Examining a Change Process from a Systems Thinking Perspective: a Case Study from One Academic Department
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Examining a Change Process from a Systems Thinking Perspective: a Case Study from One Academic Department Meng-Fen Grace Lin 1
&
Ariana Eichelberger 1 & Peter Leong 1
Published online: 8 August 2020 # Association for Educational Communications & Technology 2020
Abstract In today’s rapidly changing world, higher education is faced with challenges stemming from globalization versus localization, corporatization versus liberal arts values, and public versus private good. These challenges require creative approaches and innovations to develop new solutions. Additionally, tensions also exist within institutional sub-units such as academic departments. In response to similar pressures and declining enrollment, one university academic department held a day-long retreat to reexamine its programs and discuss curriculum and program modifications to better meet student needs. This paper used a systems thinking approach to unpack the creative tensions that arose at the individual faculty, department, and institutional levels during the implementation of the retreat and described their implications. Based on the findings, we recommend four strategies for administrators and faculty members to facilitate change efforts within their system: to motivate faculty, to mobilize diverse stakeholders, to creatively push boundaries, and to implement transparency to promote collaboration. Keywords Case study . Design thinking . Faculty development . Higher education . Strategic planning . Systems thinking . Organizational change
Introduction The ability to be creative and to innovate are skills needed not only in graduates of higher education, but in the institutions themselves. In today’s rapidly changing world, higher education is faced with redefining its role. This will require creative approaches and innovations as developing new solutions to modern problems requires new ways of learning, collaborating and measuring success (Ramaley, 2014). Despite a learning organization being one “that is continually expanding its capacity to create its future” (Senge, 2006, p. 14), in traditional organizations such as universities, tensions arise between external demands and an institution’s ability to respond (Clark, 1998). * Meng-Fen Grace Lin [email protected] Ariana Eichelberger [email protected] Peter Leong [email protected] 1
University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI, USA
Tensions within higher education in the United States are not new, yet the unrelenting pressures placed upon institutions to change have exacerbated many of these tensions (McCaffery, 2018). Traditional tensions in higher education include globalization versus localization, sustainability versus immediacy, corporatization versus liberal arts values, and public versus private good (Manning, 2017). Tensions also exist within institutional sub-units such as academic departments. Many arise from the influence of globalization, technology, market forces and changing student demographics (Becher & Trowler, 2001; Newman et al., 2010). Many departments are
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