turn

The Great Resilience: Notes on a Discussion Series to Cultivate Resilience for STEM
Holly Kelchner, Carleton College; Christine Broussard, University of La Verne
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.

Learning from Evaluation of Effective Teaching Event: Change Leaders Perspectives
Madhura Kulkarni, Northern Kentucky University; 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 recommend that people interested in the event watch the recording and access the resources on the event page, but the purpose of this blog post is to highlight what we learned from this event so that other change agents can implement the findings into their work immediately. Big questions that we wanted to focus on included the who, what, and how of transforming teaching. To understand how change happens, and how we might help create teaching evaluation change on our campuses, we asked Dr. Susan Elrod to describe her work modeling institutional change.

What we wish we would have known about theories of change and change theory at the beginning
Laura Muller, The Jackson Laboratory; Melissa Eblen-Zayas, Carleton College
Six years ago when we first met, we were two individuals who identified a common challenge on our campuses – namely supporting students who arrived with varying comfort and experience using quantitative (Q) skills in STEM and social science contexts. Talking with others, we were eager to think about how we might collaborate to do better for our students. We wanted to make a change, but change theories or theories of change? We didn't know what those were! As we have learned about change strategies and change theory over the last six years, we've repeatedly come across ideas that make us think, "Wow, we wish we would have known this when we started this project!" This post is an effort to share some of what we've learned with other practitioners who might be trying to change things on their own campuses.