Presentation Title
Embracing the Change: Personal Experience in Academic Unit Transformation
Presentation Theme
Operating the Department
Presentation Type
Best Practice Presentation (50 minute presentation about a specific best practice)
Abstract
This presentation will cover personal experience and case study on how academic unit heads can embrace change, build an identity for their unit, and lead their faculty and staff in transforming their unit from obscurity to prominence while under budget constraints and limited authority.
The session will draw from personal experience establishing an academic unit and transforming it from a small unknown teaching unit to one of the largest teaching and research units on the campus of a research one university. Over ten years, the grassroots transformation included the hiring of 24 new faculty and 20 new staff and sustaining an annual growth rate of 20% in FTE and 19% in head count with overall enrollment in the major growing from 305 in Fall of 2012 to over 2000 in Spring 2023. The grassroots transformation took place without initial budget investment and was sustained through annual budget cuts and through the pandemic.
Keywords
academic unit, leadership, transformation, unit head, change
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Said, Hazem (2023). "Embracing the Change: Personal Experience in Academic Unit Transformation," Academic Chairpersons Conference Proceedings. https://newprairiepress.org/accp/2023/operations/1
Embracing the Change: Personal Experience in Academic Unit Transformation
This presentation will cover personal experience and case study on how academic unit heads can embrace change, build an identity for their unit, and lead their faculty and staff in transforming their unit from obscurity to prominence while under budget constraints and limited authority.
The session will draw from personal experience establishing an academic unit and transforming it from a small unknown teaching unit to one of the largest teaching and research units on the campus of a research one university. Over ten years, the grassroots transformation included the hiring of 24 new faculty and 20 new staff and sustaining an annual growth rate of 20% in FTE and 19% in head count with overall enrollment in the major growing from 305 in Fall of 2012 to over 2000 in Spring 2023. The grassroots transformation took place without initial budget investment and was sustained through annual budget cuts and through the pandemic.
