Introducing a Toolkit for Faculty Change Agents

by Alford Young, Jr.

Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash

This piece is a part of our Spark series: University Faculty Are Change Agents

American universities and colleges are seen by many as institutions dedicated to encouraging, promoting, and informing about social change. While the processes of instituting change within this system are sometimes difficult to conceptualize and enact, faculty can play a critical role as change agents. Efforts may pertain to shifting the demographic profile of the student population, of the faculty, or alterations to the structure and intentions of academic programs and policies. Whatever the institutional focus for change might be, and whatever degree of interest, desire, and commitment for change may be, the tools, techniques, and processes necessary for achieving success in such endeavors are often not clearly understood.

This toolkit was inspired by a faculty workshop sponsored by the University of Michigan’s National Center for Institutional Diversity on how to initiate institutional change in higher education. In the workshop several faculty presented accounts of how they went about organizing colleagues and implementing ideas that either led to changes in the demographic portrait of faculty administrative leadership on campus or the creation of a statement, ultimately endorsed by the faculty’s major institutional governing body, of principles for balancing a commitment to free speech on campus with that of social responsibility and appropriate community conduct. The workshop on initiating institutional change also included an opportunity for the attendees to construct a model framework that emerged from the ideas and information elucidated by the panelists.

Essentially, institutional change is a product of strategic intervention coupled with dispositions that enable people to withstand the obstacles, challenges, uncertainties, and frustrations that are inevitably embedded in any effort or intention for such change. This toolkit is a compilation of narratives, resources, and frameworks that we hope will provide potential change agents with guidance as they pursue change in the academy.

I introduce the toolkit by presenting a set of dispositions and practices that invite the possibility of, if not fully enable, institutional change.

Cultivating the Mindset for Change:

1. Recognize your agency. Understand that, as a faculty member and a citizen of the institution, you always have the right to voice and to question. Do not suppress your right to either so that you can better understand why a circumstance or condition exists as it does and then realize the possibilities for change.
2. Commit to understanding the institutional structures that shape the environment and conditions that you seek to change. Be mindful of the target(s) of the change you seek (is it at the department, college or school, or institutional level). Determine which institutional figures have the authority and responsibility to respond to the change you want to enact. Also discern which institutional figures possess the resources to enable you to do so.
3. Learn to overcome the feeling of isolation that often accompanies personal recognition of a concerning matter. Accept that in the first instance you may feel like you are the only concerned party, or possibly the only one who desires to aggressively commit to making change in regard to it. The feeling of isolation dissipates once you begin to have conversations with others in order to discover others who share your sentiment as well as a desire for change
4. Accept that the process of discovery and changes is slow. Expect that change is very slow. It takes time to discover the means and mechanisms to initiate change, the resources necessary to do so, and the experience of having it happen. Do not become dismayed by this realization, or else surrender to impatience and frustration over the pace of change.

Engaging the Process of Change:

1. Gather data and evidence on the issue that concerns you. The feelings and inclinations that inspired your quest for change can only be certified by the collection of data. Data and evidence offer the best case to bring to institutional figures of authority when you are prepared to do so.
2. Contact potential allies. Ensure that you reach out and make direct contact to others who you believe will be allies or supportive of your cause. It is only by doing so that you can develop a critical mass of support and alleviate your own feelings of isolation.
3. Develop a core action and planning team. Assemble a team of people that can help you do some heavy-lifting. Know that this team may not consist of all who care about the issue as you do, but do include people that you believe are willing to commit to working above and beyond for change.
4. Decide who to target your efforts toward-administration, the institution, etc. Be strategic in determining who to approach with your evidence and your argument for change. Rather than serving as sounding boards, ensure that the focal parties can appropriately and directly address your concerns.
5. Request and secure material support for the effort. Seek out funding or other necessary material support from the relevant schools and colleges, the central administration, or university offices that cater to the issues central to the kind of change you seek to initiate.
6. Strategize around public communication (faculty meetings, with the administration, etc.). Develop a plan to disseminate your message and the evidence that supports your message. That dissemination can involve departmental or school colleagues, specific administrators, or to other university constituencies. Ensure that each message is properly tailored to each kind of audience.
7. Document the process such that it serves as a learning opportunity for you and for others. Document (or assign to someone the role of documentarian for) the process and strategies that you pursued in order to initiate the change that you sought. Documenting such efforts creates models for you and for others to learn from for future efforts.

The aforementioned principles, policies, and considerations are intended to inform and facilitate approaches to institutional change. As one engages these logics and activities, it is important to maintain the understanding that success can never be guaranteed. However, the actual effort to initiate change, irrespective of whether the desired goals or objectives are achieved, may result in affecting other parties or institutional structures in ways that open up new possibilities or outcomes that improve upon the conditions that initially inspired change.

Part of a series, University Faculty Are Agents of Change.

Alford Young, Jr. is the NCID faculty director of scholar engagement and leadership, an Arthur F. Thurnau Professor in the Department of Sociology and holds an appointment at that institution’s Department of Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan.