What is systemic change?
Charles Henderson Western Michigan University Charles Henderson
"Systems are perfectly designed to achieve the results that they are achieving right now."1 Higher education organizations are complex systems with many interacting subsystems. In order to create sustainable change, it is necessary to understand and align these subsystems. Subsystems include the faculty reward system, the higher education funding system that is based on student enrollment, the organization of universities into academic departments, the tradition of faculty autonomy over instruction, the metrics used to judge student performance (grades vs. learning), etc. Many change initiatives fail because they focus on only one subsystem without considering how this subsystem interacts with other subsystems. For example, in STEM it is common for education reformers to work to convince individual instructors about the benefits of active learning (that is, to change the instructor-student-instructional method subsystem). Research suggests that many instructors are receptive to this message and are interested in using more active learning strategies.

2023 Transforming Institutions Conference Takeaways
Casey Wright, Western Michigan University
The 2023 Transforming Institutions Conference was held June 12-13, 2023, in Minneapolis, MN. With this most recent convening, we are proud to have brought together change researchers and change agents for 12 years. The meeting was made possible by the efforts of a conference planning committee consisting of 10 change agents convened by NSEC (Network of STEM Education Centers) and ASCN (Accelerating Systemic Change Network), supported by 40 reviewers from the systemic change community. Now that the dust has settled, we would like to share some key takeaways, attendee feedback, and future conference plans to continue to build momentum for our community to thrive with change.

Duke office of biomedical graduate diversity
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Improving the Academic Climate of an R1 STEM Department: Quantified Positive Shifts in Perception
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Shaping the Future of Higher Education: Practical, Community-Driven Initiatives to Improve Academic Climate
In this Editorial, we present the history and details of a collaborative effort to improve the academic climate of the Department of Chemistry at University of California, Berkeley.

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DOW STEM Scholars
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