department chair leadership: building a culture of innovation joshua powers special assistant to the...
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Department Chair Leadership:Building a Culture of Innovation
Joshua PowersSpecial Assistant to the Provost
for Academic Initiatives
U.S. Higher Education:A Tale of Conformity…
Harvard - 1636In defense of the liberal arts - 1828
Land-Grant Movement: The People’s College -
1862
…in an industry where “excellence” is unclear
U.S. Higher Education:A Tale of Conformity continued…
Rise of research mission – Johns Hopkins 1876
The rise of faculty professionalism - 1915
Carnegie Foundation & birth of the academic calendar, credit hour,
and a modicum of scientific management - 1910
U.S. Higher Education:A Tale of Conformity continued…
Massification of higher education
begins - 1946
Sputnik & start of higher education’s golden age - 1957
Economic development as new mission –
mid-1980s
What’s Next?
Carnegie Classifications -
1973
American’s Best Colleges -
1983
11 Traditional & Emergent Paradigms in Higher Education
Traditional• Credit hour = measure of seat
time• Academic calendar =
semesters or quarters• College = 4 years• Students = 18-21• “We are good because we say
we are.”• College as ivory tower
Emergent• Credit hour = measure of
student workload or learning• Academic calendar = learning
blocks or JIT• College = 3 years• Students = 18-80• “We pray at the feet of U.S.
News & World Report.”• College as community
embedded, econ dev engine
11 Traditional & Emergent Paradigms in Higher Education continued…
Traditional• Faculty = Tenured/Tenure Track• Faculty hiring, an independent
sport.• Professor Sage, lecturer of
content.• If we build it, it stays and will
never die.• Learning always best in face-to-
face environment.
Emergent• Faculty = Contract• Faculty hiring, an
interdisciplinary endeavor.• Professor Guide, facilitator of
learning.• If we build/built it, we better
justify its existence.• Technology is enabling
customized learning.
Source: Innosight; Clayton Christensen presentation, 2011 ACE Annual Conference, Washington, DC .
Disruptive Innovations: A driver of leadership failure
and the source of new growth opportunities
Per
form
ance
Time
Performance that customers
can utilize or absorb
Pace of
Technological
Progress
Sustaining innovations
Disruptive innovations
Incumbents nearly always win
Entrants nearly always win
Most demanding customers
Least demanding customers
Disruptive Innovation & Regional State University Schizophrenia
• The intent and effect of sustaining innovation is to drive prices up. Disrupting innovation drives prices down.
• Replication, rather than disruption, characterized higher education in the past. The future might be different with the advent of customized, cost-effective learning.
• Institutional aspiration confusion for places like ISU…– “My God, graduate education barely made it into the mission
statement and when will we have a Dean for Research!”– “Well, we aren’t Purdue or IU, but we aren’t USI either.”
What is looming...
Source: Clayton Christensen presentation, 2011 ACE Annual Conference, Washington, DC .
Who is Leading in the Race Toward Customized Learning
• For-profits and some others are working in overdrive to develop customized learning tools.
• Currently seen as bottom-feeders. But, consider the students they serve and what they are likely learning.
• Resources
WGU Indiana triples enrollment in first six months
DeVry plans nursing school for central Indiana
The nation's sixth largest graduate
school is relocating from Illinois to
Indiana.
University of Phoenix launches PhoenixMobile App for iPhone
and iPod touch
The European higher education reform process is having an impact way beyond its borders.
Indiana State’s emerging competitive space
So, What Can Department Chairs Do About It?
• Recognize and align interests above and below.– What faculty value (the IAM principle)
• Independence• Attention• Mattering
– What the dean values (the RGM principle)• Resources• Growth• Mattering
– What senior administration values (the CEM principle)
• Cooperation• Efficiencies• Mattering
8 Things Department Chairs Can Do to Stimulate Innovation
1. Ask the elephant in the room question: Why do we do it this way?
2. Be a big picture facilitator & create unit opportunities for big picture thinking; what do outsiders need vs. forcing conformity to how we do it?
3. Help others to reframe their needs, issues, and goal achievement impediments.
4. Leverage opportunities for revenue generation.
8 Things Department Chairs Can Do to Stimulate Innovation
5. Don’t be paralyzed by what you can’t control and what $#@& rolls downhill. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.
6. Check your ego; allow the dean and your faculty to take the credit.
7. Empower innovators; sensitively isolate resistors.
8. Celebrate success.
Closing Thought:Pride in Being Who We Are and What We can Be
To be a model for a new American University, measured not by who we exclude, but rather
by who we include; pursuing research and discovery that benefits the public good;
assuming major responsibility for the economic, social, and cultural vitality and health and well-being of the community.
Arizona State University Mission Statement