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Title: The consequential agency of faculty seeking to make departmental change
Over the past decade, much attention has focused on change-making efforts, especially those funded by the NSF Revolutionizing Engineering Departments program. We bring together theory on agency and intersectional power to investigate a research question: • How and over what/whom do faculty engaged in departmental change efforts express agency, with attention to structural, cultural, normative, and interpersonal power relations? We draw upon recordings of faculty meetings and interviews across multiple change teams and years to characterize consequential change agency. Analysis of these highlights how accounts of contentious events reveals power dynamics at play, and ways those in power prevent or promote change. We argue that key elements of change agency include meeting others where they are, sharing agency with them (“we”), using potential control verbs (can, could, might, etc.), acknowledging their concerns, and inviting them into the effort in ways that suggest ownership.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1751369 1913128 1623105
NSF-PAR ID:
10385861
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Proceedings of the ASEE Annual Conference and Exhibition
Page Range / eLocation ID:
1-7
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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