A comparison of two collaborative approaches to departmental change

Those seeking to change the policies, practices, and cultures of universities to support effective educational practices often find it a challenge. To navigate this work, some transformation efforts are being focused at the department-level, including two models for departmentally-based change developed at the University of Colorado Boulder: the Departmental Action Team (DAT) Project and Teaching Quality Framework (TQF) Initiative. In the DAT Project, externally-facilitated working groups, composed of students, faculty, and staff, pursue collectively-determined projects aimed broadly at improving the undergraduate experience in their department. In the TQF Initiative, externally-facilitated working groups of faculty (modeled on those of the DAT Project) focus on transforming teaching evaluation practices in their department. To better understand these related models of institutional change, we conducted interviews with individuals from the DAT Project and TQF Initiative, including working group facilitators, developers of the models, and grant PIs. Our results indicate that there are meaningful differences in the working group process in the two models, including the models' overall goals, their approach to participants' development, and the styles of facilitation they employ. These differences have connections to the theories underlying each model, and they have implications for the experiences participants have in each model and the outcomes they achieve. In this poster, we present these differences in the working group process in the two change models, the potential impact of these differences, and avenues for growth in the models.