Implementing and Evaluating Strategic Change

1. Implementing and Evaluating Strategic Change Prof. Judith Welch Wegner UNC School of Law ABA Associate Deans’ Conf. 6/15/08

2. Some Key Questions • What do we mean when we talk about “change”? • What possibilities for change arise in connection with the Carnegie Report? • What are some top tips for change-makers?

3. Talking About Change Your Thoughts Some Theory Some Lessons to Take Away

4. Talking About “Change” (1) Take a moment and reflect: • When I say the word “change” what image comes to mind?

5. Talking about “Change” (2) Take a moment and reflect: • What forces or factors have you observed that may drive change for your law school?

6. Talking about “Change” (3) Take a moment and reflect: • If you could bring about one change in your law school in the next five years, what change would you choose and why?

7. Talking About “Change” • Framing “change” is complicated • Image and narrative from past experience • Objective or perceived forces, opportunities, threats • Hopes for something different and better • But wait… there’s more… theory can help.

8. Theories of Change: Terms, Dimensions* • “First-order” (minor, among individuals). v. second-order (thorough-going, paradigm shifts, transformational) • Targets of change: process v. outcome • Adaptive (responding to external environment) v. “generative” (shaped by learning within the organization) • Resulting from innovation (new, intentional, geared to producing benefits) v. dissemination (from elsewhere) or adaptation (response to environment) • Kezar, Understanding and Facilitating Organizational Change in the 21st Century (ASHE, 2001)

9. Theories of Change: Drivers • Environmental theories (organization responds to external stimuli) • “Teleological” or purpose-driven (often driven by top leaders) • “Social cognition” (organizational learning, knowledge developed based on past information, multifaceted, recognizes need for interpretation, recognizes that individuals may not have a shared reality of experience) • Mixed models (Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline): especially noted mental models (recognized and altered), need for shared vision, importance of systems thinking, crucial team learning

10. Theories of Change: Contexts • Higher education is especially challenging: • Independent organizations and relatively independent from environment • Conflicting organizational cultures: collegiums, political, organized anarchy, bureaucracy • Core values: complex: academic freedom, shared governance, belief in access, value in specialization • Authority structures: reliance on referent and expert power rather than coercion, rewards • Loosely coupled: limited linkage between programs, change tends to be local, improvisational, slow

11. Theories of Change: Striving for Prestige* • Institutional types: prestige, prestige-seeking, reputation-building • Forces compelling striving: competition, scarce resources, environment, seeking legitimacy through mimicry, academic reward systems, disciplinary ties more important than institutional commitments • Effects: students (contact with, climate, engagement, who’s admitted), faculty (teaching load, satisfaction, time on research v. institutional activities, work-life climate, emphasis on “stars”), mission (less on teaching, service, governance), resource allocation (PR, amenities, admin.) *O’Meara, “Striving for What? Exploring the Pursuit of Prestige,” in Higher Education: Handbook of Theory & Research (Vol. XXII, 2007, John Smart, ed.)

12. Change: Some Take Aways • Be aware of your own premises/assumptions • Work with evidence and communicate it • Have a reason, share it, remember it • Recognize the complexity: no simple formula • Appreciate the interplay of individual and institutional dimensions of change • Remember that it’s a journey, not an endpoint

13. The Carnegie Report: A Force for Change? Context Premises Findings Simplicity, Complexity and Missing Pieces

14. Carnegie Foundation: Context • History: Flexner Report and others in early 20th century (www.carnegiefoundation.org) • Present: Program on Preparation for the Professions • Teaching and learning practices • In diverse arenas: clergy, law, engineering, nursing, medicine • With focus on connection between education and the professions in the world at large • Providing mirrors and windows with both “insider” and “outsider” perspectives

15. Cross-Professions Framework (1) • Defining Professions & Goals of Professional Education • Fundamental knowledge & skills (academic base) • Capacity to make decisions under conditions of uncertainty • Capacity to engage in complex practice • Capacity to learn from experience • Ability to create and participate in responsible professional community • Ability and willingness to provide public service

16. Cross-Professions Framework (2) • Three “apprenticeships” and “professional formation” • Cognitive/knowledge • Skill/practice • Identity/purpose • But “professional formation” is more than sum of these parts • “Signature pedagogies”: the power of teaching • characteristic approaches: visible, accountable, widespread • where theory/practice align • Surface, deep, tacit structure; but shadow • “Learning sciences”*: the power of learning • Novices to experts in contextualized settings • Tacit learning through observation, imitation, experiences • Thinking “like an apprentice” different from “like a student” *Bransford et al., How People Learn (2000) (National Academies Press)

17. Key Observations: Law Schools • Provide rapid socialization into standards of legal thinking (epistemology & construction of knowledge) • Rely heavily on one way of teaching to accomplish the socialization process • Use the case-dialogue method which has real strengths but unintended consequences • Are underdeveloped with regard to the apprenticeship of practice and the apprenticeship of identity and purpose • Are underdeveloped in assessment • Approach improvement incrementally not comprehensively

18. CFAT Recommendations: Integration as Key • Recognize a common purpose: formation of legal professionals • Operationalize that purpose • Offer an integrated curriculum • Join “lawyering,” professionalism & legal analysis from the start • Weave together disparate kinds of knowledge & skills • Make better use of second and third years • Make better use of assessment • Support faculty to work across the curriculum • Work together within and across institutions

19. Carnegie, Simplicity & Complexity • Power of Simplicity: • Deep insights from across fields and links between academy and profession • Deep insights from focusing on learning and teaching, opening the way for faculty to reassess • Opening the way for exploration, and re-examination in a way that should be relatively unthreatening….

20. Questions for Discussion (for example) • Do the characteristics of professions ring true? • Should legal educators prepare students for the profession(s)? What challenges arise? • Do the “three apprenticeships” ring true? • What are the implications of the case-dialogue method as “signature pedagogy” • Is law school about developing expertise? If so, expertise of what sort?

21. Risks of Simplicity in the Face of Complexity • Limited “theory of change” • Limited understanding of institutional realities and differences • No “user manual” for bringing about change BUT… that’s where you come in…

22. Your Thoughts? • Observations? • Critiques? • Questions?

23. Tips for Change-Makers Personal Observations Research Insights Your thoughts

24. Tips for Change-Makers • Know your context: qualitative, quantitative • Your personal assumptions, blind spots, hopes • Traditional narratives, sources of pride • Faculty beliefs and experiences • Student characteristics • Expectations: profession and university • External forces: e.g. competitors • Past experiences with change • Imperatives for change

25. Tips for Change-Markers • Build shared knowledge • What are faculty currently doing with classes? • What frustrations do they currently have (may be an imperative for change) • What would they want to do if given the chance (e.g. mid-life transitions, changing scholarship)? • What are innovative possibilities happening elsewhere (may need to bring in first-hand speakers with experience?) • Make space and time for conversations

26. Tips for Change-Makers • Give small collaborative clusters real questions and ask for meaningful answers: • What’s the point of the second year v. third year? • How might “partnering” strategies be used to introduce targeted skills training in range of courses? • What options are there be for “modular” or “inter-session” short courses? • How do leading practitioners, key faculty and students see the needs for education in a given substantive areas

27. Tips for Change-Makers • Use “systems thinking” to develop creative answers: • Do students with analytical and writing problems know how to read? • Could students taking ethics in a given semester be given the option of a two unit supplemental course involving pro bono work to strengthen sense of identity and professional values? • Can problems with progression in student learning be addressed by new (non-faculty) forms of advising and optional “professional portfolio” awards?

28. Tips for Change-Makers • Keep your eyes on the prize • Take objections at face value, try to draw out and really understand the bases for disagreements • Foster alliances across many sectors (including students and staff) • Develop facilitation skills so you know how to deal with conflict smoothly • Don’t let the perfect become the enemy of the good; and remember that most of the time, it’s not “all or nothing” • Make peer contacts to help you learn and share

29. Tips for Change-Makers: Research Suggests* • Promote organizational self-discovery • Attend to organizational culture and institutional type • Be aware of politics • Lay groundwork • Use interaction to develop new mental models • Articulate and retain core characteristics • Connect change process to individual and institutional beliefs *Kezar (supra)

30. Tips for Change-Makers • Your tips? • Your doubts? • Your questions? • Your hopes?

31. Thanks and Good Luck • Please keep me posted on your efforts! Judith Wegner (judith_wegner@unc.edu) UNC School of Law, CB 3380, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3380 (919) 962-4113