Throughout this project, ACE will provide discussion materials and papers for the participating institutions as you work on your agendas for change. This document has two purposes. One is to help your leadership group think about change comprehensively as you undertake the tasks of identifying your campus' change issue for the ACE Project and select the project team to oversee the change efforts. A second purpose is to guide the project team's initial discussions of change, helping it to develop a common framework to think about comprehensive change more broadly and to cranky assumptions about comprehensive change.

PART 1: WHAT KIND OF CHANGE?

Change comes in many forms, and may be incremental or radical, of limited impact or far-reaching. As you consider the change issue(s) you are identifying to work on in conjunction with the ACE Project, think about the kind of change you are contemplating:

Revising and revitalizing - incrementally providing new energy, extending or improving a current design or procedure without affecting the core concepts or structures (e.g., revamping the lectures of Biology 200, strengthening the first-year experience).

Reconfiguring - changing the architecture of an existing system to link the same components in a new way (e.g., altering the sequence of courses for the major, reorganizing an administrative unit).

Reinventing- creating a new design calling for new core concepts and new ways of putting those concepts together (e.g., Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute converting its introductory physics course from a conventional lecture and lab format to a "studio format" where students work through problems and Labs and hold discussion groups on computers).

Because the terms "re-engineering" and "restructuring" have become buzzwords in colleges and universities as well as in other organizations and mean different things to different people, we have deliberately avoided using these terms here. For some, they are code words for down-sizing, budget reductions, and layoffs. For others, their meanings are closer to "reinventing." If you prefer those terms (or any others), we encourage you to define them and develop your own typology.

Discussion Questions:

• What kind of change is the comprehensive change issue you have selected (or are thinking
  
• of selecting)for the ACE Project?
  
• How do your change strategies reflect the descriptor you apply to your change agenda?
  
• To what extent might you use different strategies for different types of change?

Comprehensive change is complicated; it will happen differently on different campuses; it may move smoothly or in fits and starts, or it may be caused by external forces or internal reconceptualizations. But one constant is that large-scale change is characterized by its pervasiveness (how many parts of the institution it reaches, how many people, processes, and structures) and its depth (how are things qualitatively different? e.g., to what extent do students learn better, is the campus climate visibly more civil, and are students and faculty more energized about their interactions with each other?). We suggest that your group review the elements of change outlined below and consider the discussion questions in the following section:

Comprehensive Change Includes:

• A shared exploration of and agreement on the need for change
  
• An examination of underlying assumptions and values
  
• Rethinking of goals Rethinking of structures
  
• Changes in the reward system
  
• Rethinking the interrelationships of the parts and the relationships of the parts to the whole
  
• Explicit attention to the change process
  
• Developing solutions and strategies that have a broad impact on the institution

• To what extent do these elements of comprehensive change describe what you have done, or are thinking of doing?
  
• Do you agree wit/] these elements of change?
  
• What would you add to this list? What would you remove?
  
• What would be the effects of carrying out the elements of change described above?

• Activities:
  
• Instruction (what is taught and how)
  
• Linkages with external groups, e.g., K-12, business community
  
• Research
  
• Campus life

• Reward system
  
• Hiring
  
• Promotions and tenure
  
• Budget and resource allocation
  
• What is evaluated and reported
  
• Decision making

• Mood, Climate
  
• Feeling different (about self, campus)

• What modifications would you suggest of the preceding descriptors of the effects of change ?
  
• In what ways might your proposed comprehensive change issue affect activities, processes and human experiences listed above?
  
• Which will not be affected by your comprehensive change agenda? Why not?

• Changes in language/symbols
  
• Changes in organizational and/or governance structures
  
• Changes in physical spaces
  
• Public statements about change
  
• Changes in institutional policies and procedures
  
• Redefinition of roles and relationships of various groups and individuals, e.g., faculty, committees, governing boards, students, administrators
  
• Changes in processes

• students
  
• faculty
  
• staff
  
• senior level administrators
  
• governing boards
  
• external community
  
• as 1) change strategists; 2) change implementors; or 3) change recipients. (Note that the same individuals may play different roles simultaneously or at different times.)

Discussion Questions:

To what extent do you agree with the statements above?
What are the observable changes your comprehensive change issue will cause?
Who will be involved in your comprehensive change efforts? In what different ways will they be involved?

PART III: QUESTlONING ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT CHANGE

Below is a series of questions about comprehensive change designed to help members of the project team (and others) recognize and articulate their own assumptions about change and how their institution functions during periods of change. Please think about them individually and then discuss them as a team.

• Universities and colleges have extensive traditions, histories and opportunities for change, but change on an institution-wide level is slow and difficult. To what extent is your institution slow to change? Why is this so?
  
• Leadership plays an important role in large-scale change efforts. Where does that leadership come from? Who must be active leaders? What form should leadership take in a comprehensive change process?
  
• Who is going to participate in the change efforts? To what extent are the same players involved with most change initiatives on campus? To what extent should others be involved? How can you get new people involved in the processes? How will they be involved?
  
• Who are the important stakeholders in the change process? To what extent does buy-in and support need to occur? By whom? How does this happen on your campus? What are the limits to trying to gather wide support and buy-in? Are these tough decisions that simply must be made "at the top?" Under what circumstances ?
  
• What are the shared institutional values connected to the change? How will comprehensive change affect or change those values? To what extent is this desirable?
  
• With change comes loss and conflict. What might be lost? Who might "lose" because of this change? Where might conflict occur? Why? To what extent does that matter?