Many institutions have made incremental progress in moving away from an instructional model that views learning as a passive, receptive act on the part of the student, a model that favors competition over cooperation, individual achievement over collaboration, and divisiveness and control over individual differences and choice. We talk about developing learner-centeredness at our institutions that is characterized by a new focus on active learning, collaboration, and engagement. The focus, however, has been almost exclusively on what the faculty need to achieve. Little has been said in regard to the role that academic leaders need to play to foster a true, comprehensive, systemic shift in paradigms.

The term paradigm shift was originally used by Thomas Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) to refer exclusively to scientific theory. Since then its use has become more generic, referring to radical changes in thought that require individuals to completely re-envision systems or organizations. We tend to use the term so generically now that we lose sight of the magnitude of the concept. To us, the word shift makes the challenge of radical change seem too easy, like shifting gears on a bicycle. Shifting gears on bicycles allows riders to maintain their cadence uninterrupted as the terrain becomes more difficult. This is most definitely not how shifting paradigms works. Our cadences will be interrupted. Shifting paradigms is unbalancing and unsettling because it is about shifting thinking and attitudes. It is an organizational metamorphosis requiring all parties to change, to alter our cadences in response to the new landscape or else fall off our bikes. The shift is not exclusively about classroom practices, and academic leaders have an important role to play in bringing it about.

There are two fundamental concerns for leadership in this enterprise. First is the need to transform administrative approaches to be consistent with the values of the new paradigm. Second is for leadership to lead the way by encouraging, promoting, and supporting the learner-centered agenda, ensuring that policies and practices do not impede progress in order that a true learner-centered institutional culture becomes a reality. This process will be a personal challenge as well as an institutional one. It will call for leaders who can envision the goal while implementing practices that will drive the change in very practical, identifiable ways.

In our roles as academic leaders, we need to take steps to foster and even push the shift toward learner-centeredness, guiding the efforts of faculty who are making attempts to transform their practices and providing support to encourage change. But to do so we need mechanisms to assess our current academic environment in order to have a clear understanding of where we are and the steps that will be involved in making progress toward the ultimate goal.

Great strides have already been made in assessing features such as student engagement, one of the features of the new paradigm. The National Survey of Student Engagement is now used by 610 campuses to help them assess good practices in undergraduate education. Other features of the learning-centered paradigm do not have large-scale assessment mechanisms readily available. Until that time, individual efforts at developing assessment of learning-centeredness are necessary. Toward that end, we have developed a mechanism for assessing the degree of learner-centeredness in a unit/department using course syllabi and a rubric that we developed for this purpose.

Right now, if asked about the state of learner-centeredness in a department or unit, we can usually point to individual faculty members who are making significant changes in teaching practices and experimenting with innovative strategies. We may also be able to point to new technology or new policies that show progress toward making the shift, but we rarely have data that clearly delineates department/unitwide the areas of success or areas of need when it comes to the distinctive features of learner-centered pedagogy.

Excerpted from Assessing the Degree of Learner-Centeredness in a Department or Unit, Academic Leader, April 2009.

While this is encouraging, it is crucial to acknowledge that most of the effort and literature on the learner-centered paradigm and the scholarship of teaching have necessarily focused on strategies for faculty. It is equally important for administrators to consider the impact of the paradigm shift on their roles. Specifically, the Futures Project called for institutions to meet the changes and challenge for survival by investing more in leadership. They note that “higher education is one of the few sectors of society that does not focus on a constant effort to find and develop leaders.” (Newman, Courtier, & Scurry, p. 199)

Research on leadership is closely aligned with the research on learning, and this suggests that professional development of administrators should focus on the key attributes of both. To take a term from learning theory research, we need to look for deep learning among our administrators, to be assured that they are truly prepared for the challenges involved in completing this paradigm shift. In 2007, the report from the National Leadership Council for Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP) called for principled and determined leadership if we are to achieve excellence in the American education system. (Crutcher, O’Brien, Corrigan, & Schneider, p. 47)

Essentially the LEAP National Leadership Council is calling for a shift to a learner-centered curriculum, one that emphasizes active learning and deep learning through collaboration, first-year seminars, learning communities, undergraduate research, writing-intensive courses, service learning, internships, etc. (pp. 53–54) These practices must be supported and assessed within the learner-centered framework or we run the risk of simply creating a storefront that appears to be learner-centered but is shallow and superficial, one that is the old paradigm with new window dressing.

Leaders must do more than simply say that the institution’s goal is to become learning-centered. For those still immersed in the teaching paradigm as opposed to the learning paradigm, this pronouncement simply means that the institution will focus on teaching or educating students with no deep understanding of what the difference is between teaching and learning and no substantial change in current practice. As stated in the Futures Project report, “If an institution is to change and become learning-centered, tinkering at the edges won’t do it. Several basic shifts in the organizational culture are essential.” (Newman, Courtier & Scurry 2004, 141) These shifts include moving from rhetoric to performance, moving from denial to acceptance of responsibility, and moving from a focus on prestige to a focus on learning.

The call to shift from rhetoric to performance is fundamental to realizing a true transformation. Countless institutions currently employ the rhetoric of the new paradigm in their mission statements, yet very few, if any, institutions can verify that performance has changed. A review of several institutions’ mission statements and the individual mission statements of their colleges revealed an inconsistency of purpose. One university that espoused the goal of becoming learning-centered displayed college mission statements that were quite the contrary. The College of Education at this institution used the phrase “deliver high quality instruction” in its mission, and the College of Arts and Sciences at the same institution used the phrase “receive instruction from professional faculty.” This inconsistency in language suggests an inconsistency of purpose.

Administrators must have a deep understanding of and commitment to the challenge in order to adequately support and guide faculty initiatives. Deep learning is active by nature; it requires searching and assimilating new knowledge into old frameworks and making connections. It is best achieved through community, through the interaction of peers thinking about thinking. This should be our guide for leadership training: developing communities of inquiry in order to fully understand the learner-centered paradigm, and work collaboratively, not just among administrators, but with faculty and policy makers to discover the implications of this shift for higher education. It is for that reason that professional development and leadership training are keys to the success of the transition of higher education to a new paradigm.

References
Crutcher, R., O’Brien, P., Corrigan, R. & Schneider, C. (2007) College Learning for the New Global Century: A Report from the National Leadership Council for Liberal Education & America’s Promise. Washington, D.C.: AASCU.

Newman, F., Courtier, L. & Scurry, J. (2004) The Future of Higher Education: Rhetoric, Reality and the Risks of the Market. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Michael Harris is provost and vice president for academic affairs at Kettering University, and Roxanne Cullen is a professor of English at Ferris State University.

Excerpted from Investing in Leadership, Academic Leader, September 2007.

Most current literature on leadership claims that leadership can be taught. Kouzes and Posner, authors of The Leadership Challenge and Academic Administrator’s Guide to Exemplary Leadership, indicate that the myth that leaders are born inhibits leadership development. Carol Dweck, in her recent book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success makes a similar contention in regard to natural ability. People have a belief that those who excel in certain areas are believed to be gifted with natural ability that cannot be learned.

To return, then, to Bloom’s quote above, that anyone can learn anything given the proper conditions, what would those conditions be for learning about leadership, especially in regard to academic leadership development?

The current conditions for leadership development in academe are less than optimal. More often than not, academic leaders come from faculty ranks having been asked to assume positions as department heads/chairs or even deans having had no previous administrative experience. The individual has opportunities for development, but not on any long-term or ongoing basis.

There are numerous service providers in the area of academic leadership training and development offering everything from daylong seminars and online individualized tutorials to multiweek academies and institutes. Many are of excellent quality. At the department chair level, the offerings tend to be quite practical with topics such as managing time, working with people, leading teams, and developing effective communication. Higher-level administrative offerings focus on topics such as strategic planning, articulating a vision, and creating alliances. The focus of this approach to leadership development tends to be heavily weighted on technique.

Yet if we look at literature on leadership development, technique is secondary to the larger concerns that define academic leadership. Heifetz (1994) made the distinction between leadership that is authoritative and that which is adaptive, adaptive being leadership that facilitates change through the influence leaders have with those around them. The authoritative leader takes on the burden of solving others’ problems and is the source of power. The influencer doesn’t even have to be in a position of authority at all but is a leader who inspires others to act.

If our goal is to develop leaders who effect change through influencing those around them, which would be consistent with the move nationwide toward a learner-centered academic environment, then leadership development should be able to draw from the rich and varied literature on learner-centered teaching.

Focusing on the similarities between teaching and leading provides an empowering framework for development. From a learning standpoint, this approach relies on the learner’s prior knowledge, which is a fundamental concept regarding the approach to learning in the learning paradigm. Second, focusing leadership development on the essential qualities of leadership that are fundamental to good teaching reduces the sense of alienation that some new administrators feel and empowers them by asking them to rely on skills and expertise that they have already established. If, as the research on leadership purports, good leaders are good teachers, we should consider the many ways in which the opposite is also true: good teachers are good leaders.

References
Bloom, B. (1985). Developing talent in young people. New York: Ballentine. Dweck, C. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. New York: Random House.

Heifetz, R. (1994). Leadership without easy answers. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.

Kouzes, J., & Posner, B. (2003). Academic administrator’s guide to exemplary leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Kouzes, J., & Posner, B. (2002). The leadership challenge. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Michael Harris is provost and vice president for academic affairs at Kettering University, and Roxanne Cullen is a professor of English at Ferris State University.

Excerpted from Learning and Leadership, Academic Leadership, February 2008.