Letter from the Director
Theory that Compels and Practices that Succeed
Donald W. Harward, Project Director, Bringing Theory to Practice and President Emeritus, Bates College
Among the joys of working with committed and insightful colleagues and institutional leaders is the collective encouragement to look beyond the near term and its inescapable demand for attention and resolution, and to consider the more distant, as it may direct the path of the work and the character of future emphases.
A major objective for the entire BTtoP Project, and for the Leadership Coalition (begun in 2008), will be to bring together by early 2012 the theoretical and the practical strands of BTtoP’s work over the last decade (the last five years for the LC). That collection and integration will result in a unique definitive resource that will deepen the language and arguments that comprise the theoretical bases for transformative change; explore the exemplary work done by those institutions, researchers, and practitioners who are documenting the practices that succeed and that are sustainable changes; and will point to public policy and other zones of attention that will be affected where such changes, and the re-centering of liberal education, take hold.
Our plan will be to produce, by 2012, a substantial volume that pulls together multiple strands and implications of creating and sustaining a strengthened undergraduate campus culture for learning—in effect, an argument and a guide for what is likely to be transformative change at many institutions. The book will reflect what has been proposed, studied, and confirmed in both theory and practice by colleges and universities over the last few years, in particular the work of the Bringing Theory to Practice Project, the Leadership Coalition projects on college and university campuses, and selected examples from AAC&U’s LEAP project. There will also be descriptive discussions of related efforts, including those from Imagining America, the Pericles project, and the Bonner Foundation program in detailed appendices. While including a coherent and extensive discussion of theory and practice, the volume will contain multiple relevant and constructive contributions, providing dialogue and perspective from scholars, educational leaders, practitioners, and by both higher education’s champions and critics.
The project has funding support from the Christian A. Johnson Endeavour Foundation and the S. Engelhard Center. This support will allow the commissioning of invited chapters and help in the selection and composition of campus case studies. The volume will be both attentive to “theory” and to the consideration of case examples and of the “practices” that succeed.
Our intent is to pull together the work in which many of you have been engaged—reenvisioning and sustaining changes and practices that provide routes for achieving the full promise of liberal education. The nature and arguments for change, and the context and climate necessary for change, call for pervasive reconsideration of structures and actions. The book will examine the theoretical basis and the assessed effectiveness of those transformative changes to our campuses. Among the changes are greater and integrated use of pedagogies of engagement; the structural blending of the academic with student well-being and civic development as co-core purposes and outcomes of liberal education; the redefining of priorities by placing emphases on student learning and its assessment; working toward rewards that are aligned with those priorities (and others); and exploring the inhibitors to change—including institutional structures, socialization by professional associations, graduate training, etc.
The book subtitle (the full title is still in the works), “Theory That Compels and Practices That Succeed,” suggests what should occur—a woven argument with multiple implications that should hold together a range of perspectives regarding the need for and the consequences of transformative change throughout the academy, and by those publics and institutions that influence the academy.
We know that the dynamic of change may vary from the individual to the institutional level and then again at the broader national level and beyond. Is change necessary? Is there a compelling need for change? Is it small or big change that is needed? Is it gradual and additive or climactic? Do the dimensions or logic of transformative change alter the prevailing paradigm? Are we now at a moment of disequilibrium, or is there a “climate” sufficient to welcome such change? All of these and related considerations need airing and need to be woven throughout the book. For many in the audience of readers, the book will get the issues front and center and thereby become dominant parts of the academic conversation. And for other readers, the book will provide the practical models, insights, and implications of productive and sustainably successful change that can be adopted or adapted for use by individuals, institutions, and the broader academy.
So as we work together to achieve the gains of project grants, conferences, demonstration sites, campus-based research, and internal assessments, we have in mind a culminating effort regarding how those gains will be coalesced, integrated, and shared.
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