The Great Resilience: Notes on a Discussion Series to Cultivate Resilience for STEM
Holly Kelchner, Carleton College
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.

Themes in the National Discussion on Reforming STEM Teaching Evaluation
Ann Austin, Michigan State University
The January 2021 National Dialogue on Reforming Stem Teaching Evaluation in Higher Education, hosted by the National Academies of Sciences Roundtable on Systemic Reform in Undergraduate Stem Education, in collaboration with AAU, APLU, ACSCN, and the TEval Project, involved faculty and administrative leaders from a variety of institutional types in very engaged conversation about teaching evaluation and innovative institutional projects. The lively conversation was evidence of the growing interest nationally in identifying models for more wholistic, effective, and inclusive forms of teaching evaluation as well as resources for initiating campus-wide discussions about reform in teaching evaluation.

How do we recruit, support, and retain diverse faculty? Reflections from our discussion series
Patricia Marsteller, Emory University
Equity, inclusion, diversity, and justice are foundational in effective higher education settings, including STEM disciplines. Our ASCN working group brings together communities whose work focuses on justice, equity, inclusion, and diversity (JEDI) in higher education. In spring 2021, we focused on a series of informal conversations centered on recruiting diverse faculty. In the series we discussed: Why recruiting diverse faculty is important. Promising practices for department leaders, such as creating detailed and inclusive recruitment plans, utilizing cluster hires, broadening searches, using faculty search advocates, and providing JEDI education for faculty and for search committees. Working with other institutional actors (e.g., data analysts, deans) for institutional and departmental reflections, hiring plans, and data needs.

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.

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.

Instructional Change Teams: An Exploratory Model
Amreen Thompson, Texas State University-San Marcos
Over the past several years, our research team has been investigating factors that influence how instructional change teams collaborate to improve undergraduate STEM instruction. Our research revolves around a model we have developed to examine and interpret the effectiveness of instructional change teams in higher education. We define an instructional change team as a group of three or more instructors or other stakeholders who come together regularly to work on course design or redesign. This post will discuss the development and current state of our instructional change teams model.

COVID-19 Recommended Resources from ASCN
Kate White Temple University Kate White (Western Michigan University), ASCN Research Director
Updated: 6/4/20 We know that many of you are dealing with changes at your institutions as we all come together to flatten the curve. Many organizations have been sharing resources and guidance for remote work, online teaching, and more. In this post you'll find links to some recommended resources that we have collected. Our regular events (webinars, working group meetings, etc.) are continuing -- please contact us if you would like to get involved! We will continue to update this post as needed.

Active learning increases student performance in science, engineering, and mathematics
Active learning increases student performance in science, engineering, and mathematics Scott Freeman, Sarah L. Eddy, Miles McDonough, Michelle K. Smith, Nnadozie Okoroafor, Hannah Jordt, and Mary Pat Wenderoth ...

Investing in Success: Cost-Effective Strategies to Increase Student Success
Jane Wellman; and Rima Brusi

Competency-based education: A study of four new models and their implications for bending the higher education cost curve
Donna M. Desrochers; Richard L. Staisloff
In this report the authors assess CBE programs at four institutions by considering business models, costs, etc. and what is required from institutions to 'get to breakeven'. The four institutions anticipate breaking even with their programs by the fifth year, and they project that by the sixth year these programs will be operating at half the cost of the traditional academic programs. The article describes how an evaluation of the competency- based education business model must include considerations regarding price, efficiency (academic delivery structure, staff ratios, and compensation), and scale (student recruitment, enrollment, and retention).