Higher education now recognizes that it is in a “permanent white water” of change, requiring strategic planning, action, and supporting structures. To transform institutions of higher education, process educators have developed practices to conduct strategic planning, manage focused projects for change, meet the needs of learners and faculty, and engage individuals in conscious, collective change initiatives. This section includes chapters focused upon planning, development of project plans, responses of institutions to the changing demands of their students and faculty, and the personal impact of such change on individuals and the culture of the organization.
From Stability to Turbulence: Planning in Higher Education
Almost twenty years ago Peter Vaill (1991) warned organizations of “permanent white water”; continual turbulence that would test their ability to adapt quickly to their environments. In order to survive, they would have to transform, aligning their missions, visions, values, and delivery systems to meet external demands that were producing “irreversible” social and economic change. Corporate planning models proved inadequate under such conditions; they had been developed in the 1960s according to mechanical principles of scientific management, and they were “separating thinking from doing and creating a new function staffed by specialists.” This led to what Henry Mintzberg termed the “fall” of strategic planning (1994). No longer did organizations rely on specialists who predicted future conditions and planned for them in a rational manner. That approach gradually gave way to “organic” approaches to strategic thinking; these emphasized the importance of possessing certain core competencies to enable people to respond to a range of possible future scenarios, to integrate the intent of strategies, to be adaptable and flexible in systems, and to be agile and rapid when participating in coordinated action.
While for-profit businesses readily embraced the idea of “strategy” as a means to gain a competitive advantage (“strategy” is related to the Greek word strategia, meaning “generalship”), institutions of higher learning developed long-term plans. Through the 1980s “long-range planning” was conducted under relatively stable conditions, usually to acquire resources to develop facilities to accommodate a growing student population. Tumultuous changes in student populations were caused by factors such as the effects of the baby boomer generation, continuing reactions following Vietnam, and increasing numbers of minority students. The turmoil that resulted was not interpreted as “white water” turbulence; however, perspectives began to shift as competition for resources increased, and two-year institutions that were dedicated to serving employment needs grew in economic and social importance.
By the late 1980s, large public universities began to develop in ways that were more strategic, emulating private institutions to compete for new sources of funding by developing their “brands.” At the same time, two-year colleges found new ways to serve the changing needs of employers and communities. By the mid 1980s, other institutions, including for-profits, had also begun to recruit non-traditional adult students in flexible degree programs. The environment had changed, and questions arose about identities and roles in higher education. But as trends guru John Naisbitt notes, “Things that we expect to happen always happen more slowly” (2006). Only in recent years, since the 1990s, has higher education seen the urgency of embracing strategic planning, and institutionalizing practices that facilitate change.
Participating in Change
Faculty and administrators see a new environment. For-profit institutions like the University of Phoenix are commonly recognized throughout the country. A generation of freshmen, who are interconnected by technology, have never mailed anything using a stamp: they also expect regular praise. A large baby-boomer faculty cohort will soon retire; many of them will be replaced by positions off the tenure track. Growth is apparent, both in United States academic programs abroad, and huge new institutions of higher learning in places like India and China. There is massive outsourcing of traditional manufacturing jobs from communities, and new immigrant populations need to be served. The number of underprepared students from a range of backgrounds is increasing, while business and community leaders urgently assert that research universities are engines of innovation and economic growth. Stakeholders increasingly demand that institutions of higher learning demonstrate greater accountability, greater access, and greater affordability. According to Edward Lawler, these stakeholders expect institutions to be run according to “an organizational effectiveness model built on the assumption that continuous change is simply business as usual” (2006).
The extent to which faculty participate in strategic planning has varied depending upon the size, mission, and complexity of their institutions. As represented in a generic model developed by Stuart L. Hart (1992), faculty roles may range from carrying out a traditional mission clearly understood by all, being passive observers following dictates from the top, to generating new programs that are sponsored in strategic initiatives. As questions about assessing teaching and learning and the value of higher education pervade its environment, process educators will increasingly be called upon as expert resources in planning and change initiatives, as program designers, and as agents for internal transformation (1.3.8 Successful Institutional Change—The Human Dimension).
Integrating Planning and Practice
The module, 1.3.2 Academic Strategic Planning—The Basics, reduces the mystery of the process, providing a clear, basic five-step guide that is useful at the institutional and program levels. Most programs will, in fact, benefit by assessing their strategy in relation to their environment, both inside and outside of the institution. This guide provides a “how to” that can get them started without long theoretical discussions. Moving from strategy to action, however, remains a challenge in many institutions that have committed to planning. Two contributions, Designing a Quality Action Project (1.3.3), and Implementing an Internal Challenge Grant System (1.3.6), offer specific examples of practices and projects that produce visible results and facilitate transformational change.
Because projects have a beginning and an end, they run counter to academic cultures that rely on traditional committees who enjoy planning to plan, often without producing measurable outcomes. Projects have a number of advantages in effecting change: they are easily linked to strategic goals, they are as readily employed for academic improvement as for other purposes, they invite broad participation and can be generated from suggestions, they can take advantage of an established body of knowledge on how best to execute them, and they are more widely embraced in higher education and by accreditation boards. Likewise, challenge grants encourage action in a framework familiar to academics. These permit discernment on strategic objectives, engage participants, and enable deployment of resources for change.
Both Designing an Academic Skills Center (1.3.4) and Recruiting and Maintaining Adjunct Faculty (1.3.5) address how institutions respond to a changing environment. The first describes in detail the structure, functions, and standards for a unit that supports student learning across the institution, responding to calls by both faculty and stakeholders to improve student success. The second confronts an important change in the composition of faculty with a set of specific recommendations. According to the Contingent Faculty Index (2006) developed by the American Association of University Professors, in the 1970s fifty-seven percent of faculty members were tenured or tenure track. Today that is thirty-five percent. Assuring quality with a majority of faculty in a contingent workforce will require close attention to making sure the practices described here are institutionalized.
The Annual Professional Growth Plan (1.3.7) and Successful Institutional Change—The Human Dimension (1.3.8) describe practices for connecting the individual with organizational strategic change. For process educators committed to making learning and assessment central to the transformation of the academic enterprise, this connection is especially challenging. How do we align our own effectiveness criteria and assessments for professional and personal growth with institutional goals? How do we engage in a common enterprise fulfilling its mission under conditions of rapid change? The answers to these depend on the creation of systems that support individual growth and open opportunities for process educators to participate consciously in change processes, objectives toward which this chapter and this volume are dedicated.
References
American Association of University Professors. (2006). Contingent faculty index. Retrieved May 17, 2007, from <http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/pubsres/research/conind2006.htm>
Hart, S. L. (1992). An integrative framework for strategy-making processes. Academy of Management Review, 17, 327-351.
Mintzberg, H. (1994, January-February). The fall and rise of strategic planning. Harvard Business Review, 107-114.
Naisbitt, J. (2006). Mind set! Reset your thinking and see the future. New York: HarperCollins.
Vaill, P. B. (1991). Managing as a performing art: New ideas for a world of chaotic change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Worley, C. G., & Lawler, E. E., II. (2006, Fall). Designing organizations that are built to change. MIT Sloan Management Review, 19-23.