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Innovating in a Tradition-Bound Space: Finding the Both-And in Contemporary Higher Education
When I arrived at Truman State University in 1999 as a newly minted professor in rhetoric and argumentation, I was drawn by a small, highly selective public liberal arts and sciences university embodying the values I cherished: a residential institution, small class sizes, liberal learning priorities and strong majors. It was perfect for someone who spent his career helping students frame and critique arguments. Truman had a strong reputation in this space as a leader among public liberal arts institutions.
A decade later, the world was changing. The economy was in crisis. Demographics were shifting. States struggled to fund their priorities. Students were increasingly less likely to come to institutions farther from home. Meanwhile, technology was reshaping what it meant to be a college or university. Schools investing in online learning were taking off, MOOCs were emerging and more programs were becoming competency-based. Institutions and accreditors were grappling with what it meant to be part of the contemporary marketplace. It was against this backdrop that I was hired into my first administrative role, working to innovate new forms of course delivery for broader audiences.
The Challenges of Change
As a rhetorician, the moment presented challenges and opportunities. Our field teaches us to think about persuasion as helping others visualize the possible, yet well-meaning faculty earnestly saw the idea of online classes—let alone online programs—as antithetical to our mission and brand. Philosophically, many firmly believed online could not be as effective as face-to-face learning, cheating would be more prevalent and students would retreat to their dorms, becoming socially isolated. The online initiatives being contemplated seemed to threaten the intimate classroom discussions seen as the heart of our learning environment—even though our ideas were largely confined to the graduate level. Slippery slope arguments were common, so much so that I fielded accusations that my personal goal was to turn Truman into a for-profit online behemoth.
To further the conversation, we needed to find a way of articulating a both-and: a space in which we could both be true to our historical mission and open ourselves to new possibilities without sacrificing the best of who we were historically. The process was a gradual one, marked by attempts at certificates, then with a single proof-of-concept professional master’s degree. Today we offer eight fully online graduate programs, two online graduate certificates and an increasing number of online summer options for both undergraduate and graduate students. We are now gingerly dipping our toes into online undergraduate programming. So, how did we get there?
Best Practices
Institutions seeking to pursue program innovation, particularly when those innovations involve substantive changes in delivery or pedagogy, should consider what presently anchors the institution and what is needed for it to continue to thrive and preserve its essential mission.
Acknowledge and Embrace the Core Mission and Values
The worst leaders can do when advocating for major change is to throw the baby out with the bathwater. It is important to acknowledge and celebrate the university’s core mission—in our case the residential liberal arts experience—while contemplating what those values mean for a changing audience. As a public university, Truman has a mission to serve the state, and that means being attentive to the needs of citizens and the future workforce. Important conversations needed to take place about how those core values continue to relate to supporting the public good. Private universities also frequently cite the public good as part of their reason for being, and that can be drawn upon to promote better dialogue about identity.
Think of Innovation as Mission Evangelism
When you value something, it is human nature to want to help others see those values, too. In conversations about change I frequently found myself drawing on religious metaphors with a secular spin, focusing interest on those who—by fate of geography, finances or life circumstances—could not experience the good news of a residential liberal arts experience. Truman already had a strong reputation for providing a limited number of professional programs (such as nursing, accounting and education) that were grounded firmly in the liberal arts tradition. Was it not possible to bring those without access to that experience to our programs, even if that meant delivering the content online or remotely? Was it not conceivable to design online courses with the benefit of technologies and instructional best practices aimed at closing the gap with the rewards of a residential sense of community? We had the opportunity to reinforce a big part of who we were, even if we could not duplicate it all.
Embrace the Enthymeme
Rhetoric and philosophy students learn the concept of the enthymeme as part of their study of deductive reasoning and syllogisms. The enthymeme is a particularly powerful piece of reasoning, where one of the implied premises underlying the argument is omitted, thereby enabling the audience to fill it in and reach conclusions on their own. It invites the audience to be cocreators of an idea rather than passive receivers. Significant change, even change that circumstances seem to require, is more achievable when it is participatory. Faculty governance must be involved at every step of the conversation, innovation must be part of strategic planning, and evidence that helps make the conclusions more easily evident must be presented. Advocates need to do their homework. Even if leaders have a sense of where they want to point the conversation, dialogue, pilot projects and open and honest debate must be the order of the day.
Realism
At the same time, consultation is critical. Sometimes looming or even existential threats might call for a rapid response. Academia is notorious for its slow deliberative processes. The need for quick responses must be balanced, however, with the community’s need to come along with the change. Balancing threat assessment with the hope of opportunities is important. Such communication provides both a reason to act and excitement that change is not merely reactive but capable of achieving something greater than the status quo—and for more people. Promise of quality control, such as the kind of education and benchmarking groups such as Quality Matters or OLC provide, can help provide realistic and measurable assurances that actions will produce desired outcomes.
Celebrating the Both-And
People pursue academic careers to educate and grow the body of human knowledge. Even as we advance our own careers, our work serves the public good. We are passionate believers in the methods that brought us to where we are, and our cognitive bandwidth is often so stretched by what we are doing now that is hard to contemplate major change. However, most of our colleagues believe in evidence and good reasons, and they are often far more pragmatic than we give them credit for. We want more people to benefit from our message and our contributions. It is because of this core motivation that academics can contemplate changes that support the public good. We can celebrate and rehearse what we have been while simultaneously stretching toward new goals.