Reactions to the Inaugural Leading Academic Change Summit

I’ve spent the past two days participating in the Inaugural Leading Academic Change Summit, an event co-hosted by the University System of Maryland’s Center for Academic Innovation (thank you MJ Bishop) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation  (thank you Anne Keehn).

 

This was a convening for weird academic people.  Those of us who don’t really fit in with traditional organizational structures and lines of authority.  We are a group that is obsessed (perhaps to an unhealthy degree) with wanting to help shape the future of higher education.  The attendees were a diverse group of academics, with roles ranging from members of teaching and learning centers (”the sleeper cells of higher ed change”), vice-provost folks, and those running academic computing and research and assessment units.  

 

We came from community colleges and R1 research institutions, small private liberal arts colleges and large state systems.  What united us was a common sense of purpose around the need for higher ed change, and a sense that the job titles on our business cards do not quite describe what we do on campus. We are people with big strategic institutional goals, but who largely the authority, prestige (or budgets) of presidents and provosts.   We are a bunch of academic nerds who share non-linear career paths, a lack of tenure, and little formal training in the theories of organizational change. 

It was honestly pretty wonderful to spend time with peers who are doing similar work and who are facing similar challenges.  The real bonus to this convening, and the reason that this convening is different from the those that I usually attend, is the diversity of institutions represented and the shared goals around change.  

 

My sense is that cross-institutional gatherings to talk through big picture strategic issues usually involve the highest levels of campus leadership.  The presidents and the provosts and the VPs.  This meeting was different.

 

What has occurred in the last few years has been the collision of new pressures (public disinvestment, rising costs), new models (blended learning, flipped classrooms, and open online education at scale), and a growing excitement around learning science (learning analytics and advances in cognitive science and learning theory).  This collision has opened up space for a new group of non-traditional and non-faculty academics to engage in more robust and productive collaborations with faculty and campus leadership.  We are seeing a growth of learning and learning research related positions in teaching and leaning centers, academic computing departments, digital learning units, and institutional research units.  Every institution is struggling with how to shift organizational structures, reporting lines, resources and personnel closer to teaching, learning and student success.  

 

Three of the questions that were discussed at this Leading Academic Change Summit were: 

Like any good gathering, the group of us that got together over these past two days Maryland had many more questions than answers.  We got some help in thinking through these questions from Peter Senge, Candace Thille, and Peter Eckel (3 inspired choices to lead discussions of academic transformation - and 3 of the people who should be top on your list to visit your campus!).   These speakers and facilitators were as good as one could get, but the real value of the convening was the chance to share stories, roadblocks, successes, frustrations, inspirations, and learnings with peers.  

 

 

What would you like to know about this Gates co-sponsored Leading Academic Change Summit?

 

What gatherings have you attended, and that you would recommend, that bring together a similar group of people?