ASCN October 2016 Newsletter

Working Group 2: Costs and Benefits.
The working group met September 28, 2017 and developed the following action plan for moving the work of the group forward:

Defining/Measuring Costs and Benefits of Instructional Change – Institutional Level
- Goal: Develop practical, concrete guidelines for use by presidents, provosts, and deans that would inform decision-making and action at campus level
- Preliminary WG2 Action Items
  - Bringing those with on-the-ground experience (presidents, provosts, deans, business officers) into WG2 monthly discussions
  - Develop guidelines based on leaders' experiences and research findings
Defining/Delineating Costs and Benefits of Instructional Change – Individual Level
- Goal: Developing research agenda around the following questions: How does it feel to faculty? What do we know? Where are the gaps? What research remains to be done?
- Preliminary WG2 Action Items
  - Working collaboratively with ASCN WG6 (new) on Faculty Rewards
  - Summarizing current knowledge and outlining future research agenda

Working Group 3: Change Leaders.
The working group is currently engaged in the following:

Identify an ongoing meeting time with topical discussions, to ensure better communication among working group members, a sense of “knowing,” begin to see personal and professional impacts of ASCN membership, and develop products listed above.
Make better use of the Working Group 3 email list (and follower list) to post notices and publications of interest to the group.
Finish compiling professional development opportunities (formal and informal) that specifically focus on change agency.
Provide feedback on evolving Change Leaders Competency Map (in development by Julia Williams’ student) to serve as an organizer of the necessary skills in change leadership, with linkages to professional development opportunities

Working Group 4: Demonstrating Impact
ASCN's Working Group 4 changed its name to Demonstrating Impact and will focus its work to identifying, explaining, and disseminating information on metrics that hold the potential to document, foster, accelerate, and communicate systemic change.
The Working Group is working on identifying concrete actions it can take. As an example, two such actions that we are now contemplating are:

The identification of and sharing of information among organizations that are currently engaged in this activity. One example is the Research Advisory Group of the Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences (see http://www.cbmsweb.org/research-advisory-group/)
Soliciting information on the pressing concerns of mid-level academic administrators to better understanding where information on measurement tools and data can have the greatest impact. As a first step, we will be asking the 34 chairs in the Mathematics Advisory Group for Transforming Post-Secondary Education in Mathematics to each identify two or three of the most pressing issues they are facing and for which information on measurement tools and data might be helpful.

WG4 is trying something new. Each month a question of interest and value to the higher education community will be sent to the working group members. Responses will be collated and posted on the ASCN blog. We hope that this will lead to beneficial collaborations not just among the members of the working group, but also across the network, and will reach the larger higher education community interested in systemic change.
The question for October and responses to it have been posted on the blog - https://ascnhighered.org/ASCN/posts/190404.html

Working Group 5: Equity and Inclusion
In response to the events that took place in Charlottesville, we sent ASCN members an email with a subject line – "How shall we respond to racism?" in which we condemned these appalling displays of racism, violence, and ignorance, and discussed how they brought to light the importance of education in fighting racism and promoting equity and inclusion. We also reaffirmed that fighting racism and promoting equity and inclusion are a daily responsibility, and an important priority in our work.
We invited our members to share with us resources that they have been using in their own practice, or have come across recently, so we could share them with wider audiences. We organized these resources in three categories - Charlottesville syllabi, creating supportive campus environments, and personal growth and professional development. You can access them here - https://ascnhighered.org/ASCN/posts/187965.html

Working Group 6: Aligning Faculty Work with Systemic Change
The purpose of this working group is to promote development of institutional cultures where continuous improvement of teaching is expected, valued, assessed, and rewarded at various stages of a faculty member’s career. The working group will achieve its purpose by illuminating the policies and practices employed in the current higher education landscape that effectively evaluate and reward the three aspects of faculty work: teaching, scholarship, and service. Working group 6 will 1) map the landscape of practices, 2) create a taxonomy to identify and classify the varied approaches, 3) examine current evidence that addresses the potential or realized effectiveness of these practices, and 4) assess and share the evidence and practices to promote accountability.
Working Group Leaders: Christine Broussard, University of La Verne and Emily Miller, Association of American Universities (AAU)