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Faculty members on a regional campus create more learning-centered approaches to teaching after becoming alarmed by growing attrition rates.
Three faculty members and two staff members create a childcare center at a university.
A group of concerned faculty, staff, and students establish a resource center for gay and lesbian colleagues on a liberal arts campus.
A set of community-college faculty grow concerned about the lack of understanding among students about environmental waste and its consequences for coming generations, and they start a green movement on campus.
Each of these scenarios represents a significant type of grassroots change that is occurring at colleges and universities across the country—change having to do with teaching and learning, family-friendly workplaces, making campuses hospitable to more diverse populations, and environmentalism. And those who are instigating these changes have little formal authority. While we tend to think of change occurring because of presidential mandates and strategic plans, there are many important innovations happening on campuses that are being championed by people who can be characterized as grassroots leaders.
We recently conducted a study to document and better understand these kinds of changes and the leadership that initiates and sustains them. We interviewed hundreds of faculty and staff at liberal arts colleges, community colleges, universities, technical colleges, and regional public institutions, asking them about past and current initiatives they have undertaken. Our goal was to help other potential leaders understand how to overcome obstacles, navigate power structures on campus, and maintain resilience in the process of instituting long-term change.
We believed that most of the people we interviewed would talk primarily about campus-based resources (e.g., colleagues, centers for teaching and learning, campus networks, etc.) that supported their efforts. One of the findings to emerge in the study, however, was the importance of external networks and support groups in creating change on college campuses.
Faculty and academic affairs staff spoke, for instance, about the importance of having attended conferences by the American Association for Higher Education (AAHE) to support assessment and student-centered learning approaches on their campus. Other faculty said that grants from the National Science Foundation were pivotal to improving the way they are teaching science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Several student affairs staff told us how resources secured from a student affairs colleague on another campus helped overcome resistance to their efforts.
Adrianna Kezar is an associate professor at the University of Southern California and former director of the ERIC Clearinghouse on Higher Education. Her research interests include change, leadership, governance, and equity in higher education. Jaime Lester, assistant professor of higher education at George Mason University, studies gender equity in higher education, the retention and transfer of community college students, the socialization of women and minority faculty, and leadership.
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