So much for some difficulties faced by an education innovation. What tactics can be used to help changes occur and survive? Some of the tactics on the following list are obvious. Others run exactly counter to conventional wisdom on the subject--a fact that recommends these to us, since conventional wisdom has proved barren for so long. They come from our own experience and from close observation of these near us who are educational prime movers on the local, national, and international scenes. do not be disturbed by the semi-cynical Machiavellian cast of some of the suggestions; it is due partly to our incurable flippancy and partly to the realities of the cold cruel word.
A. WHEEL IN A TROJAN MOUSE: Sometimes you have to change everything in order to change anything. More often you can install a small "experiment" that you know will work and use it as a point of student and faculty infection. The Trojan mouse is not a passive example to be ignored but a rallying point and base of operations for a bunch of Greek commandos. A small initial project is easier to staff than a big one, cannot fail loudly, attracts those students with whom it is most likely to succeed, allows entrenched alternatives to die quietly as students vote with their feet, and develops a shadow cabinet of expertise that can install a successful program on a larger scale with minimum fuss later on.
B. SEDUCE CO-CONSPIRATORS: Success of an innovation requires the hard work of first-rate men and women. Never ask for a commitment, particularly in advance. Invite a person to consult with others on the design and installation of the innovation. His commitment will automatically follow his contribution to the (now his) program.
C. SUPPRESS SURPRISE: Never cease checking, checking, checking with all whose acquiescence is necessary to the future growth of an innovation. Bring them up to date while asking advice on the latest developments. When some other staff member complains about you, his superior or colleague must feel on the inside, in the know, and must not be surprised.
D. DON'T ASK PERMISSION: If a permission-giver is good, include him in the project or on the committee that plans or supervises it. Otherwise appear before all committees and officials as information-purveyor and advice-seeker only. When permission is absolutely necessary, there are usually alternative sources for that permission: chose your friends. A more subtle but equally important point: A college professor, even of junior rank, has a god deal of autonomy and prerogative that he doesn't use, and in a real sense these powers do not exist except when he is exploring their boundaries. What keeps you from DOING IT yourself while checking with (not asking permission of) those indirectly affected?
E. ASSUME UNIVERSAL VIRTUE: You never know who your friends are until the crunch. In the meantime (and in spite of the pessimistic cast of our checklist of difficulties) elicit help by presuming cooperativeness and good heart on the part of everyone.
F. TAKE THE COLLEGE PURPOSE SERIOUSLY: Always a disturbing tactic, but sure to elicit change if pursued vigorously. How can the traditional purpose be put to work in the obviously new circumstance?
G. PLAY A POSITIVE SUM GAME: It is often possible for every participant in a game to gain by mutual accommodation. Even when resources are scarce and the size of the total pie appears fixed, close examination may reveal that some slices represent nonconsumables that may be shared by two or many participants. If you organize the game, look carefully at what each player perceives (or should perceive) to be a winning score and see that nobody loses.
H. PRY WITH THE POWER OF A PITTANCE: The threshold for change is sometimes surprisingly low. A little money for a student desk in a laboratory, for an easy chair in the lunge, or for some Xerox of student papers shows your good faith and can get the innovation moving quickly. No matter that everyone recognizes a later expansion will require departmental funds: the chairman is so relieved to have one person enter his office who does not want money right now that he will let tomorrow's worries take care of themselves. Never allot a limited fund to faculty salaries.
I. MANUFACTURE A MNEAT MNEMONIC: Academic man, like Everyman, lives by labels. As the commercial world knows, finding the best name is often the single most difficult creative part of the introducing a new product. A good label is absolutely essential if funds are to be raised.
J. BE SPECIFIC BUT DON'T GET CAUGHT IN THE BRIARS: People will accept in practice a proposal they would reject in principle. Often by suggesting procedures one can say more and be less threatening than by discussing generalities. On the other hand, label all written statements DRAFT, even the final version. In this way each examiner can feel he influences details and little time is lost wrangling about the wording.
K. RECAST THE RECOLLECTION : "Do you remember that suggestion you made two years ago?", you say to the department head or administrator. "Well, I didn't understand it then; now I do. Here is what you meant..." followed by a description of the new innovation.
L. BE A WOLF IN SHEEPSKIN: Identify an already-established program, title, department, bureau, committee, council, or standing procedure with which the innovation can clothe itself. The exhausting procedure of approval is already completed for the covering activity, requiring further enabling concurrence of only a few key people. Your assumption of the label will, of course, be a fulfillment of its meaning that the originators saw only vaguely.
M. REMAIN AN ETERNAL EXPERIMENT: Most faculties are open to temporary experiments, limited in scope and duration. Obtain approval for an experimental program that then becomes an organic part of the university.
N. MOVE THE MIDDLE: In missionary work the preferred first convert is the chief. But the thoughtful middle is indispensable for acceptance and especially for spread and survival of an innovation. Data and conclusions from the experience of others using similar programs elsewhere may actually be useful. Did you know, for example, that there is a national association for the 4-1-4 academic schedule, a plan that releases students and faculty for the one month of January for creative learning and experimental teaching?
O. ESTABLISH CATEGORIES OF EVALUATION YOURSELF: The alleged virtues of any proposed program carry an implicit statement of the grounds on which the innovation will be evaluated. By making the valuation categories explicit you can make clear what you propose and also preempt the high ground from which its progress will be surveyed.
P. KEEP HOUSE: The registrar is often driven bonkers by the mismatch between loosely stated conditions of a new program and the rules within which he is constrained to operate. He is not always wrong. Whether you are a villain or a savior may depend on an hour spent in his office at the right time. Similar attention to the room schedules office and the buildings and grounds department may help.
Q. SEND STUDENTS TO THE TOP: "Is the next course going to be taught this way too?" Go ask the department chairman--don't tell him I sent you. "Why can't all four years be organized the way this year is?" Ask the Dean that question.
R. SURVIVE LIKE THE SPECIES (OR CLUSTER THE CLUSTERS): Disseminate like mad in your own locality and leap-frog to distant germination points where colleagues do the same. If three people follow your example--and supply their own driving power as inventors, not copyists--and if three people follow each of them, then the growth rate is exponential. Only in this way can a new species survive against competition.
S. SPREAD BY SUBCULTURES: Student contacts extend their grass-roots between institutions far and wide. Presidents, deans, and professors spread more informal information at cocktail parties than anywhere else.
T. INVOKE THE MAJESTY OF THE NAME: We make judicious use of the sonorous title "Massachusetts Institute of Technology" to hop over thresholds elsewhere. Even though this may cause resentment, the name can be used by local advocates on their colleagues, often for a net gain. All sorts of names carry conviction: "The president wants..." and "The legislature has committed itself..." and "The Danforth Foundation has funded..." are all symbolic statements of great convincement.
U. CHERISH DIVERSITY: No one thing is good for all students or for a given student all of the time. Failure to recognize this is the rock on which more innovations have foundered than any other. Conventional education (lectures, problem sets, hour exams, and all that) is exactly right for some students at some stage of their development. Total conversion, like prolonged total immersion, can be suffocating for innovation and innovatee alike.
V. LET THE USER ADD THE EGGS: Cake mixes that require only water to be added do not sell so well as those to which the customer adds the eggs. Best of all is for the customer to be in on inventing the innovation. Second best is to have clear in your own mind which features of an innovation are central to its success and to encourage personalized modifications of all other qualities. Anyway, this will return the most new information to you about the process of dissemination.
W. PLAY THE CONFERENCE GAME: There are at least a thousand kinds and lengths of conferences, and the conference game is well worth learning to play. A first-rate conference flatters the attenders, gets their undivided attention by removing distractions, enables first class leadership to be assembled on a short-term basis, permits considerable influence, and gives legitimacy to any project back on the participant's home campus. Conferences are often easier to fund from outside sources than the programs they are designed to disseminate. Investigators of education change feel that temporary structures such as conferences can be more creative than more permanent organizations, such as colleges.2
X. RAISE THE BUDGET, CUT THE BUDGET, OR GO BANKRUPT: Antioch college originated the work-study program for its students when it nearly went broke. Radical cuts may be necessary for radical inventions, which often result in doing something else (once in a while something better) for less. Build incentives by making sure that savings are put at the disposal of those doing more for less, not used to wash out the carelessness of others.
Y. IF ALL ELSE FAILS, RESIGN: You may be the problem.
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David A. Smith <das@math.duke.edu>Last modified: July 7, 1997