Leadership for Transformative Change: Lessons From Technology-Mediated Reform in Broad-Access Colleges

ABSTRACT

Community colleges and broad-access 4-year institutions can serve the vital function of increasing educational equity in the United States, but only if they engage in organizational change to address low completion rates. Drawing on qualitative case studies of 6 colleges, this study explored the influence of different types of leadership approaches on the implementation of a technology-mediated advising reform and assessed which types of leadership were associated with transformative organizational change. In-person interviews were conducted with 101 college administrators, faculty, and staff, and follow-up interviews were conducted with 88 participants. Using Heifetz’s theory of adaptive change, we found that transformative change requires multitiered leadership with a unified commitment to a shared vision for the reform and its goals. In addition, although we found that upper-level institutional leaders and midlevel project leaders both had important roles to play, the role of midlevel project leaders was particularly vital and complex.

KEYWORDS:

• Advising
• broad-access colleges
• community colleges
• leadership
• organizational change
• student support
• technology

Notes

1. Doyle (2010) defined “open-access, nearly open-access, and nonselective institutions” as “public four-year colleges and universities that admit at least 80% of applicants” (p. 1). We use the term “broad-access” to refer to those public 4-year institutions and community colleges, which are by definition open admission.

2. We define an end user as anyone whose job involves using iPASS technology on a routine basis.

3. A description of the full study can be found here: http://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/research-project/integrated-planning-and-advising-services.html.

4. Flags refer to the process in early alert systems whereby faculty identify students as being at risk academically due to factors such as low grades, missing assignments, attendance, personal problems, etc.