My Interest in ASCN: Heather Macdonald

College of William and Mary
Geology
Chancellor Professor of Geology

Prior Organizational Change Work

I've served as Dean of Undergraduate Studies and Chief Transfer Officer at the College of William and Mary. In that time, I lead implementation of a new general education curriculum. I also initiated a college-wide teaching enhancement project for faculty and an annual professional development program for chairs and program directors in Arts and Sciences, both of which are still in place in some form, many years after I returned to the faculty.

How ASCN Can Contribute to my Work

I anticipate learning more about what others are doing to promote institutional change - at different scales and levels - and possibly using some of the specific strategies in my work. And I anticipate learning more about some of the theoretical frameworks for sustainable systemic change.

How I Can Contribute to ASCN

I've worked on the Building Strong Geoscience Departments, a project with Cathy Manduca as the lead PI, which is about promoting change at the level of the department, in an institutional context. I am currently leading a project, Faculty at Change Agents: Transforming Geoscience Education in Two-year Colleges, that includes a component in which teams of faculty, working with administrators on their campus, work to enhance the geoscience program on their campus in terms of three project strands: supporting the academic success of all students, facilitating students professional pathways (transfer and careers), and broadening participation. We've in the early stages of work on that project. SAGE 2YC: Faculty as Change Agents (or SAGE 2YC) is the short hand acronym for the project)