AN EXPLORATION OF PRESIDENTIAL ROLES DURING ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE IN LIBERAL ARTS COLLEGES By Niki J. Rudolph A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education – Doctor of Philosophy 2013 ABSTRACT AN EXPLORATION OF PRESIDENTIAL ROLES DURING ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE IN LIBERAL ARTS COLLEGES By Niki J. Rudolph Colleges and universities across the country are seeking ways to strategically position their campuses within the growingly competitive landscape of higher education. The presidents of these institutions are approaching these changes with a watchful eye on the fiscal, environmental, and human resources involved. The purpose of this study was to learn about the roles that university presidents play during the transformational change to increase the environmental sustainability of their campuses. The setting for this study was two, liberal arts colleges that had both approached sustainability as a campus-wide initiative. This study employed a qualitative design to understand what roles presidents at small, liberal arts colleges, employ throughout the period of transformational change. The study involved interviews of key administrators, faculty, and staff and review of pertinent document on each campus. Specifically, this study used a multi-case study to examine the following research questions: 1. What roles do presidents of small, liberal arts college, play during a period of institutional transformation in regard to increasing institutional sustainability? 2. How do presidents select the roles that they play throughout the institutional transformation? 3. Do these roles change as the period of transformation occurs? If so, why and how? The results of this study identified the overarching approach used in being a president, the interaction of that way of being president and the change process, and several roles that served key functions within the change process. Recommendations for college presidents, the search committees of presidents, and campuses engaging in sustainability efforts are presented. Copyright by NIKI J RUDOLPH 2013 To my grandmother, Miriam Wilson, who showed me that women could be both educated and committed to family. To my grandfather, William Peppler, who taught me that getting it right was the most important thing. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This doctoral journey would not have been feasible without the amazing support and cooperation of many individuals. First, I would like to thank my committee chair, Ann Austin, for her patience and persistence in guiding me through this entire process. I would also like to thank the members of my committee, Marilyn Amey, Reitumetse Mabokela, and Vernon Miller, for their thoughtful feedback and questions. Second, I would like to thank the welcoming staff and faculty at my two case study sites. To President Shinn and the folks at Berea College, thank you for opening your doors, your archives, and your history to me. To President Durden and the people at Dickinson College, thank you for welcoming me onto your porches, into your reports, and onto your red, Adirondack chairs. Your cooperation and reflection were invaluable. To the many professionals and colleagues in my other life as a full-time student affairs professional, I thank you for your cheerleading and nudging. To my former supervisor and dear friend, Ann Hoffman, thank you for constant focus on seeing me through to the end, and to the fantastic folks of both the College of Communication Arts and Sciences and the Residential College in the Arts and Humanities, thank you for interest in my work and your willingness to share me with this endeavor. And to the many friends I have gained through the HALE program, especially Melissa McDaniels, Eric Jessup-Anger, and Monica Fochtman, than you for your discussions, edits, and support along the way. Although an academic endeavor for my professional development, the dissertation journey would be impossibly without my amazing friends and family. To my “Salt Sisters,” thank you for your texts, tweets, hugs and high-fives throughout the finals laps. To Mom and Bob: I know you weren’t always sure why I was doing it, but I appreciate that you always knew I could do it. To Dad, who taught me how to debate, and to Cam, who helped keep us focused on vi family, thank you. I am blessed with wonderful family and friends who have surrounded me with love through more than just a dissertation. To my beautiful and brilliant girls, Lia and Tess, thank you for sharing mommy with a laptop and for reminding me to be silly and to hold hands whenever possible. And to my amazing partner, Brent, who has been my champion, my comedian, my fellow doc student, my editor, and my love, thank you for being by my side through the late nights, early mornings, long months, and all of the years. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES xi LIST OF FIGURES xii CHAPTER ONE – INTRODUCTION Rationale for the Study Postsecondary Education in a Culture of Change Why University Presidents? Why Transformational Change? Definition of Terms Transformational Change Leadership Roles Transformative Leadership Sustainability Liberal Arts Colleges Research Questions 1 3 3 4 6 6 6 7 8 8 9 9 CHAPTER TWO – REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE Introduction The Importance of Institutional Culture Importance of Institutional Leadership The Nature of Leaders in Organizational Change Informational Roles Decisional Roles Interpersonal Roles Roles that Change The Change Changes The Roles that Change during Transformation Conceptual Framework Conclusion 10 10 10 11 12 13 16 17 19 20 21 22 25 CHAPTER THREE - METHOD Introduction Case Study Method Research Design Sampling Data Collection Data Analysis 27 27 28 28 29 29 31 CHAPTER FOUR – DICKINSON COLLEGE A Revolutionary College A Sustainable Campus 34 34 35 viii A Leader Among Green Colleges A Review of Rogers’ Stages at Dickinson College Knowledge Stage Persuasion Stage Decision Stage Implementation Stage Confirmation Stage A Storytelling President Durden’s Roles at Dickinson College Figurehead Resource Allocator Entrepreneur Disseminator Summary 40 40 42 43 45 47 48 49 53 53 56 60 64 67 CHAPTER FIVE – BEREA COLLEGE A College to Serve A Campus to Revive A Next Step to Consider A Review of Rogers’ Stages at Berea College Knowledge Stage Persuasion Stage Decision Stage Implementation Stage Confirmation Stage A President of Passion Shinn’s Roles at Berea College Entrepreneur Disseminator Spokesperson Summary 69 69 70 72 74 74 75 77 79 81 84 85 86 88 91 92 CHAPTER SIX – RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Overview of This Study The Conceptual Framework Revisited Contributions of This Study The Presidential Persona Presidential Role Selection Persona and Stage Interaction Effective Leadership and Managing Meaning The Change Changes the Sensemaking Noteworthy Roles The Influence of Institutional Type Positioning This Study Recommendations For the President of Change 95 95 96 99 99 105 106 108 110 110 113 114 117 117 ix For the Selection of Presidents For Campuses Pursuing Sustainability Conclusion 118 119 120 APPENDICES Appendix A: E-mail to Provosts/Vice Presidents of Administration Appendix B: Email to Participants Appendix C: Informed Consent for Identified Participants Appendix D: Informed Consent for Non-Identified Participants Appendix E: Interview Protocol Appendix F: Document Summary Form Appendix G: Participant Summary Form 121 122 123 124 126 128 130 131 REFERENCES 132 x TABLES Table 2.1 Mintzberg’s Managerial Roles 13 Table 4.1 Summary of Stages at Dickinson College 41 Table 5.1 Summary of Stages at Berea College 83 xi FIGURES Figure 6.1 Durden’s Roles During Change 102 Figured 6.2 Shinn’s Roles During Change 103 xii CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION Colleges and universities across the country are seeking out methods for revitalizing, repositioning, and reestablishing their place in the culture of higher education. Although the impetus for change, the methods of change, and the outcomes of change will continue to be debated, the fact remains that colleges and universities are making significant attempts to think differently about what they do and who they are as institutions. One of the areas in which higher education is on the cusp of innovation is in addressing carbon neutrality. Toni Nelson, program director for American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC), posited that higher education was on the verge of creating the “first sector-wide commitment to climate neutrality” (as cited in Shinn, 2009, p.1), seeing an opportunity to enact cultural change through higher education. For many campuses, this challenge in creating more environmentally sustainable campuses, through programmatic, curricular, and physical plant changes is a transformative process. Many colleges and universities have found that to have the intended impact in reducing their environmental impact, it must be a whole system approach. What may have begun as a campus wide recycling program has blossomed into strategic planning involving reduction of carbon emissions, waste management, and green building. For Macalester College, the transformation has been occurring for almost 2 decades. What began as momentum building from student organizations on campus in the early 1990s has developed into strategic planning that outlines the college’s mission of becoming carbon neutral by 2025 and producing zero waste by 2020. The environmental studies program, which is now its own department, was succeeded by the facilities management implementation of green products and construction. Most recently, Macalester College received an A- in the 1 College Sustainability Report Card for 2010 (Greenreportcard.org), ranking in the top 26 schools of both in the United States and Canada. Bates College in Maine has a long history of involvement in environmental policy development. However, recent efforts to create a greener campus began in earnest in the mid1990s with recycling and dining waste minimization programs. The initial environmental policy adopted by President Harward was followed by an environmental issues committee that included faculty, students, and staff and was tasked with developing campus wide programs and policies. Within 10 years, Bates had signed a 5-year contract to use 100% renewable electricity on its main campus, made changes to acquire over a quarter of the food in its dining program from local, organic sources, and hired an environmental coordinator. More recently, in Iowa, Luther College’s president became a charter signatory of the ACUPCC in 2007. Since then, Luther College has hired two full-time sustainability staff members, has already seen a 15.5% reduction in its annual greenhouse gas emissions, and implemented composting through the dining facilities and landscaping services. Now, Luther College is seeking to reach carbon neutrality by 2030. These campuses represent a sample of the colleges and universities across the country that have developed and implemented strategic plans, initiatives, and goals for growing more environmentally sustainable institutions. On many college campuses, university presidents create and maintain a variety of roles to assist their campuses through the transitions involved in greening the campuses. In this study, I will seek to understand the roles college presidents choose to play over the course of organizational changes. To gain this understanding, I sought to examine how the roles of college presidents change throughout the transformation process. 2 At the foundation of this study is the understanding that “sensemaking” (Weick, 1995, #) is essential for transformational change to occur within an organization. Kezar and Eckel (2003) posited that comprehensive change cannot be achieved “unless the members of the institution change the way they perceive their roles, skills, and approaches/philosophies, in other words, make new sense” (p. 8). Presidents do not identify or define their roles in isolation. Both individual and organizational sensemaking occurs throughout the change process (Eckel & Kezar, 2003; Kezar, 2000) for all members to construct new meanings about their organizations and their roles within such organizations. Through this study, I sought to understand what roles presidents employ within the change processes and the nature of the dialectic relationships with members of the organizations. Rationale for the Study Postsecondary Education in a Culture of Change Institutions of higher education are being asked to provide more than has ever been required in the past, and to do so with continually strained resources. The demand on many American campuses is to respond to a constantly evolving environment that includes “financial pressures, growth in technology, changing faculty roles, public scrutiny, changing demographics, and competition in the world both within and beyond our national borders” (Kezar & Eckel, 2002, p. 12). As an example, former U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings called for more affordable and attainable postsecondary education from institutions: “Our universities are known as the best in the world. And a lot of people will tell you things are going just fine. But when 90-percent of the fastest-growing jobs require post-secondary education—are we satisfied with ‘just fine” (U.S. Department of Education, 2006). Each campus leader seeks to find innovative and effective ways to bolster its educational efforts in 3 light of the changing external environment and internal challenges. College and university presidents search for new ways to guide their organizations through the change that is upon them. Kezar (2001) posited that although there was much deliberation as to whether higher education was actually experiencing a time of crisis, colleges and universities were experiencing turbulent times. It was critical for organizational leadership to address these issues. Pick (2006) stated that each “university must fully grasp the situation in order to adapt to, and influence, the changing environment by adopting an approach that is both intentional and critical. The alternative is to be overwhelmed” (p. 238). To contend with the turbulent environment, colleges and universities must create institutional environments that are adept at transformation (Fullan, 2000). Presidents, as leaders of these institutions, are at the heart of the institutions in transformation. Understanding their roles within the process offers significant insight into the efforts to be “intentional and critical” to which Pick (2006) refers. Why University Presidents? At the core of why leaders are studied is the understanding that to study leadership is a way to understand organizations (Smircich & Morgan, 1982). Organizations are a collective of people in which “coordinated action is possible” (Smircich, 1983, p. 351). How that action is coordinated is integral to the leadership of the organization. Understanding the leadership of organizations offers us a glimpse into how organizations function, struggle, and thrive. However, studies of university presidents have not considered the changing roles of presidents during the constant motion of the transformation process. Concerning the creation of more sustainable campuses, upper administrators have been regularly identified as essential to the effectiveness of creating a sustainable institution (Bekessy 4 et al., 2003; Beringer, 2007; Carpenter & Meehan, 2002; Koester at al, 2006; Lozano, 2006; Sharp, 2002). Additionally, many college presidents have asserted that making ecologically friendly changes to their campuses is financially advantageous, not just earth-conscious. Also, many presidents who have identified sustainable practices as part of their universities’ missions consider this a critical time for higher education. David Hales, president of the College of the Atlantic, bluntly contended, “If higher education is not relevant to solving the crisis of global warming, it is not relevant, period” (Asquith, 2007, p. 16). Although an oft-studied group of individuals, presidents still represent a complex and less understood group, especially concerning their roles in organizational change. Several authors have examined the pathways to the university presidency (Amey, VanDerLinden, & Brown, 2002; Barwick, 2002; Kempner, 2003; Turner, 2007), the leadership traits and competencies of presidents (Desjardins, 2001; Phelan, 2005; Trachtenberg, 2005), their roles within change in community colleges (Eddy, 2000; Levin, 1998; Phelan, 2005; Stout-Stewart, 2005), and even their own personal reflections on the needs of leadership in higher education (Bornstein, 2003; Duderstadt, 2000; Duderstadt, 2007; Kerr, 2001; Rhodes, 2001). However, college presidents, just like the institutions in which they serve, are a constantly evolving population, in perpetual flux with their organizations and the people around them. Additionally, there has been limited research “aimed at understanding . . . the processes whereby leaders and followers relate to one another to achieve a purpose” (Rost, 1991, p.4). Understanding how their roles evolve throughout the change process and the decision-making that is invested in that transformation will provide greater awareness of how institutions and those leading them work in tandem to meet the ever-changing needs of higher education. 5 Why Transformational Change? Transformational change presents an exemplary situation of how presidents manage change and the evolving culture of organizations. Transformational change penetrates the assumptions and values of an organization (Eckel, Green, & Hill, 2001). Given their central role to their institutions, presidents represent pivotal roles in any transformational change. Additionally, examining transformational change spotlights the sensemaking of all organizational members, including the president (Eddy, 2005). Although a change of organizational culture appears a monumental redefinition of the organization, it is important to note that “it is based in change that touches people one by one over an extended period of time” (Neumann, 1995, p. 273); therefore, it is still a manageable process to influence. A. Astin and H. Astin (2000) acknowledged that “all transformational change efforts will ultimately require some form of active involvement on the part of the CEO” (p. 72), whether the change is initiated by the president, by internal pressures, or by external forces. Due to the pervasiveness of transformational change within all aspects of an institution, it provides the most fertile opportunity to examine the roles of a president engaged in a change process, and thus, an opportunity to gain a stronger understanding of leadership in higher education. Definition of Terms Transformational Change Transformational change involves more than minor adjustments to the organizational structure; it is a transformation of the culture of the institution. It is characterized by its depth and pervasiveness, which “touches the whole institution in deep and meaningful ways” (Eckel, Green, & Hill, 1999, p. 18). The culture of the organization is also shaped by the change. New 6 meaning is made of the organization, the organizational identity, and the individual members’ identities within that organization (Eckel & Kezar, 2003; Kezar, 2000). This new identity and meaning is evident in the new behaviors of the organization and organizational members (Smircich, 1982). During a transformational change process, organizational members make new sense of the organization and their role in it, thereby transforming the culture of the organization. Perhaps an additional method of defining what transformational change is would be to define what it is not. Transformational change is not a single event, an innovation, or an adaptation (Eckel & Kezar, 2003). It is not a simple reform (Kezar, 2001). It is not a modification to an existing program or limited to one specific unit on campus (Eckel, Hill, & Green, 2001). Transformational change is therefore not a limited change, but an intentional, comprehensive change that affects the institution as a whole. For the purposes of this study, I used the criteria developed by Eckel, Hill, and Green (1998) in their study of institutions involved in the American Council on Education (ACE) Project on Leadership and Institutional Transformation, which provided the following definition of transformational change: “(1) alters the culture of the institution by changing select underlying assumptions and institutional behaviors, processes, and products; (2) is deep and pervasive, affecting the whole institution; (3) is intentional; and (4) occurs over time” (p. 3). Leadership Roles In organizational psychology, organizations have been defined as a “system of roles” (Katz & Kahn, 1966). Roles are the behaviors or actions displayed by an individual while functioning within an organization (Katz & Kahn, 1966; Plunkett & Attner, 1990). Two essential pieces of defining the leadership roles within an organization are that roles are based 7 on the expectations that others have of the individual or the office they hold and that roles function within the social context of the organization (Biddle, 1979; Katz & Kahn, 1966). College presidents work within the expectations of the position of president, but may express various behaviors and actions as part of their efforts to lead their organizations. This study examines what those roles are within an organizational change process and how the roles are selected by the president. Transformative Leadership A. Astin and H. Astin (2000) posited that leadership, by its very nature, is distinguished as a process with the intent to enact change. In clarifying their assumption that leadership is inherently value-laden, they went on to assert that “leadership also implies intentionality, in the sense that the implied change is not random . . . but is rather directed toward some future end or condition which is desired or valued” (p. 8). Therefore, for the purposes of this study, transformative leadership is referred to leadership that seeks to transform or change. Additionally, I offer that leadership involved in transformational change is generally transformative. Sustainability Although sustainability is a broad term for many greening efforts, policy initiatives, and practices on campus, for the purposes of this study, sustainability has been defined as “a change process, in which the societies improve their quality of life, reaching dynamic equilibrium between the economic and social aspects, while protecting, caring for and improving the natural environment” (Lozano, 2003). Sustainability in this study is intended to include other oft-used terms such as the greening of the campus, sustainable development, and environmental sustainability. 8 Liberal Arts Colleges For the purposes of this study, liberal arts colleges were more inclusively defined as institutions whose primary focus was on a baccalaureate education, which may include both public and private independent colleges with either liberal arts or comprehensive curricula. Research Questions This study employs a qualitative design to understand what roles presidents at small, liberal arts colleges employ throughout periods of transformational change. Specifically, this study addresses the following research questions: 1. What roles do presidents of small, liberal arts colleges play during a period of institutional transformation concerning increasing institutional sustainability? 2. How do presidents select the roles that they play throughout the processes of institutional transformation? 3. Do these roles change as the period of transformation occurs? If so, why and how? 9 CHAPTER TWO: REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE Introduction In this chapter, I review the literature on organizational change in higher education, leadership during change, and change of the transformational process. I discuss how this literature informed my exploration of what roles presidents play during transformational change. Organizational change has been a frequent discussion topic in business development literature. In addition to the numerous research studies in business transformation (Holden, 2007; Hoyte & Greenwood, 2007; Korte & Chermack, 2007; Min-Huei, 2007), there have been several regular publications in business development devoted to the topic, including the Journal of Organizational Change Management and the ASQ Six Sigma Forum Magazine. One does not have to go further than the bestseller list at a local bookstore to read about organizational change in the business world (Collins, 2001; Johnson & Blanchard, 1998). This literature on organizational change in corporate settings has often focused on efficiency and profit gain, failing to contend with the culture of the organization and its role in change. However, much of the understanding of organizational change in the corporate setting has not translated well to postsecondary education. With its loosely coupled systems, intricate administrative structures, and complex decision-making models (Kezar, 2001), higher education has proven a unique and challenging setting for studying organizational change. This study seeks to contribute to our understanding of the intricacies and complexities of organizational change in the higher education setting. Specifically, this study contributes to our understanding of college presidents as change leaders and managers and the roles those presidents perform while building environmental sustainability. The Importance of Institutional Culture 10 There have been many discussions of what model is the best approach for change within higher education, whether it might be management, human resource development, or economic approaches (Storberg-Walker & Torraco, 2004); an adult and organizational learning approach (Boyce, 2003; Brookfield, 2004; Senge, 2006); an integrated approach (Ahearn, Ahearn, & English, 1997); or a multi-frame or multi-model approach (Bolman & Deal, 1992; Eckel & Kezar, 2003). What is common among the various sides of the discussion is the attention to the culture of the institution necessary for implementing any change process. Many of the researchers agree that for sustained change to occur, there must be a transformation of the culture of the institution (Austin, Ahearn, & English, 1997; Boyce, 2003; Eckel, Hill & Green, 1998; Kezar, 2001; Neumann, 1995). Transformational change is a change of the culture of the institution resulting in a new understanding of roles, purpose, and meaning as an institution (Kezar, 2001). “The emerging understanding that change is unpredictable and chaotic places great limitations on any model of planned change” (Storberg-Walker & Torraco, 2004, p. 816). Boyce (2003) posited that the “challenge of successful change is less planning and implementing, and more developing and sustaining new ways of seeing, deciding and acting” (p. 133). This study offers a framework to examine organizational change through the roles played by the president over the course of the change, not simply as a snapshot of the change process, but to better understand how those roles are expressed. The Importance of Institutional Leadership In the definition provided earlier for transformational change (Eckel et. al., 1998), the process is intentional. In examining why some institutions were able to transform, Eckel, Hill, and Green (2001) offered that institutional leaders provided the attitudes that facilitated change, 11 fostered new ways of thinking for and about their organizational members, and were receptive to feedback to adjust the processes. Leadership action, as defined by Smircich and Morgan (1982), “creates a focus of attention within the ongoing stream of experience which characterizes the total situation” (p. 262). Although many within the institution can serve as change agents, it is often the role of the president to define and maintain the change process. The Nature of Leaders in Organizational Change This study will examine how the roles of the presidents within liberal arts colleges evolve throughout the change process. The roles of the president can run the spectrum of “formation of implementation teams, announcement of change programs, selection and training of users, development and communication of new performance criteria, and assessment of implementation outcomes” (Lewis, 1999, 44). Additionally, in studying institutional leadership, several authors have classified the leadership roles of university presidents thematically. A. Astin and H. Astin (2000) defined leadership roles as either symbolic or functional. The symbolic roles include those of being a “living exemplar” of the change process, involving myth and symbolic traits of the person in the leadership role. The functional roles of president are related to the tasks required of the leader, such as being a team leader (Green, 1997), communicator (Monson, 1967), framer (Eddy, 2003), or balancer (Shapiro 1998). I will include further discussion of role classification in my review of the literature. As a framework, I will refer to Mintzberg’s (1979) categories of roles that include informational, decisional, and interpersonal roles (Figure 1). 12 Table 2.1. Mintzberg’s Managerial Roles Category Roles Informational Monitor Disseminator Spokesperson Decisional Entrepreneur Disturbance Handler Negotiator Resource Allocator Interpersonal Figurehead Leader Liaison (Mintzberg, (1979) Informational Roles Mintzberg (1979) offered three roles in the informational category: monitor, disseminator, and spokesperson. The role of monitor includes gathering internal information about the culture of the institution and seeking regular input from the organization. Baker (1999) expanded the role of monitor to include assessing the needs of the institution. Rhoads and Tierney (1992) posited that for administrators to reflect and respond to the needs of their organizations, they “need to view the institution as a culture where organizational members both shape and are shaped by the symbols and rituals of the institution” (p. 4). In considering and planning change within the institution, presidents must consider how deeply embedded the 13 values of the organization are so that they can best understand how to change them (Boyce, 2003). Monitoring is integral in transformational change, given the depth that such a change can reach in the institutional culture. Serving as monitor also provides the president with valuable feedback in guiding the change process. Presidents often engage in seeking feedback from multiple stakeholders in the transformation process. Feedback seeking occurs more frequently during organizational change through informal communication lines (Lewis, 1999). Heifertz (1994) suggested that presidents as leaders of change step “out on the balcony” to gain an outside look at the organization and its culture (p. #). Additionally, institutions that were successful in the transformation had leaders who understood the necessity of a change process grounded “in cherished academic values” (Eckel, Hill, & Green, 2001, p. 13). Leaders who were actively engaged in learning about their organizational culture were more successful in attending to change (Fullan, 2000). Martin and Marion (2005) agreed that, in knowledge-based organizations, “an important leadership role is to challenge the organization consistently to engage in continuous internal evaluation” (p.149). This feedback seeking occurs within the monitor role. Mintzberg’s (1979) role of disseminator includes distribution of information to all levels of the organization through available means, both formal and informal. The role of disseminator is primarily an internal role, focusing on communication within the organization rather than external stakeholders. Presidents hold an important responsibility in the communication during change. J. Ford and L. Ford (1995) posited that “change is created, sustained, and managed in and by communication” (p. 560). The role of disseminator includes communication both in terms of framing and in terms of sharing information to reduce uncertainty. 14 A pivotal piece of internal communication and therefore the role of disseminator is that of framing, which has been examined by several researchers (Eckel, et. al., 2001; Fairhurst & Sarr, 1996; Kotter, 1996). Smircich and Morgan (1983) posited that this ability to frame is essential for sensemaking during change: They emerge as leaders because of their role in framing experience in a way that provides a viable basis of action, e.g., by mobilizing meaning, articulating and defining what has previously remained implicit or unsaid, by inventing images and meanings that provide a focus for new attention, and by consolidating, confronting, or changing prevailing wisdom. (p. 258) Additionally, Eddy (2002) emphasized the importance of presidents participating in the coconstruction of framing with organizational members because “leader cognition is seen as dynamic and reacts to context and follower cognition” (p. 35). Eddy (2003) presented four methods that presidents use in framing change on their campus: (1) talking the frame, which includes formal speeches and informal conversations; (2) walking the frame, in which presidents actively take their message to members of the organization; (3) writing the frame, which includes any written communication on the change process; and (4) symbolizing the frame, in which presidents employ symbols as lenses for the change process. In addition to framing, the disseminator role also includes presidents communicating to provide institutional members with information to reduce uncertainty during the change process (Berger & Calabrese, 1975; Eisenberg & Riley, 1988; Feldman & March, 1981; Lewis, 1999; Lewis & Seibold, 1996). By serving as the disseminator of information, the president provides a means of minimizing the uncertainty and anxiety of institutional members. 15 The role of spokesperson serves to communicate the activities of the organization to a broader audience, most often thought of as the external constituents of the organization (Mintzberg, 1979), e.g., college’s board of trustees, alumni groups, or the broader community. As Mintzberg (2009) expanded, the role of spokesperson represents the organization “to the outside world, speaking to various publics on its behalf, lobbying for its causes, representing its expertise in public forums, and keeping outside stakeholders up-to-date on its progress” (Chapter 3, Section 3, para. 13). The spokesperson represents the interests and accomplishments of the organization, carrying information from inside the organization to outside its boundaries. Decisional Roles Decisional roles are more appropriately linked to the logistical needs of the organization in the change process and the human resource component of the organization. Concerning the mechanics of the change process, Mintzberg (1979) offered the role of entrepreneur as the architect of the change process. Baker (1999) later refined this as the role of change agent. The role of entrepreneur provides the objectives, strategies, and initiatives of the change process. During organizational change, various roles of the president revolve around attending to the needs of the people within the organization. Mintzberg (1979) identified the roles of disturbance handler and negotiator that specifically address the human resources of the organization. The disturbance handler addresses conflicts within the organization. Lewis (1999) posited that incorporating all levels of staff in the change process is essential, especially those staff members on the front line of the process who are often overlooked, which can proactively address potential conflicts. The role of disturbance handler plays an important part in addressing obstacles in the way of the organization. 16 Presidents also have the opportunity to serve more supportive roles to the members of their organization through change. Mintzberg (1979) offered the role of negotiator as the gobetween for both internal dialogues and external ones. Baker (1999) added that the negotiator must understand group dynamics. Eckel, Hill, and Green (2001) recognized the importance of the institutional leader to serve as a facilitator, offering opportunities for people to make sense of their experiences, new practices, and processes. This asset of guiding change inevitably puts the president in the role of trainer (Lewis, 1999) or teacher (Kotter, 2000; Goleman, 2000). The negotiator seeks to prepare the organization for the necessities of the change process by providing institutional members with skills and tools to navigate the change. Presidents can serve as coaches to the organization (Beer, Eisenstat, & Specter, 1990; Goleman, 2000; Kotter, 2000). Furthermore, they may serve as role models during the change process and engage others in the process (Goleman, 2000). Presidents may also seek to be relationship builders with various stakeholders during change (Fullan, 2000). Also, presidents may more actively support staff by serving as initiators or mobilizers of both individual and organizational development (Beer et al., 1990). All of this exemplifies the role of negotiator, which provides institutional members the tools for dealing with change. The role of resource allocator (Baker, 1999; Mintzberg, 1979), the one who decides the planning of time, personnel, and finances, also manages the allocation of resources or the acquisition of additional resources. Although often linked closely to financial resources, the role of resource allocator is essential in determining the distribution of human personnel and management of time on task for the organization. Interpersonal Roles 17 Mintzberg (1979) included the roles of figurehead (symbolic and ceremonial representation of the organization), leader (selecting and developing followers), and liaison (developing networks) in his category of interpersonal contact roles. Baker (1999), in his expansion of Mintzberg’s (1979) work, redefined the interpersonal roles to include visionary, task-giver, motivator, and ambassador. These roles encompass the interactivity of the president with the organizational stakeholders. One of the most notable and often most noticeable roles of the president is to provide the symbolic representation of the institution. The role of figurehead often includes providing the vision and mission of the institution, representing the intent of the organization, and serving as the ceremonial and symbolic idea of the institution. Presidents are relied upon to be futuristic (Cohen & March, 1974) and to define the vision of the institution (Kotter, 2000; Monson, 1967). Additionally, presidents are often responsible for making a case for change (Eckel & Kezar, 2003). Whether in considering the institution’s vision or the impetus for change, presidents can serve as figureheads when they are “seen as extensions – part of the stream of forces that contribute to organizational life and organizational actions” (Levin, 1998, p. 420). The role of leader includes the development of one’s team: managing the expectations and development of followers, directing and motivating their progress, and assessing their effectiveness (Mintzberg, 1979). A. Astin and H. Astin (2000) expanded upon the role of leader and suggested that the president form a leadership group to help in leading the change process. Several researchers emphasized the relational aspect of the leader role. Hollander (1997) emphasized the importance of the relationship with followers and how active followership lends “legitimacy and credit” to the leader, with the followership serving as the key indicator of the 18 leader’s effectiveness. Neumann (1995) underscored the significance of what a leader did and refrained from doing in the development of legitimacy with his or her followers: Leaders who attend carefully to the thinking of those around them and who frame their own thoughts and actions with the beliefs of these people in mind are likely to be batter at their work than leaders who articulate visions that have little or no grounding in the realities of those they presume to lead. (p. 271) Similarly to how disseminator is an internal communication role and spokesperson focuses on the external communication, the leader role has a primary focus on the internal leadership and followership development, while the liaison role focuses primarily on the external relationship building. Mintzberg’s defined the liaison role as collaborator with external partners, creating the network in which the organization functions. Moss Kanter (1999) reiterated the importance of the external relationship building in the change process, citing “coalition building” as a neglected key step in the change process. Although several of these roles have been examined in light of the college presidency, and although several of the roles have been discussed pertaining to organizational change in higher education, if, when, and how all of the roles have been employed by university presidents throughout an organizational change process is less understood. This study seeks to understand how these roles of the president are employed throughout the entire change process. Roles that Change Research has provided various insights into the numerous roles that presidents may play in relation to organizational functionality as a static picture of the roles of change leaders. Prior research has not examined how the roles of the president change over the course of a transformational process or how the roles are selected by the presidents throughout the change 19 process. This study examines what roles presidents play during change, how those roles are selected, and how they change throughout a transformational process. The Change Changes From a cultural lens, the change process changes the organization (Eckel et al., 2001). Fullan (2001) offered that “leading in a culture of change means creating a culture (not just a structure) of change” (p. 44); then the organization will not hit a static point and role definitions will not be permanently defined. Eddy (2002) posited that “as leaders frame for their campus members, follower cognition develops” (p. 36). Once the follower cognition develops in relation to the change process and the change process begins to help the institution take on a new identity, how do the president’s roles change? Benford and Snow (2000) studied collective action frames, which “are continuously reconstituted during the course of interaction that occurs in the context of movement gatherings and campaigns,” and they concluded, “that the key to understanding the evolution of frames resides in the articulation and amplification processes rather than in the topics or issues comprising frames” (pp. 623–624). Therefore, this research sought to understand how presidents’ roles change in the numerous processes of organizational change. Researchers have examined the attention that presidents must devote to the institutional culture of the organization (Rhodes & Tierney, 1992), how presidents frame the change process (Eddy, 2002; Smircich & Morgan, 1983), and the constant evolution of the organization in the change process (Eddy, 2002; Benford & Snow, 2000). Additionally, several researchers have offered suggestions for those leading change (Eckel et al., 1998; Eckel et al., 2001; Eckel & Kezar, 2003; Eddy, 2003). Those recommendations are often overarching recommendations for the entire change process. However, very little discussion has occurred as to how to connect the 20 roles of the president with the evolution of the change process. This study examined how the presidents’ roles change within the institutional transformation. At the crux of the transformation process and the changing culture of the organization is the developing relationship of the leadership to organizational members. Watkins (2002) defined leadership as a socially constructed interaction, or a “distinctive form of social practice” (p. 9). Watkins expounded that resolution of tensions within that social practice often results in an evolution of the relationships in which leadership is involved. Similarly, Neumann (1995) stated that the direct influence of leaders on organizational members is nearly impossible, given the multiplicity in how they are received and perceived by organizational members. Additionally, Katz and Kahn (1966) emphasized the importance of social context and expectations in defining role behavior. However, the relationship between leaders and organizational members can be influenced, albeit indirectly, “through the medium of the collegiate setting” (p. 271). Therefore, as the relationships within the change process continue to evolve, as do the transformational process and the culture change, the role of the president can be examined in its evolution. The Roles that Change During Transformation Although numerous researchers have intended for their work to be used as educational material for those leading change, few have examined the role of the president in relation to the change process. Many have focused on understanding the change process and offered recommendations on how to guide change (Austin, Ahearn, & English, 1997; Eckel & Kezar, 2003; Eckel et al., 1998; Eckel et al., 2001; Kezar 2001; Storberg-Walker & Torraco, 2004; Vaugh, 1995), while others have even focused on a specific role of presidents during change (Eddy, 2003; Kempner, 2003). However, the focus of much of the research has been on a single 21 point in time versus examining how the roles of presidents change over the course of a transformation. In this study, I examine the changing roles of presidents of liberal arts colleges over the course a transformational change process. Eckel, Hill, and Green (2001) posited that the institutions that have had the most success in transforming were those in which institutional leadership “paid attention to the change process and adjusted their actions in response to what they learned” (p. 13). I assess how the transforming process and the various roles of the president are connected. Conceptual Framework As part of the American Council on Education (ACE) Project on Leadership and Institutional Transformation, Eckel, Green, Hill, and Mallon (1999) offered their insights from a 6-year study of 26 institutions in the midst of comprehensive change. Their organizing framework highlighted several key dimensions of transformational change. For the purpose of this study, the key dimensions provided by Eckel et al. (1999) informed my understanding of transformational change, through which I examined the variable roles of presidents during change. The assumption that underlay my consideration of the following framework was that change is not a linear process; it must be considered holistically (Fullan, 2000). Although presented in an order that seems sequential, I do not presuppose that this order is mandatory. Some of the key strategies that Eckel et al. (1999) posited are related to the context of change. First, they recommended gaining an understanding of the change process. This includes understanding how change is affected by the culture of higher education, how decisionmaking occurs in postsecondary institutions, and how people affect change. Second, they encouraged addressing the larger issues by assessing the climate of the institution for change. 22 They suggested answering the questions of why, how, and in what manner should we change? They also recommended creating “hindsight in advance” to better prepare for who should be involved. Third, the researchers recommended analyzing institutional culture. Eckel et al. (1999) posited that “culture both acts and is acted upon” (p. 21). The researchers then offered several key issues in developing change strategies. First, they recommended leading change with teams in which members are selected for their talent and skills rather than the representation of specific units. Additionally, the team serves a specific purpose in the change process, is charged with addressing specific goals, and is held to high expectations. Second, they recommended engaging the campus community in developing a clear case for change and creating an agenda for change. Third, deploying resources is critical, especially in finding time for organizational participants to be part of the change, including more people in the process, focusing attention on critical issues of the change, and investing wisely in innovations and systems throughout the transformation process. Finally, Eckel et al. (1999) argued for the significance of providing evidence of the change process to demonstrate progress. Optimal evidence shows meeting goals, effective versus ineffective strategies, and the consequences of the efforts. Eckel et al. (1999) identified the following pieces of the transformational change process: 1. understanding change 2. addressing big issues 3. analyzing institutional culture 4. leading change with teams 5. engaging the campus community 6. deploying resources 23 7. providing evidence of change Although Eckel at al. (1999) provided a strong framework of transformational change. They approached the process of change primarily from the perspective of the change leader, which in the case of higher education may or may not include the president. To focus this study on the roles of presidents in relation to the change process, this study uses Rogers’s (2003) diffusion of innovation model as a framework for understanding the change process. Although his model focused on specific innovations, it offers another examination of how change is communicated within and throughout a social system. Rogers (2003) defined diffusion as “the process in which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among the members of a social system” (p. 5). Rogers’s innovation-decision process included five steps: 1. Knowledge, which occurs when an individual or organization becomes aware of an innovation and its function. 2. Persuasion, which occurs when an individual or organization develops either a positive or negative opinion about the innovation. 3. Decision, which occurs when an individual or organization chooses, or makes steps to choose, whether to adopt or reject the innovation. 4. Implementation, which occurs when an individual or organization applies an innovation. 5. Confirmation, which occurs when an individual or organization seeks reinforcement for their decision to adopt an innovation, allowing for an opportunity to change their decision about the innovation. Rogers (2003) provided a lens through which to view organizational change. Because this study examines the roles presidents play during organizational change, I accepted Rogers’s model as 24 the framework for viewing transformation of campuses into sustainable institutions. This allows me to focus the examination of the study on the roles that each president plays during the change process, according to the roles outlined by Mintzberg (1979). I focus the study on investigating how Mintzberg’s informational roles (monitor, disseminator, and spokesperson), decisional roles (entrepreneur, negotiator, disturbance handler, and resource allocator), and interpersonal roles (figurehead, leader, and liaison) were selected and used by the presidents over the course of the sustainability transformation. Conclusion The literature provided an expansive exploration of how organizational change occurs in corporate settings. However, given the unique culture and organization of higher education, these studies have limited applicability to understanding organizational change in postsecondary institutions. Those who have examined organizational change in higher education have provided numerous perspectives from which to understand change, but have often focused recommendations on the specifics of the change process rather than the positioning of leadership during the change process. The roles of university presidents have been examined to describe an overall understanding of leadership within an organization, but little has been studied in relation to the changing roles of presidents throughout the process of transformation. As acknowledged in the literature, the change process itself changes, and little has been examined as to how this progression affects the roles of the president. This study builds upon that literature to provide a more comprehensive examination of the fluid nature of the president’s roles during a change process. It examines what roles presidents play in support of institutional sustainability efforts, how they selected those roles, and how the roles evolved throughout the duration of the institutional transformation. This study used the lens provided by 25 Rogers’s (2003) diffusion of innovation model to examine the roles outlined by Mintzberg (1979) that college presidents selected and used during the sustainable transformation of their campuses. 26 CHAPTER THREE: METHOD Introduction This study is a qualitative examination of the roles of presidents at small, liberal arts colleges during the transformational change process. As part of the work of engaging with this study, I understood my role to be that of researcher-learner (Rossman & Rallis, 2003). In addition to being the “means through which the study is conducted” (p. 5), I also had the purpose of learning about the social world around me. Furthermore, I was a “key instrument” in this study (Creswell, 2007), because my ability to form relationships with various presidents and institutional stakeholders was at the center of my access to information regarding these institutions. I approached the work from a social constructivism paradigm (Creswell, 2007), in which my role was not to simplify the information gathered but to “look for the complexity of views.” I considered the historical, organizational, and personal interpretations from the participants and materials incorporated in this study. This study used a multi-site case study strategy (Stake, 2000) to gain an understanding of how the roles of the president progress within several given transformational processes. My intent was to collect and analyze documents involved in the change process, make appropriate observations, and interview presidents, past and present, who had been involved in the transformational process, and multiple levels of faculty, staff, and administrators engaged in the change process. Focusing on institutions that are established in their transformation process (at least five years) permitted me a more complete look at the change process but also provided a more thorough history of documents and people involved in the change process. I focused on cases of small, liberal arts colleges in which transformational change had been developing. Small, liberal arts colleges were used for this study because these institutions 27 have been recognized for an almost singular focus on undergraduate education and a welldefined institutional identity (Stimpert, 2004). Although there are liberal arts college that would be considered medium-sized institutions (up to 9,999 students), those institutions are more likely to offer more graduate degrees. To minimize the additional institutional variation that might influence leadership issues, I chose to focus on the smaller, liberal arts institutions in which undergraduate education was the primary focus for the institutions. Case Study Method Several researchers have referred to a case as something with definable boundaries (Merriam, 1998; Miles & Huberman, 1994; Smith, 1978; Stake, 1995). Additionally, I selected case study as my method based on the characteristics defined by Merriam (1998)— particularistic, descriptive, and heuristic. Case studies are particularistic because they can concentrate on a specific phenomenon, proving valuable in understanding new complexities in everyday practice. They are descriptive in providing the “thick” description of the situation studied. Finally, case studies are heuristic because they elicit new meaning or confirm previous understanding of the phenomenon studied. Particularly important in studying how presidential roles change throughout the transformation process, case studies are heavily grounded in the real-life situations of the case (Merriam, 1998). A case study can result “in a rich and holistic account of a phenomenon” (Merriam, 1998, p. 41). Given the importance of context in understanding roles within organizations (Mintzberg, 1979) and in understanding the transformation of the organizational culture (Eckel et al., 1999), the case study method allows for the most appropriate examination of presidential role development during change. Research Design 28 Sampling I used purposeful sampling in this study (Marshall & Rossman, 2006). I identified two liberal arts colleges that had initiated a transformational change process at least five years prior to the start of the study. I identified possible institutions meeting the following criteria: 1. Those liberal arts colleges that had initiated an intentional, comprehensive change and were at least five years into developing themselves as a sustainable campus. 2. Those liberal arts colleges tht had fewer than 5000 undergraduate students, with a primary focus on undergraduate education, and fewer than five graduate degrees offered. I used several professional affiliations to identify those campuses that met the above criteria. I referenced the past 3 years of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE), which hosts the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment, and Rating System (STARS) (https://stars.aashe.org/); the National Wildlife Federation’s Campus Chill Out competition (http://www.nwf.org/Global-Warming/Campus-Solutions/Chill-Out.aspx); and the Sustainable Endowment Institute’s Green Report Card (greenreportcard.org), for institutions that had been recognized or had risen in rankings for sustainable practices. I identified ten institutions that were present in these ratings and met my criteria. Data Collection Once initial identifications were made, I contacted the vice presidents of academic affairs (provosts) of these institutions through electronic communication to elicit their president’s interest in participating in case studies. If the vice presidents gained support from the presidents, we proceeded to schedule the campus for my visits. I made contact with presidents’ or vice presidents’ support staffs to gain access to document material that was unavailable online and that had bearing on the transformational process. I sought to collect any 29 documents, archival records, and physical artifacts (Yin, 2003) that pertained to the research questions. This collection was important for garnering important data on the institution and the presidents’ roles within their institutions, but also served as a strong preparation in meeting with the presidents. Prior to the interviews with the presidents, I reviewed available documents for understanding the presidents’ backgrounds in and prior to their present institutions. Additionally, I reviewed public speeches, published articles, strategic reports, and meeting minutes that pertained to the change process. Documents proved invaluable in providing more comprehensive data and sometime better data than simply interviews (Merriam, 1998). In studying any historical aspect of an institution, even if it is recent history, documents can complement the institutional memory of the organizational members (Riley, 1963). For the interview with the presidents, I requested to meet for approximately 60 minutes, during which I asked a series of semi-structured interview questions that elicited their understanding of their roles within the change process (attachment 1). The questions used assessed the president’s understanding of the process of change, the decision-making the presidents used in identifying their roles within the change process, and how those processes and roles changed throughout. In addition to the presidents, I requested interviews with all available senior administrators (vice president or cabinet levels), directors or coordinators of academic units related to sustainability, any non-academic administrators or staff and faculty who served on sustainability committees, additional faculty whose academic interests included sustainability, and staff members whose responsibilities included sustainable maintenance on campus. The 30 intent of the interviews with these campus members was to gain a greater understanding of the roles of the presidents throughout the change process. After each interview and campus visit, I compiled my own notes and reflections. I transcribed all interviews. Copies of the transcription were sent to interview participants. Participants were asked to review the transcripts for accuracy. Participants were invited to eliminate any portion of the transcripts that they preferred. This review served as a member check (Merriam, 1998) to enhance the internal validity of the study. All notes, transcripts, and document or artifact copies were stored in a locked file cabinet in my possession. Additionally, all electronic files were secured in protected computer files. Procedures of the data collection were replicated at both case sites (Yin, 2003). Data Analysis Analyses of the data proceeded “logically and systematically” (Rossman & Rallis, 2003) from the research questions posed by the study. Given the complexity that one case may potentially elicit, it was important to incorporate early analysis (Miles & Huberman, 1994), which “makes analysis an ongoing, lively enterprise that contributes to the energizing process of fieldwork” (p. 50). Additionally, I used Rogers (2003) and Mintzberg (1979) to frame the analysis of my data, by using those conceptual frameworks as guides for the coding and analysis. For that purpose, I employed several different methods of analysis throughout the data collection to help with emerging themes and patterns. First, after I had written up any notes from my review of the documents, I completed a document summary form (Miles & Huberman, 1994) for each artifact (Attachment 2). This allowed me to record the relevance of the document to the research questions in addition to 31 providing a summary of the document. Additionally, this document summary form provided insight into subsequent interviews at the case site. Second, after each interview, I wrote up my field notes and completed a contact summary form for each interview (attachment 3). This allowed for a primary review of the contact to the research questions. More importantly, however, it was beneficial in identifying any salient points, emerging themes, or lingering questions that were helpful in preparing for subsequent interviews. I transcribed all of the interviews, and then I uploaded the transcripts and additional documents into Atlas.ti software for coding. To frame the change process on each campus, I used Rogers (2003). Rogers allowed me to categorize the events, milestones, and perceptions of each campus throughout the change, against which I could review the roles of Mintzberg (1973). In the initial review of each artifact, I used Rogers’s (2003) stages of innovation diffusion as codes for the various events and incidents on Berea’s campus that aligned with Rogers’ stages. After identifying Rogers’s stages from the data of Berea College, I reviewed each artifact to identify the various roles expressed by President Shinn, using Mintzberg’s roles as codes. After a review of all artifacts for Berea College, the data were reviewed to ensure that data relevant to the research questions were not overlooked and to identify any themes that emerged outside of the conceptual framework. This process was followed with all transcripts and documents from Dickinson College. All artifacts from the first case site, Berea College, were coded prior to the second site visit, Dickinson College, allowing for emerging themes to inform the target questions for the second-site visit. Once the initial coding of individual interviews and documents had been completed, all contacts from one case site were coded for patterns and themes. Each case 32 material was reviewed to elicit issues within the given case and to provide a “within-case analysis” prior to reviewing all of the cases together for a “cross-case analysis” (Stake, 2000). Once data collection had been completed at both sites and coding had been completed for both campuses separately, all data were reviewed for additional patterns yet to be identified. This provided a cross-case analysis to identify both similarities in patterns and differences between the two cases. In Chapters Four and Five, I will present a case study for each campus examined, using Rogers’s (2003) innovation diffusion model as a lens through which to examine Mintzberg’s roles as used by each president. Each chapter will include a review of the change process on each campus through Rogers’s stages, an examination of the significant issues that arose for each president, and a discussion of the roles most salient for each president. In Chapter Six, I will focus on the cross-case analysis to examine the major themes across both cases, including the noteworthy roles used by the presidents, how they were selected, and how those roles progressed throughout the change process. 33 CHAPTER FOUR: DICKINSON COLLEGE When the graduates of the Dickinson College Class of 2010 made the historic walk through Old West, they eagerly anticipated their diplomas but were surprised also to receive a Dickinson College cafeteria tray. Although an unexpected parting gift for the graduates, the cafeteria trays were actually the denouement to a 4-year story for these graduates, who expressed concern and displeasure over watching the globally-minded Dickinson to which they were admitted become an environmentally driven institution, complete with a tray-less cafeteria. Much of the transformation to a sustainable campus was during the tenure of President William (Bill) Durden, who honored the institutional history of Dickinson while proving to be an educational entrepreneur. In 2006, The Chronicle of Higher Education summarized Durden’s influence by stating “if Dickinson were a corporation, Wall Street would view it as a classic turnaround” (Sanoff, 2006, p. B15). This chapter will provide a brief history of Dickinson College, a look at the development of Dickinson College as a sustainable campus, a summary of Rogers’s stages as they emerged at Dickinson College, a consideration of Durden’s overarching persona as president, and an examination of the most salient roles that Durden played throughout the process. A Revolutionary College A well-regarded physician from Philadelphia, Benjamin Rush, set out to transform a grammar school in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, into a postsecondary institution on the Western frontier. Being a signatory on the Declaration of Independence and an attendee to the Continental Congress, Rush was prone to new ventures in freedom. One week after the signing of the Treaty of Paris, which ended the Revolutionary War, the charter for Dickinson College was signed, making it the first college chartered in the new United States of America. 34 Rush enlisted the support of the governor of Pennsylvania and known penman of the revolution, John Dickinson. Dickinson described the new college as tutas libertas, “a bulwark of liberty.” Rush and Dickinson devised the college seal still in place today, with a liberty cap, a telescope, and an open Bible, which symbolizes the mission of the institution still at work: To prepare young people, by means of a useful and progressive education in the liberal arts and sciences, for engaged lives of citizenship and leadership in the service of society. (Dickinson College) Dickinson College has maintained that revolutionary spirit to this day. As an institution of about 2,340 full time students, Dickinson is committed to maintaining the 10:1 student to faculty ratio. Dickinson promoted study-abroad opportunities immediately following World War II, and continues to be a leader in global education. The faculty and staff at Dickinson comment frequently on the pluralism that allows all campus members to build upon the strengths of the individuals to develop the institution as a whole. A Sustainable Campus Dickinson’s commitment to making sustainability one of the institution’s Defining Characteristics was the culmination of a long history of rather isolated efforts to incorporate an awareness of the environment into the institution’s culture. In keeping with its revolutionary spirit, Dickinson was the first college to incorporate field studies into the curriculum, as part of the “useful and progressive” mission of the founders. The Reineman Wildlife Sanctuary was established for Dickinson College in 1966 to promote fieldwork for students. In 1970, Dickinson offered its first environmental studies course, and it has one of the oldest environmental studies departments in the country. 35 By 1986, the Alliance for Aquatic Resource Monitoring (ALLARM) was established by Professor Candie Wilderman. It employs a grassroots model for developing volunteers in the community to research and monitor water quality. ALLARM engages students not only in the environmental science of water monitoring but also in the development of the not-for-profit organization and engagement with the communities. It was also in the late 1980s that a student organization, Dickinsonians Advocating Resourcefulness in the Environment (DARE), launched a recycling program on campus that became a formal institutional program in 1991. In1991, the President’s Commission on the Environment (COTE) was established, with members appointed by President Durden. The charge of COTE was: [to] serve as a forum to facilitate coordination between the agencies and groups relevant to carrying out environmental projects at Dickinson, and serve as well as an informationgathering group to advise the College community of methods and practices commensurate with effective environmental projects. (Dickinson College, 2009). Much of the 1990s saw pockets of progress made in reducing paper usage on campus, expanding recycling, and the recognition of the environmental studies department, but the commission would not see a significant resurgence until the mid 2000s. The context for when Dickinson College began considering energy issues is critically important. Around 2004, a spike occurred in the cost of natural gas, on which Dickinson depended for energy. “Hurricane Katrina raised the profile when it came to energy consumption awareness,” (B5, 2010), and there was a ripple effect across the campus to begin bringing “sustainability” into the lexicon of the college. For others, the beginning was more noticeable in the finer details around campus. As one member of campus remembered: 36 The first thing, remembering seeing hand lettered notices that were posted in restrooms suggesting we turn out the lights. I remember getting into an argument with someone on whether it was more efficient with fluorescents to switch them off each time after they were used and it took so much power to just turn them on. I also remember people recycling. The old bins, I was probably the first person in the Psych [sic] department to use those pretty religiously (D12, personal communication, 2010). Facing an increase of about $600,000 in the annual energy costs, Dickinson’s facilities office was actively searching for new ways to reduce consumption and costs. Durden asked COTE to be part of the larger conversation around sustainability, discussing more than just the financial issues involved with energy costs. COTE launched renewed efforts on campus, including green orientation for first-year students and a new website for COTE, and initiated the proposal for environmental sustainability to be elevated to one of the college’s Defining Characteristics. As part of this renewed interest, COTE was reorganized in 2006 as Dickinson Society for Advocating Environmental Sustainability (SAVES) with a new mission to be a forum open to the entire campus community. Much of the knowledge of sustainability efforts at Dickinson College arose from the recognition that current practices needed to change to consider energy reduction, initially from an economic standpoint, and then from a sustainability perspective. In considering when sustainability entered the discussion at Dickinson College, an administrator explained, “It really happened when there was a natural gas spike, which for Dickinson meant, overnight basically, a $600,000 annual increase. It was at that time, that we had a little crisis on our hands” (D6, personal communication, 2010). Additionally, “in the world of energy, we did it for financial 37 reasons, not in the world of carbon reduction, not that we weren’t for that.” (D6, personal communication, 2010). As Durden stated: So, there were a variety of faculty members who became engaged in this. Then what you have is a layering in of some initiatives from the physical plant side, where we started to see that . . . And it was very good. It was a combination immediately of not just idealism. There was a very pragmatic element of how can we save money, and so, that’s very, very important that you just don’t have the idealism without the grounding. (personal communication, full date). In 2007, the recognition of sustainability as part of Dickinson College was emphasized with Durden becoming a signatory of the ACUPCC and a member of its leadership circle. Durden continued to advocate for environmental responsibility on campus by including sustainability as a defining characteristic in the strategic plan in 2008. It was during this time that the college received a $1.4 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, which allowed for the creation of the Center for Sustainable Education (CSE) at Dickinson, which seeks to integrate the curricular, physical, and community efforts around sustainability. Since its inception, CSE has gained a director and an assistant director, with the prospect of hiring a fulltime sustainability coordinator. Currently, the vision for sustainability at Dickinson is: A sustainable society is characterized by meeting present needs for health, spiritual and material well-being, freedoms, justice, and peace without degrading the productive capacity or resilience of environmental, social, and economic systems that are required by future generations to meet their own needs. (Dickinson College) The late 2000s also saw increased attention to the physical plant efficiency in regards to sustainability. The Biodiesel shop was founded in 2006, allowing for both a fuel production 38 from waste cooking oil and a learning lab for students. Several solar panel arrays were installed on campus buildings. Land was purchased for a college farm as an expansion of the student garden project in 2007. Solar panels were installed at the farm, and organic farming became available for students as a learning opportunity and potential production source. For the students, the campus experienced significant changes during this time. To contend with energy consumption and costs on campus, laundry quotas and printing limits were implemented, ending the students’ access to free and unlimited use of the laundry and printing facilities on campus. Additionally, the cafeteria went to a trayless system to reduce water usage in cleaning and to reduce food waste. Composting and recycling continued to play a strong role on campus, including the Trash on the Plaza program, which was an annual event that pulled the trash from the main student building, the HUB, and engaged student leaders in sorting the trash to demonstrate the amount of waste that could have been recycled or composted. Academically, the latter half of that decade also brought about innovations in instruction and research. The Valley and Ridge project was established in 2008 as a 5-year project to engage faculty and teaching staff in discussions of how to incorporate sustainability into the curriculum and how to create potential interdisciplinary linkages across campus. Additionally, in 2009, a yearlong course, entitled From Kyoto to Copenhagen, engaged students from across multiple disciplines in small group research projects around climate change. The students, along th with two staff from CSE, travelled to Copenhagen to attend the 15 Conference of the Parties (COP15) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Also, in the spring of 2010, CSE received a nearly $500,000 grant from NASA to improve teaching and learning regarding climate change. A Leader Among Green Colleges 39 Much of Dickinson’s success in creating a more sustainable campus has been in capitalizing on the assets and talents of the campus community to develop a central theme to the college’s distinctiveness. Physical plant efforts to reduce energy consumption and rely on alternative fuel sources, student initiatives to raise awareness and live more sustainably on campus, and the academic interest and integration of sustainability into the curriculum has elevated Dickinson to a notable campus with a well assimilated strategy for making sustainability a tenet of the institution. Further, the campus as a pluralistic culture has allowed innovation to thrive in multiple pockets, especially in physical plant management and curriculum. These explorations and innovations have been the seeds for the larger campus structure of environmental sustainability. This free thinking about how to develop a greener campus has been true to the spirit of this campus built out of the revolution. A Review of Rogers’ Stages at Dickinson College To provide additional context for the change process at Dickinson College, I will provide a view of the campus through Rogers’s (2003) stages to understand how Dickinson experienced the transformation into a sustainable campus. I use Rogers’s stages as a lens through which to view the sustainability changes at Dickinson before I examine what roles were played by the president during the development as an environmentally aware campus. I offer the following review of the knowledge, persuasion, decision, implementation, and confirmation stages at Dickinson College (Table 4.1) 40 Table 4.1. Summary of Stages at Dickinson College. Stages Knowledge Persuasion Decision Implementation Confirmation Roles Monitor Monitor Disseminator Res. Allocator Figurehead Negotiator Dis. Handler Negotiator Res. Allocator Disseminator Monitor Figurehead Examples Determining the distinctiveness of Dickinson Involving Faculty in planning Continuing dialogue with faculty through Valley & Ridge program Managing pluralism of faculty in curriculum integration of sustainability Reassessing organizational chart to align with sustainable goals Using “town hall” to address student concerns about laundry quotas and trayless cafeteria Transparency through budget process Awareness of changing student body coming to Dickinson Assessing strength of existing campus programs Evaluating energy reduction Creating a “narrative of urgency” around sustainability Open discussion of cost savings and budget status Awarding of Mellon Grant Linking sustainability and Benjamin Rush narratives 41 Committing resources to wind energy, LEED construction, CESE, and Middle State accreditation of sustainability Focus on carbon neutral goals Knowledge Stage As Dickinson moved into the knowledge stage, the campus was becoming aware of the possibilities of change on campus. There are two significant occurrences during this stage. First, the campus was experiencing the post-Katrina gas spikes felt around the nation. This was drastically affecting energy costs for the campus. As one Dickinson administrator noted, “we have always tried to be sustainable, in the world of energy. We did it for financial reasons, not in the world of carbon reduction, not that we weren’t for that” (D6, personal communication, 2010). With a sudden annual increase of $600,000 for energy on campus, Dickinson “had a little crisis on our hand” (D6, personal communication, 2010). Durden collaborated with the physical plant to consider solutions for the energy situation on campus. Second, Durden examined the natural assets of the campus in his efforts to define the distinctiveness of the college. As one campus member remarked of Durden’s ability to define the campus’ strengths: I didn’t get the sense when he first came, ‘Oh, this is the guy who’s going to green the campus.’ I think he’s been pretty good at picking up trends that have the dual virtue of increasing the distinctiveness of the college and having some tangible pay off. I don’t know what to attribute that to, although some may attribute that to his business background. It may also be that he’s very good at assembling people to keep their eyes open. It actually doesn’t matter to me how (D12, personal communication, 2010). With the combination of the physical plant strides in reducing energy costs and consumption with such programmatic strengths as ALLARM, COTE, and a history of an environmental science academic program, Dickinson was primed to move in a sustainable direction. One staff member recalled, there were “pockets of listening, pockets of action, but it really wasn’t until 42 2004, 2005 when the light bulb essentially got turned on: this is something that college should be doing or that these are issues we should be educating our students on as leaders of tomorrow” (D15, personal communication, 2010). Consequently, knowledge was growing about what Dickinson could become, with some of these environmental efforts at the forefront. Durden’s ability to serve as a monitor of all of these seemingly individual activities prompted the move toward a sustainable campus. Persuasion Stage As the campus moved into the persuasion stage, Durden tried to convince the rest of the campus and college stakeholders that this focus on the environment was a good idea. Durden continued his activity as a monitor, gauging the campus’s reaction to sustainability. One of the senior administrators recalls Durden’s willingness to respond to student e-mails, often “at length” (D3, personal communication, 2010), hold office hours in the campus coffeehouse, The Quarry, every week, and even agree to the town hall meeting request by the student senate to address concerns over laundry and printing quotas. It was not just Durden’s ability to listen to concerns, but his openness to innovation that made him a strong monitor during the persuasion stage. As an administrator remembered: We’re green in operations, why not add an educational dimension to it? Why not integrate it into an academic program? And so, the idea really came together as a consequence of a lot of different things. It was the success of facilities in making us a green campus. I think that all of the administrators began to talk about it as an idea, it really just seemed attractive in a lot of ways. All the pieces came together. Other dimensions of it were interesting, from an academic standpoint. Every discipline can be involved. It’s very interdisciplinary, and Dickinson loves things interdisciplinary. Forty 43 three percent of our graduating seniors had interdisciplinary majors this year. All of the faculty could get involved. (D3, personal communication, 2010) Durden’s willingness to consider how sustainability fit into Dickinson’s strengths was a convincing force in engaging the campus in sustainability; however, campus members acknowledged the other people who were pivotal in convincing the campus: I think President Durden is very open minded to new ideas, but I also credit Ken Shultes [associate vice president of campus operations]. He has been phenomenal in bringing awareness of sustainability to the operations aspect of the campus, and challenging the academic departments to consider how operations and academia link and merge. (D16, personal communication, 2010) Durden also played the role of disseminator in continuing to emphasize how sustainability made Dickinson distinctive. As one campus member shared, “I think it’s become commonplace that it’s part of the conversation, part of what we talk about when we try to let people know what we’re about. He’s a huge advocate, and he speaks about it frequently” (D6, personal communication, 2010). Durden did not just communicate the importance of sustainability to the campus, but also conveyed the urgency of addressing sustainability. As Durden asserted, “It has to be a compelling narrative and it has to be a narrative of urgency. And all of these elements that I’m talking about have urgency as a context” (Durden, personal communication, 2010). In convincing the college of the need for sustainability, Durden’s ability to secure financial support from outside sources was essential in his role as a resource allocator. He identified the strategy of securing the Mellon Grant. “You build all of this up and you position it and you get a major grant that permits you to go to the next stage of development” (Durden, 44 personal communication, 2010). Other campus members noted Durden’s ability to find support for the campus: I think part of his success in promoting sustainability is his leadership. He’s such a great speaker. Charismatic. When he stands in front of you and says something, you’re listening. I’ve heard many people speak; that’s not the speaker he is. When he speaks, everyone is listening. That makes it a success for us. Take the Sustainability Symposium, I am confident that when Bill stood in front of 20-30 industry leaders and said, ‘open your wallet,’ they listened. (D17, personal communication, 2010) All of these efforts were integrated into an overarching narrative developed by Durden about the revolutionary beginnings of the campus, highlighting Dickinson’s founder, Benjamin Rush. A campus administrator acknowledged the linkage of sustainability with this revolutionary spirit of campus: It also was very much in line with the narrative of the college which focuses on Benjamin Rush and this idea of useful education and a college that was chartered in the wake of the American Revolution to help build a new democracy and taking on big issues like this really fit the narrative perfectly, so there are a lot of things that appealed. (D3, personal communication, 2010) Amidst all of these efforts, the campus began to see the possibility of approaching environmental sustainability as a whole college. Decision Stage For the decision stage, the campus was faced with the reality of what this environmental focus meant for the campus. This reality was evident in the multiple dialogues occurring around campus about sustainability, in which Durden played the role of negotiator. Durden offered an 45 opportunity for faculty input, which resulted in the overwhelming faculty interest in participating in the Valley and Ridge project to integrate sustainability throughout the curriculum. One administrator noted the innovation with which the faculty approached sustainability: A professor of Judaic Studies is doing a course on Old Testament views of the environment. One of our classicists is in Valley and Ridge, looking at the environment in Roman History, which I think is a big breakthrough. I was talking with her about her research interests, her works on Roman poetry, and she said she saw linkages between a certain Roman poet and a more recent environmental poet. (D3, personal communication, 2010) In addition to fostering the creativity of the faculty, Durden needed to address the concerns of the students. He needed to play the role as a disturbance handler to manage the students who responded with an entitlement that one administrator described as, “’I’ve paid for it. I’ve paid a lot of money to come here. I have a right to consume whatever I want.’ That’s a bit of exaggeration, but there has definitely been a vocal group of students that have pushed back on some of this” (D2, personal communication, 2010). Durden admitted that engaging the students was a change from the dealings with generations of students in the past: And so, we’re thinking sustainability and the student interest in sustainability, although it’s generational. We’re seeing that some of the kids who did not grow up with this as a major theme, they’re so scared of change that, unless they are personally consulted, you know...But the kids coming in who expect this of the environment, they’re accepting of it and engaged in it, have this common generational change. So, again, that’s how I believe this naturally evolved, but it was the combination of an early pursuit, without a 46 broader strategy, that evolved into a pursuit in a broader strategy. (Durden, personal communication, 2010) In this stage, Durden was trying to support and develop the pluralism of the faculty in their curricular efforts, while addressing student unrest and discontent. Implementation Stage As the campus entered the implementation stage, there were these various populations moving forward from the decision stage. Durden continued his role as negotiator into implementation, because he continued to foster faculty pluralism, continued to support innovation from the physical plant staff, and continued to develop citizenship among the students around sustainability: We try to find a way to contribute that is at the undergraduate level, that both is informed by research but particularly informed by educating for citizenship. And that’s what this is really—it’s in that broader mission context of educating for leadership, and in our case, it’s attempting to give information to students so that they have a pragmatic useful liberal education, and that part, that’s very much defined by information for citizenship, making decisions, voting on things, business, education, and all that. (Durden, personal communication, 2010) Implementation also included a litany of projects that required resources. Durden’s role as a resource allocator was pivotal in the Mellon Grant award granted for the creation of the Center for Sustainability Education, in the shift to wind power, and in supporting Ken Shultes in finding other efficiencies in the physical plant of the campus. One campus administrator was honest about the risk that Durden took in devoting those resources: 47 When you commit to LEED, there’s money involved. Ten years ago, when we agreed to do this, it would cost money to do this and so one, having a gold-certified science building from the standpoint of utilities has turned out to be a rather good thing. But the initial commitment didn’t look that way. It looked like it was going to cost us. So he’s been really helpful in endorsing that, (D3, personal communication, 2010) Finally, there was a new wave of students attracted to Dickinson because of the sustainability focus, who were ready to move sustainability to the next level, such as supporting the student garden being developed into a student farm. The physical plant was working under the new expectation that all construction and renovation would be held to LEED standards. The administration was asking for a sustainability theme in the Middle States accreditation that was approaching. Durden communicated this progress to the campus on a regular basis, continuing to pull together the strengths of the campus, because his role of disseminator continued throughout implementation. Confirmation Stage Finally, as the campus moved into the confirmation stage, a new climate action plan was developed, with higher goals of reaching to carbon neutrality. Durden continued to serve as a monitor of the goals and progress that the campus was making. Additionally, Durden sought collaboration with neighboring communities and colleges to develop interdisciplinary programs that supported sustainability. Durden also continued to assess the changing population of students attracted to Dickinson. As one campus administrator noted, “I think the student resistance issue is going to fade very rapidly, because the incoming students are very enthusiastic about sustainability. All of the committed students are coming to a campus they know is green” (D3, personal communication, 2010). 48 The structure of the college was adapted to reflect this commitment of how sustainability had become a more formal expectation of the president’s executive administration, as well as throughout the faculty and administration. Durden, in his role as figurehead of the institution, looked to develop Dickinson’s symbolic role as a leading institution in sustainability. However, an administrator acknowledged the challenge for Dickinson: “There’s still a long way to go. We know that one issue for us is that every college in America is claiming to be green, and many are, many are not much. If you want to continue to be perceived as a leader, what exactly does that mean?” (D3, personal communication, 2010) Reviewing Rogers’s (2003) stages at Dickinson College provides a context in which to understand Durden’s actions as a president throughout this change process. I will next discuss Durden’s persona as a narrator before discussing Durden’s signature roles throughout the change process. A Storytelling President When Durden was originally approached by the search committee in 1999, he turned down the offer to be Dickinson’s next president. He was very clear, as an alumnus of Dickinson College, that he wanted to see drastic efforts placed on making Dickinson the distinctive institution he knew it could be. He doubted the search committee and board of trustees’ readiness for the level of change Durden sought for Dickinson (Durden, personal communication, 2010). After graduating from Dickinson College in 1971, Bill Durden, a Fulbright Scholar, developed a career in academia and educational policy. He went to Johns Hopkins for his advanced degrees, and while serving on the Johns Hopkins’ faculty, served for several countries as U.S. ambassador and worked for the U.S. Department of State (Dickinson 49 College, n.d.). Durden returned to Dickinson, knowing that he must invest in the development of Dickinson as a notable institution. Durden acknowledged that he approached his new position as a narrator. This is a persona he self-identified as his primary responsibility as the president of the institution. In his st address, “Notes for the 21 Century Student,” Durden defined that persona even more clearly, describing leadership as “often narrative—storytelling—with a protagonist, a plot and a foil” (Durden, personal communication, 2010). Whether at the fall convocation for all incoming students, or during community events, or with alumni and donors, Durden took the opportunity to discuss the accomplishments and future direction of the college. He explained the importance of storytelling more bluntly, stating: Boredom and repetition are essential parts of leadership, as leadership consists primarily of telling a story again and again and in such a compelling manner that others want to be a part of it. Each repetition must sound as if it is being delivered for the first time with passion and urgency. (Durden, personal communication, 2010) Durden’s storytelling was so engaging, that several campus members described Durden by saying, “He is Benjamin Rush,” referencing the college’s revolutionary founder. The narrative for Dickinson College was significant. The relabeling of the college as a revolutionary college, from simply a colonial college, fostered a campus environment ready for the insertion of Benjamin Rush into the narrative. As founder of the college, Rush was reintroduced as the bold and innovative character that he was of his time. As Durden elaborated: [Benjamin Rush] also, as a physician and as a scientist had considerable interest in the environment, and everything from his comments, letters to Thomas Jefferson on maple trees and sap, and all this sort of stuff, to his concern about the quality of air in Carlisle, 50 even in those days because a lot of Carlisle was swamp and he was very concerned that caused disease. So he had the link, the early the link between the environment and disease. And, in fact, he was criticized and he was on the right track. He believed that the plagues that were going around Philadelphia, severe plagues. . . he was the one that said, no this is of local origin, and has something to do with the water. He believed it was coming out of the waste in the water, the stagnate state of the water, and he was close because it actually was mosquitoes. So, but he suffered immensely from people who just could not believe that disease could originate in the United States, that it had to be from Europe. (personal communication, 2010) Durden readily identified the role of narrative in convincing the campus of the importance of sustainability at Dickinson: Well, my role is a storyteller. It’s as simple as that. I’m a narrator. And so, I’m very much informed by some of Howard Gardner’s thoughts about leadership, which is, in many cases, leadership is storytelling. An organization has to have a leadership narrative, and there are three parts to that narrative: there’s the protagonist; there’s the set of objectives the protagonist has; and there’s a foil. So, what I’ve been doing is telling the story, developing the story from our former assets, many of which were not recognized. (Durden, personal communication, 2010) What began as an economic necessity became a central tenet of the college. Durden (personal communication, June 2010) examined the strengths of the college by asking, “Is there something else that we have, that is our natural asset . . . that all parts of the institution could be a player. That also has larger appeal. And also is academic, is non-academic, and also moves 51 into the residential life situation?” The institution had developed its leadership in global education, and Durden began considering the “what else?” And so we, we decided that the next logical element was sustainability. Now, that becomes very interesting because we began also to have . . . we’re moving into a reform of our residential/student life here, and that normally, across the country, hasn’t been done well anyway, just . . . doesn’t . . . it isn’t integrated into anything very well. They’ve got a long history of programs, activities that come together nicely in support of sustainability. And so I was impressed by the history, by the breadth of things going on, that it wasn’t just little pieces here and there. (Durden, personal communication, June 2010) st In his “Notes for the 21 Century Student,” Durden shared this lesson with the recommendation: “Don’t worry about having a life plan—rather be prepared for change and when it occurs, recognize and engage it” (Durden, personal communication, 2010). Durden, along with his administrative cabinet, was able to amass the various dynamic programs occurring on campus, recognizing the theme that was running throughout the campus without a collective name. Not only Durden see the potential for these various facets contributing to a larger green picture, but he saw the connections that were organic in relation to the other distinctive tenet of the institution, namely, global education. Lastly, Durden understood that the story was only as compelling as the substance of the plot. Durden would occasionally need to play a more active role in the narrative of the college’s development as a sustainable campus, whether donning the Tyvex suit while digging through garbage bags during Trash on the Plaza, or driving a refurbished Mercedes that ran on biodiesel, or handing out trays to the graduating seniors at commencement. Although not necessarily a 52 personal passion of his, Durden saw the potential for the synergy that might exist among the academic, physical plant, and student interests concerning sustainability, and he was willing to use the influence of his office to move the narrative forward. Durden’s Roles at Dickinson College Although President Durden might call himself the teller of Dickinson’s story, he demonstrated all of Mintzberg’s roles throughout the change process at one point or another; however, several roles were notable in how frequently and readily they were needed. In keeping with the storytelling identity that Durden assumed, his primary roles throughout the process were figurehead, resource allocator, and entrepreneur, and disseminator. What story do we want to tell as an institution to inspire others (figurehead)? How do we make the story come to fruition (resource allocator)? How can we engage others in the narrative of the story (entrepreneur and disseminator)? These roles played a significant part of both the direction and reaction to the change process at Dickinson College. Figurehead The most significant role for Durden was figurehead. The vision of how Dickinson would be developed as a sustainable campus and how sustainability fit into the notion of an American Revolution college were at the forefront of observations by Durden. The role of figurehead can be seen in Durden’s commitment to and persistence in expressing the vision to become a sustainable campus, how that mission was actualized, and the future hopes for the college in sustainability. The figurehead serves in both a symbolic and ceremonial ways to inspire campus members. Durden’s commitment to sustainability factored into the story of Dickinson. To develop the narrative, Durden was mindful of how the campus was situated among its peers and amidst 53 higher education. As one of the campus administrators acknowledged, Durden “has a sense of where this institution belongs, not just where it needs to be, but where it belongs in American higher education. He knows where we should be, and we’re getting there” (D3, personal communication, 2010). This image of what Dickinson could be was essential in how Durden represented and inspired the campus through his figurehead role. Many staff acknowledged that Durden was a fountain of new ideas (D2, personal communication, 2010; D3, personal communication, 2010; D8, personal communication, 2010; D12, personal communication, 2010) concerning how Dickinson could improve its position in higher education, and he regularly expected new ideas from his staff. Durden’s role was then “to put all the pieces together into a major initiative, and sort of raise it up a couple of notches in terms of the possibilities for the institution, and that’s what he typically does.” Therefore, he pushed the ideas to grander, more complex, and revolutionary possibilities. “I can’t remember anyone who has quite the ability to . . . you go into a meeting to discuss an issue, and the next thing you know, you are talking about that issue at a different level.” His ability to “create a kind of larger, more aggressive vision” was perceived as pivotal for the college. Durden’s energy was noted by many staff and faculty as essential to his ability to rally the campus around a common goal. “He catches a vision, as he has for sustainability, and then he’s moving, and you better run to catch up.” Part of the energy acknowledged was in part due to Durden’s living the mission of the college. “I don’t see the energy dissipating at all, and I think he’s become Benjamin Rush. He really has become Benjamin Rush” (D2, personal communication, 2010). Benjamin Rush was a much lesser known part of the campus history until Durden resurrected him to help move the college forward. 54 Several campus members noted the team that Durden had built and the evident commitment that the entire administration had made to sustainability. “That’s his strength as a leader—he takes these points in the strategic plan and they get up on it” (D8, personal communication, 2010). The strength of this joint leadership was apparent by 2007 when Dickinson made sustainability and the study of the environment one of the defining characteristics of the college (Dickinson Strategic Plan, 2008). The vision around sustainability and its addition to the college’s defining characteristics coincided with the failing economy. “Here you have the economy tanking and you have Bill Durden saying, ‘We’re going to keep doing it because it’s what we do’” (D3, personal communication, 2010). Durden continued to dedicate resources to see the vision actualized through programmatic efforts, such as his driving a refurbished biodiesel car. Through such efforts, the sustainability focus of the campus developed in other ways to cut costs, such as laundry quotas set for previously free laundry and the removal of trays in the dining services. Additionally, the vision for the sustainability of the campus included significant goals in which Dickinson strived “to reduce its emissions to 50% below the 2008 level by 2025 and 75% below 2008 by 2030” with the intention of reducing the college’s reliance on the purchasing of carbon emission offsets (Dickinson College, year) However, many in the administration recognized that the campus still had a long way to go in creating a sustainable campus. As one campus meber had noted, “If you want to continue to be perceived as a leader, what does that mean?” (D6, personal communication, 2010). The vision for a sustainable campus was larger than the reconstruction of facilities or the revision of the curriculum; the vision involved the role of the campus within its community and among its peers. As one administrator highlighted, “Here we don’t say it if we don’t mean it. 55 It’s more than a webpage. It’s more than a thought on somebody’s white paper.” That lived mission was evident in the conversations Durden began with the Carlisle community about a road diet, to reduce car traffic and increase pedestrian and pedal traffic. Durden was very mindful of this community relationship because “our front door, it’s our responsibility, it’s part of being a good citizen.” (D10, personal communication, 2010). As one campus member noted, “there’s a difference between ‘we’re committed to do environmentally sound things’ and ‘we’re committed to make this a key element in the college’s self-definition’” (D3, personal communication, 2010). The administration of Dickinson opted for the latter, seeking to make it something central to the purpose of Dickinson College. Among its peers, Dickinson sought to be regarded as the example of a sustainable, liberal arts institution. The campus members hoped for recognition of Dickinson’s accomplishments within sustainability. “We could very easily establish ourselves as a liberal arts college integrating sustainability. It’s time for the college to further toot its horn on a national level.” (D12, personal communication, 2010) Durden had a very practical perspective on his role as figurehead: It is a myth that you achieve something then enjoy it. You don’t. You just keep moving, keep pressing, and keep the narrative going. And do. It’s always been a constant: writing other chapters, revising chapters, taking chapters out. So it’s just that constant play because it takes a long time. I think the word on the street is it takes 15 years for an institution to realize it’s changed, and 25 years for the public to understand it” (Durden, 2010). Resource Allocator 56 Much of Durden’s figurehead role influenced his role as a resource allocator. The budget prioritization supported the vision of the institution. Additionally, in institutions of higher education, resource allocators are not just the providers of institution resources, but their duties include resource getting. Durden devoted resources to creating new positions and programs, to physical plant improvements, and to new curricular efforts and ideas. This is an opportunity for us to move forward and possibly improve our standing among liberal arts colleges. And his pointing to sustainability specifically is an area in which we need to be thinking about investing, not necessarily financially, but as thinking about how do we make the best use of what limited resources we have. (D2, personal communication, 2010) Many of the resource decisions were in terms of redirecting funds toward projects that supported sustainable efforts on campus, and the bulk of the sustainable efforts were established in the midst of the economic downturn. Faculty and staff witnessed the emphasis Durden placed on sustainability saying “This is an area we didn’t pull back from because of the financial situation; this is an area we push harder because of it” (D8, personal communication, 2010). The Mellon Grant of $1.4 million was received in the 2007–2008 academic year; the administration acknowledged, “when grant money comes in, you are actually able to designate time and effort into really thinking about this idea and these projects” (D6, personal communication, 2010). Sustainability was originally seen as a means to reduce costs on campus, “reducing the cost of energy campus consumed.” When the Mellon Grant came in, it allowed resources to be directed elsewhere to support new programs, which was seen very favorably by the campus community members. As Durden (2010) said, “You build all of this up and you get a major grant that permits you to go to the next stage of development.” 57 New professional positions grew out of the sustainability programs developed. In 2006, the sustainability coordinator position was created specifically for a brand new graduate of the college to promote sustainability programs and education on campus (History of Sustainability and Environmental Programs, 2009). Furthermore, the director and assistant director of the Center of Environmental and Sustainability Education were new positions to support integration of sustainability into curricular and co-curricular projects. An administrative position is soon to be added to that unit as well. The director and then assistant director developed a course entitled, Kyoto to Copenhagen: Negotiating the Future of the Planet, to discuss sustainability issues during the course of spring and fall semesters of 2009, and then they sent students to Copenhagen during finals week in December 2009. In approaching the faculty to accommodate the students’ finals schedules, they were met with incredible cooperation. In addition to program and personnel additions, many resources were devoted to changes in the campus physical plant. As a senior administrator acknowledged, “When you commit to LEED, there’s money involved.” In addition to solar panels installed on the Public Safety building (History of Sustainability and Environmental Programs, 2009), the move to employ wind power was endorsed by Durden. Furthermore, there was strong support for the organic farm, which grew from the student garden and a business plan created and proposed by the now director of the farm. Some of these larger project developments overlapped with smaller changes on campus, such as removing trays from the cafeteria, limiting free printing and free laundry, and downgrading cable subscriptions on campus. Despite the economic downturn, Durden pushed forward: “I understand the project was a $2 million project and now it’s $3 million, but we’re going to do it, and here’s how we’re going to do it.” 58 Dickinson secured the Mellon grant of $1.4 million in 2007. Although this grant did serve as impetus to adopt sustainability for much of the campus, it also provided resources to apply the intent of sustainability in environmentally friendly practices. The initial rejection for the Mellon Grant proved to be beneficial for the campus planning: The chief delay was making a Mellon proposal prematurely and having it turned down, which I think, in the end, was a good thing. They were right; we weren’t ready. When it happened, it didn’t seem a good thing. Dickinson, and I think Bill [Durden] will say this too, we’re a very nimble institution. We move very fast, and we brought that all to bear on this, a little too quickly on the academic side. (D3, personal communication, 2010) Failure at the first attempt for the Mellon grant prompted the self-ascribed “pluralistic” campus community. “The result is that it’s a very creative faculty” one member noted, “and a lot of exciting things go on in terms of pedagogical innovation. It’s all really to the good, but it does create a problem when you want everyone to be moving in the same direction” (D3, personal communication, 2010). The innovation included defining a sustainability themed track for the Middle States accreditation set for 2012. Preparing for that accreditation in 2010 meant defining the outcomes and assessments of the efforts to create a more sustainable campus. Durden’s role in developing and assigning resources for the campus initiatives was practical in terms of the larger mission he saw for the college. “[Bill] has a very business approach to the finances of the institution. We can’t break it while we are trying to do something that is really important.” The budget process, especially managing the Green Fund, was described as a “[p]eople, profit, planet approach to our finances” (D8, personal communication, 2010). Staff and faculty recognized that they were part of the resource management process and appreciated that when the budget was reported to the campus every 59 year with no surprise. In acknowledging that more money would be nice for faculty, the faculty made clear that they were fortunate to be included in the budget process to such an extent. “I think in the long haul, sustainability is one initiative that will be a resource gainer, not only because we will become more efficient and use less, but in terms of attracting students, invigorating the alumni body, and getting them excited about what’s happening here. I mean, there are a lot of payoffs” (D2, personal communication, 2010). However, Durden’s role as a resource allocator was undeniable, and his effectiveness as a disseminator, which will be discussed later in this chapter, was credited for much of the successful management. In speaking of Durden’s leadership, on administrator remarked, “When he speaks, everyone listens. Take the sustainability symposium. I am confident that when Bill stood in front of twenty to thirty industry leaders and said, open your wallet, they listened” (D6, personal communication, 2010). Durden, however, has a more humble view of his role in the acquisition of resources: “For the most part, I’m watching what is occurring. I’m encouraging it and helping get resources for it” (Durden, personal communication, 2010). Entrepreneur In addition to seeing how Durden’s capability to present the vision of the institution (figurehead) influenced his ability to acquire support for the institution (resource allocator), his focus on the vision of the institution also drove his promotion of innovation in the process, which is best represented in his role as entrepreneur. One of the Dickinson staff expressed the overlap well: Bill is really great as a president because of that. He takes a really strategic view, hires good people, expects them to deal with the tactical stuff, but always driving, always 60 pushing us out there to the leadership edge. He definitely wants to be a leader, and he wants the institution to be a leader. (D3, personal communication, 2010) Perhaps the most evident place where Durden’s role as figurehead and entrepreneur intersect is in the change of the narrative of the college. “But it’s a different theory to say you are an America Revolution college than to say you’re a colonial college” (D3, personal communication, 2010), and Durden built on the idea when helping craft the strategic plan and “creating this notion of Benjamin Rush; nobody pretty much knew who he was before Bill got here” (D3, personal communication, 2010). Durden proved to be an architect of ideas. In addition to developing his own ideas, he was apt to take those presented to him and develop them into much more far-reaching concepts. Durden established a Commission on Sustainability with the primary interest of developing alternate ideas for energy and utility use. “But he wanted it much broader than that, and he wanted it much broader than a financial issue” (D6, personal communication, 2010). Durden was regarded for his ability to push “hard that we need to take advantage of all the assets available to us as a college . . . and so anyplace that we can find connections we ought to” (D6, personal communication, 2010). He was also capable of taking the suggestions for how to incorporate sustainability on campus and come “up with a lot of ways to think about and to talk about it” (D3, personal communication, 2010). Although Durden was a strong generator of ideas, he was rarely offended when some of his own ideas were reigned in. An administrator new to campus was told by Durden: I’m going to send a lot of ideas your way. You can ignore any that you think are not worth your time, don’t make sense, don’t fit within what you’re trying to do. Other ones, 61 if you like them, we can move them forward and work on them together (D2, personal communication, 2010). This collaborative spirit was respected by members of the college. One faculty member noted that Durden’s “been pretty good at picking up trends that have the dual virtue of increasing the distinctiveness of the College and having some tangible pay off,” whether they were his ideas or not. Durden is recognized for developing a culture on Dickinson’s campus in which “being enterprising or entrepreneurial is part of the deal” (D3, personal communication, 2010). His commitment to innovative practice has earned him respect on campus, as one of the campus members remarked: It’s been interesting to arrive at an institution where there seems to be pretty universal feeling that he’s really done an extraordinary job in taking what was a mediocre liberal arts college and turning [it] into a college . . . where we belong with the best liberal arts colleges (D2, personal communication, 2010). Durden’s role as an entrepreneur is grounded in the purposeful mission of creating a sustainable campus. In acknowledging that Dickinson wasn’t big enough to have a substantial impact on the overall carbon footprint, the senior administration identified that the sustainability goals had to be broader than simply reducing emissions: If we educate all of our students to be serious about issues of sustainability, from whatever perspective, not indoctrinate them but make them grapple with the issue, we can have a huge impact, and so I think it was that realization at the conceptual level. (Durden, 2010) 62 Working with purpose in creating both a sustainable campus and an educational environment around sustainability produced a larger impact from the college. Additionally, launching into sustainable practices can prove futile if it doesn’t align with the institution’s principles. “I think where you have to be very careful, where you suddenly become green and it doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t come from what you are doing” (Durden, personal communication, 2010). Durden’s role as an entrepreneur is also evident in his energy for the change process toward becoming a more sustainable campus. One administrator described Durden: “He’s a driver. He’s passionate. Just barrels ahead” (D8, 2010). Rather than apologize for his pace, Durden disclosed that the campus community granted him that freedom. “The campus knows I am going to make a decision. And they know I’m going to talk about it. And so that . . . permits me actually, ultimately more room to make decisions and do things” (Durden, personal communication, 2010). That sense of drive that Durden brought to the campus allowed him to build upon the strengths of the college, many of which existed in isolation. Durden connected ALLARM, the environmental science program, Dickinson SAVES, and the recycling program, and he raised the profile of those programs by signing the ACUPCC, something that he was committed to doing when sustainability was first discussed. The signing of the ACUPCC was recognized by several campus members as a pivotal marker in the sustainability on Dickinson’s campus. In addition to signing the ACUPCC, Durden prompted several other actions on campus. In discussions with the Carlisle community, Durden proposed the road diet, a plan to reduce vehicle traffic on the main roads through town. He established the President’s Commission on the Environment (COTE), which was transferred to the Director of the Center for Sustainable Education (CSE, formerly CESE) once a director was hired for that center. As part of the 63 Sustainability Symposium, Durden invited influential alumni and donors. “This was definitely a deliberate effort of ‘let’s start pushing this now with our alumni, with our donors, as something we want to use as part of our motivation for supporting the college and its mission’” (D3, personal communication, 2010). And finally, Durden worked on developing a partnership with the nearby Army War College, seeing the potential overlap between security and environmental issues. Resources were not provided in any significant way until Durden considered the Presidents’ Climate Commitment, at which time campus members noticed the shift in resources. This direction for the campus was accepted as an innovation by most of the campus. “A lot of campus initiatives really came from the administration . . . all of them are innovative in their thinking. I don’t know if students and the faculty have been as creative in their thinking process” (D16, personal communication, 2010). Durden’s role as an entrepreneur was evident in these initiatives around sustainability. Although the initiation of the sustainability efforts was often attributed solely to the administration, the campus embraced that innovative spirit. “Bill’s very enterprising. He’d say entrepreneurial; I prefer enterprising. We like to do projects, and so do the faculty” (D3, personal communication, 2010). Disseminator In building on the purpose-driven manner with which Durden constructed the sustainability change on Dickinson’s campus, he also developed a strong role as the disseminator throughout the entire transformation. Just as he helped reframe the college from a “colonial college” to an “American Revolution college,” Durden (2010) sought to “create a narrative with an eye to helping people of all sorts, even those opposed, to finding their piece in that narrative.” In working to integrate sustainability into both curricular and co-curricular 64 efforts: “He has made this part of this agenda, and so he has used language in public statements about ‘this is going to become a defining characteristic of a Dickinson education’” (D3, personal communication, 2010). Part of the narrative included defining the intent of sustainability as part of the larger undergraduate education provided by Dickinson College: But try to find a way to contribute that is at the undergraduate level that is both informed by research but particularly informed by educating for citizenship. And that’s what this is really . . . it’s in that broader mission context of educating for leadership, and in our case, it’s attempting to give information to students so that they have a pragmatic useful liberal education, and that part . . . that’s very much defined by information for citizenship, making decisions, voting on things, business, education, and all that (Durden, personal communication, 2010). Durden (2010) recognized that it has to be “a compelling narrative and it has to be a narrative of urgency, and all these elements that I’m talking about have urgency as a context.” This frame of urgency granted him an opportunity to push the agenda of sustainability on campus. In monitoring the sustainability efforts, Durden (2010) worked at “summarizing it for a broader audience, and focusing it, and narrating it, and finding that leadership story that pushes it to the next level.” This push to the next level was a key piece in creating not simply a campus that worked toward sustainability, but in creating one of the most recognized campuses in integrating sustainability. Therefore, just as Dickinson identified global education as one of its defining characteristics, Durden was able to collect the various strengths of Dickinson concerning sustainability to create a narrative about sustainability as a defining characteristic. 65 “And so it’s not just about sustainability. It’s about telling a story that is natural to this institution” (Durden, 2010). Durden has already begun to frame the next steps for the college, in a similar fashion to how he served as an architect of ideas. Durden (2010) stated that ”a lot of people struggle with: this is a great idea, this is a great idea, and you can’t do them all. You have to sift through and decide which ones can be done.” In selecting those ideas for the next stage, Durden is committed to remaining servant to the mission of the institution. Sustainability aligns with that mission because Dickinson is “attempting to form a curriculum that prepares young people, regardless of their field, to appreciate sustainability in a non-political manner” (Durden, 2010). This commitment to sustainability has resulted in an unexpected side effect for the campus: There’s a great reactionary sense that this is a source of pride for us. Again, it’s a campus that’s very rooted culturally in our historic ability to be sort of tied to these great themes of democracy in development and forward thinking. (Durden, 2010) Despite the sense of pride, the campus is not resting on its laurels. Durden is committed to moving forward. “The rhetoric is one of okay, we’re scrambling to move up in ranks, we’re there now. What do we do to make sure we actually stay there, and maybe advanced further” (D3, 2010). In creating a narrative for sustainability on campus, he has created a framework for the next improvements and innovation on campus. Durden (personal communication, 2010) reflected on the change process at Dickinson College: It is a myth that you achieve something, and then enjoy it. You don’t. You just keep moving, keep pressing. And keep the narrative going. And, so it’s always been a constant writing other chapters, revising chapters, taking some chapters out, so it’s just that constant play to . . . because it takes a long time, I mean, I think the word on the 66 street is it takes 15 years for an institution to realize it’s changed, and 25 for the public to understand it. Summary As we consider Dickinson College and its transformational change to become a more sustainable campus, I offered the different stages of Rogers (2003) as a lens through which to understand the roles Durden played. However, what I found was that Durden demonstrated a certain way of being president with which he readily identified. For the purpose of this research, I will refer to this way of being president or this personality to which the president identified as an overarching persona or persona. For Durden, this persona was as a narrator. In considering this persona throughout the change process, one can see this narrator present during the entire transformation. In the knowledge stage, Durden was developing the narrative of the change process and researching the story of Dickinson College and what made it distinctive. In seeking to persuade the campus of the need for change, Durden developed the idea of the revolutionary college and integrated the idea of Benjamin Rush into his narrative. Throughout decision and implementation, Durden placed himself in a more central role, addressing conflict with the students’ understanding of sustainability and being a more proponent of how sustainability happened on campus. Finally, one can see this narrator persona help identify the next chapter of the change process in the confirmation stage, as Durden helps define the next steps for the college. Although this overarching persona of a narrator was significant for Durden, it was not detached from the Mintzberg’s roles in the change process. In fact, the influence of the narrator persona can be seen in each of the roles identified as salient for Durden. The narrator persona and the role of entrepreneur were evident in how Durden developed the story of Dickinson and 67 in building up the character of Benjamin Rush and the idea of the revolutionary college. The telling of that story was through the narrator persona and the role of disseminator, by sharing the story with the members of the organization to gain their support for the change. Additionally, in telling the story, the narrator persona influenced the figurehead role in how Durden placed himself as the protagonist in the story, whether at the town hall with the students or in the Tyvex suit on the plaza. Finally, just as a novel needs a publisher, the narrator persona was evident in the resource allocator role in developing resources to get the story told. I will further discuss the influence of the narrator persona on the presidential roles in Chapter Six. 68 CHAPTER FIVE: BEREA COLLEGE In the midst of the weekly mowing of the campus lawns, physical plant staff received a call from President Larry Shinn. Shinn asked why the grounds staff was cutting the grass so short. He then explained that cutting grass too short would risk the drying out of the grass, requiring more irrigation, which was a waste of water. In addition to understanding the R-value of insulation in most of the campus buildings and how many btus of natural gas the college saves, Larry Shinn has demonstrated first-hand knowledge of what it takes to make Berea sustainable, and has worked to rebuild Berea College into a green campus. This chapter will provide a brief history of Berea College, a look at the development of the college as a sustainable campus, a summary of Rogers’s stages as they emerged at Berea College, consideration of Shinn’s overarching persona as president, and an examination of the most salient roles that Shinn played throughout the process. A College to Serve Abolitionist and son of a slave owner, John Gregg Fee, set out to build a school that would educate all people. Shunned by his parents, Fee established the community of Berea, named after the place where Paul the Apostle was welcomed after being turned out of Thessolonica. Supported by the generous donation of ten acres of land in 1853 from emancipationist, Cassius Clay, Fee built a one-room school, with aspirations of “a college— giving an education to all colors, classes, cheap and thorough.” Fee recruited the first teachers from Oberlin College, and established the articles of incorporation for Berea College in 1859. Fee and his faculty were quickly driven out of Madison County, Kentucky, by slavery sympathizers, only to return in 1865. Berea College would again have its mission challenged in 1904, when the Kentucky passage of the Day Law prohibited black and white students to be 69 educated together. Berea College funded the Lincoln Institute in Louisville, Kentucky, to educate the black students until Berea could once again open its doors to black students once the Day Law was overturned in 1950. Fee established a work program at the founding of the school, “to help [the students] pay their expenses and to dignify labor at a time when manual labor and slavery tended to be synonymous in the South.” This made the campus quite self-sufficient in its beginnings; the students built the buildings and grew the food for the college, and eventually manufactured and sold goods. This work program continues today at Berea College through service to the people of Appalachia, providing free tuition of $25,000 a year for four years to all students, through donations, scholarships, and grants. A Campus to Revive When Shinn arrived at Berea in 1996, coming from his role as vice president at Bucknell University, he was met by nearly $122 million in deferred renovations. Within two years of his arrival, he had built the financial plan for the next fifteen years of renovations that were needed. Additionally, stemming from the strategic planning session in 1996, the Strategic Planning Committee (SPC) formed the Subcommittee on Sustainability (SOS) “to articulate a plan for education and practical leadership” (Berea Magazine, 2009). In 1998, the first of the campus renovations included Frost Building, involving the digging of 80 earthen wells to create a geothermal heating system for the Frost Building and four subsequent building renovations. The renovations of the physical plant served as a learning opportunity in ecological design. Several firms were approached to become part of the initial renovations on campus, with the caveat that the design team would include members from campus and from the firm for decision making regarding renovations. In the late 1990s, there 70 were few design firms, especially in the region, that had much experience in green design. Berea developed strong collaborations to promote eco-design that would foster learning for both the design firm and the campus. One of the initial results of the SOS was the creation of the interdisciplinary Sustainability and Environmental Studies (SENS) program in 1998, offering both majors and minors. Not only did the development of SENS launch the academic commitment to sustainability but it proved an opportunity to engage faculty in the process when campus renovations could not. While efforts to renovate the campus moved forward, student activism pushed the conversation on environmental sustainability on campus. A student group asked for funding for a recycling effort on campus in 1998, which has become part of the student labor program on Berea’s campus. A group of students rode their bikes to President Shinn’s office, requesting that he sign the Kyoto Protocol, which was a commitment to reduce carbon emissions by 10 percent. And it a group of students raised money, which the college matched, for solar panels on the Alumni Building. As President Shinn stated, “students have been my biggest ally in sustainability efforts.” The learning and the savings on energy costs was a huge benefit for the campus; however, it did not completely silence the criticism of using funds towards ecological design, rather than faculty salaries or programmatic efforts. Perhaps given the years of investment in people and programs, and not in the physical plant, that preceded President Shinn, he used this opportunity to invest in the campus infrastructure. Over the next 15 years, the campus would see renovations of 20 buildings, all using LEED Silver standards. 71 The renovations were assisted by fate. In 2005, while drilling was occurring in the first floor of Lincoln Hall, the main administration building, the old mortar gave way and a wall collapsed. Everyone was safely evacuated from the building, as were the hundreds of diplomas that were to be issued the following week, with a minute and a half to spare before the floor buckled. Within three hours, two more floors would fall. What could have resulted in catastrophe became a beautiful, three story atrium in the center of Lincoln Hall, allowing sunlight to reach all levels of the building. Additionally, during this time, construction began on the EcoVillage, which doubled the housing for single-parent students. The EcoVillage involved a 2-year planning process and resulted in 32 apartments, a child development center, a model demonstration house, and a waste-water treatment facility. Not only was the EcoVillage built to green standards, including solar panels, high-rated insulation, and energy efficient appliances, but it also served as a living laboratory for engaging residents in green living through recycling, composting, and community gardening. Relative to similarly sized facilities, the EcoVillage uses 65% less energy and water, and the goal is to reach 75% by continuing to educate residents on personal usage responsibilities. Subsequent renovations would earn Berea College multiple awards, including the Build Kentucky Award and the Kentucky Award for Excellence in Architectural Design for several different projects. The criteria for each renovation were LEED Silver, even though LEED certification was not sought for every building. The replacement of the coal-burning heating plant with a natural gas facility, in addition to the existing geothermal systems, has reduced the energy consumption of the college by 50%. A Next Step to Consider 72 Many campus members, in discussing the sustainability efforts that have occurred on campus, mentioned that the “low-hanging fruit” have already been picked. They reduced energy consumption and sought alternative energy sources where possible. They renovated over 20 buildings with LEED Silver standards. Student activism supported the recycling program, solar panel installation, and the Berea Blue Bikes program. However, the real work will now need to begin. Many campus members understand the specifics that go into transforming the facilities into sustainable buildings. As one campus member described: The SENS House is a little more pushing the envelope. It’s got one wall that’s made out of earth plastered straw bales. They collect water from the roof and run it through a filtration and sterilization system for their domestic water supply. About half their electricity comes from a photo-voltaic array. They got solar hot water, and a number of standard issue things: recycled materials for their cabinetry, things like that. Since 2005 or 06 when the coal fired steam plant was replaced . . . we’ve reduced our energy cost of heating and cooling per square foot, but we’ve almost used up all that savings, and perhaps have used up those savings by every time we do a renovation, we add air conditioning. (B9, personal communication, 2010) In identifying the low-hanging fruit, the campus members addressed that the changes that need to take place now are those rooted in individual behavior. How do you get a student population living on campus to turn off the lights when they leave a room? How do you promote the sustainable use of energy while trying to engage students in study-abroad programs halfway around the world? The tough questions now remain, with changes in culture of the campus members and programs. 73 A Review of Rogers’s Stages at Berea College To provide context for the change process at Berea College, I will first offer an outlook of the organization change through Rogers’s (2003) stages to better understand how Berea experienced the development into a sustainable campus. Using Rogers’s stages provides us with a framework for understanding the changes at Berea before examining what roles were played by President Shinn. The following is a summary of the significant events and prevalent roles during the knowledge, persuasion, decision, implementation, and confirmation stages at Berea College (Table 5.1). Knowledge Stage When the campus first became aware that sustainability was a growing area of interest for the college, the initial messages of sustainability came from Shinn himself. He sought to raise awareness of the student efforts concerning sustainability such as recycling and the student interest in solar panels. This increased attention to the smaller greening efforts on campus and began to create a larger conversation around sustainability. As one campus member noted, “a theme of sustainability began to emerge from recycling and renovation” (B14, personal communication, 2010). Shinn came to a school that was sitting on approximately $120 million of deferred maintenance. He knew that this issue was going to be his primary focus, and because of his personal interest, he insisted on approaching that deferred maintenance in a sustainable way. Further, Shinn connected the sustainable developments to the academic mission of the college. He asked the faculty from several science departments to identify what roles they saw themselves playing in regard to sustainability. The faculty returned with the initial idea of the SENS department, and Shinn funded the chair of this new department with a $1.5 million 74 foundation grant. As one campus member noted, “There were other environmental efforts: recycling, discussion on ground management, minimum energy inputs or impacts, but SENS is when everything really got going” (B16, personal communication, 2010). Through Shinn’s active involvement in initiating sustainable practices at the beginning, his role as an entrepreneur was prevalent during the knowledge stage. Shinn, himself, acknowledged that he played a more active role during the initial steps of greening the campus; whereas, one campus member went so far as to describe it as “people felt like sustainability was being shoved down their throats.” (B16, personal communication, 2010) Much of Shinn’s initial integration of sustainability was in communicating his knowledge of environmental friendly practice. He shared campus updates regularly with college members through weekly e-mails, although one campus member admitted, “I probably don’t read all of the stuff he sends out” (B13, personal communication, 2010). Furthermore, during the initial stage of the sustainability efforts, Shinn was prone to engage the Berea community in considering sustainability through his public addresses. During his “Living Upstream” convocation address, Shinn discussed the “moral imperative” of caring for the world we are leaving future generations (Shinn, 2002). The constant communication of his expertise in environmental design, his vision for the campus, and his commitment to sustainability were examples of his role as a disseminator during the knowledge Stage. Persuasion Stage In looking at the persuasion stage, much of the campus needed convincing that sustainability was a worthwhile effort. In addition to his initial green renovations, Shinn bolstered recycling efforts by purchasing a new forklift and scale, moving the recycling facility to a new building, and investing $60,000 on new recycling containers around campus. Shinn 75 was honest about the additional up-front cost associated with sustainability improvements. During the Greening of the Campus conference at Berea College in 2005, he described “the counter intuitiveness of the fact that if you really are serious about building renovations, there will be additional costs, but the payback period will be short” (Shinn, personal communication, 2010). Shinn’s role as resource allocator during persuasion demonstrated his commitment to finding sustainable solutions for Berea’s challenges. However, not all members of campus agreed with this prioritization of resources: There were those who supported the EcoVillage, SENS . . . but thought the money was going in the wrong direction and should go into traditional academics, given the underpreparedness [of our students]. Shinn is a very persuasive guy, sometimes too much so. The trustees tend to agree with Larry in many cases. Larry was pushing for a retirement community, and the forester and agriculturalist were pushing against it. Eventually, the administrative committee wouldn’t agree to it. That was a good thing to most of us. (B9, personal communication, 2010) This power of persuasion, especially in his role as spokesperson, served Shinn well in other discussions around sustainability. Shinn convinced the board of trustees to put the renovation of the heating plant on hold until a study could be completed to consider the feasibility of geothermal energy for the campus. Shinn’s public addresses included references to how communities affect each other (Shinn, 2009) and to how the mission of the institution encouraged its members to seek “plain living” and have a “concern for the welfare of others” (Board of Trustees of Berea College, 1993). Members of Shinn’s administration spoke of sustainability in much the same way he did: 76 He really sees [sustainability] from a mission perspective here. Sustainability, physical sustainability, comes out of a value of a kind of living simply, living with little impact on those around you, or minimizing the impact, your impact, the way that you live, on other people. But also living in a way that’s fulfilling and brings value to you for the simplicity of it. In the midst of all this busyness, he speaks very clearly of sustainability in a bigger sense. (B9, personal communication, 2010) Shinn’s communication to the campus community continued to try to convince Berea of the need for sustainable living. He relied on his executive staff to assist with this message, referring to how his vice president of business administration would explain to students the cost of turning the chillers on and off during the transitions of the seasons and explain how minimal discomfort during those times saves money and CO2 emissions (Shinn, personal communication, 2010). Shinn was quite aware of his role as a disseminator in communicating with the campus: Now, we’ve spent a lot of money to get there, with buildings that are much more healthy to live in, but basically, I have been a person who’s been willing to exercise the bully pulpit in trying to persuade others. Letting others do the task when it’s clearly their responsibilities, but I’ve also been willing to step forward and say, ”Folks, here’s what I think we ought to do. Let’s stop this project down over here in building the student apartments and let’s build an EcoVillage instead” (Shinn, personal communication, 2010). Decision Stage The decision stage was heavily influenced by the balance between the academic mission of teaching these underprepared students with the financial mission of attending to deferred 77 maintenance. The initial campus reaction was one of skepticism. When initial renovations included geothermal, one campus member described the initial reaction of “It was kind of like, ‘That’s not going to work.’ ‘Why are we doing this?’ And then it went to ‘everybody’s kind of got on board’” (B4, personal communication, 2010). Shinn navigated the questions of why just as often as the question of how Berea was going to become more sustainable. His role as a negotiator was regularly on display in helping facilitate the behavior changes that sustainability demanded of those at Berea. As one campus member identified the difficulty of engaging students in the process: The challenge is going to be, with students who are busy, we’ve got students who have work commitments, work hard at their studies, and the ones who are engage get engaged in a lot of things. It’ll be a challenge to get them excited and engaged around sustainable efforts. (B9, personal communication, 2010) Additionally, renovating buildings was not always sufficient to change the behavior of the entire campus: Just because they are aware of it doesn’t mean they know how to practice it. So, I think there is a disconnect between the theory and the action. It’s amazing how many places I go into and the light in the bathroom is still on. Our facilities people are great, but they don’t know how to turn out a light when they leave, (B11, personal communication, 2010) In addition to negotiating changing personal behaviors of campus members, Shinn also needed to address dissent as a disturbance handler during the decision stage. When the administration began to replace the physical plant service trucks with smaller, more energy efficient carts, the staff acknowledged, “Well, when they came in, nobody wanted one. Now, 78 it’s like everybody has gotten used to it, I’d say. It’s not quite as, ‘I don’t want to be seen in that rinky-dinky golf cart’” (B14, personal communication, 2010). Furthermore, students who moved into the EcoVillage reacted as such: “Why do I have to? I came here with my child to get an education at Berea College. Not to learn about this green stuff” (Shinn, personal communication, 2010). Shinn recognized this dissent as necessary to a healthy discussion: You are willing to make decisions as a person and as an institution before all the evidence is in. That is fairly controversial for some faculty, or for some staff, or for some students, but it means there is a lively conversation that still continues on our campus today (Shinn, personal communication, 2010). Implementation Stage Implementation was defined by the renovations and construction of buildings and the physical plant. Berea served as a place of innovation in having the first LEED Silver building in Kentucky with the renovation to Boone Tavern, and continued to partner with other campuses across Kentucky and the country to develop campus sustainability education. Additionally, Berea used the opportunity for new construction in the EcoVillage to partner with designers in creating an example of ecodesign to serve as a model for other similar construction. Shinn requested that the vice president of business administration, information technology staff, the dean of the faculty, and a faculty member sit on a team with the design firm to conduct planning for green renovations across campus. This was unique for the design firm, which was not accustomed to working in such partnership with members of the administration. These renovation decisions further exemplified Shinn’s role as a resource allocator who was well aware of the resources needed to meet sustainable goals: 79 But it only cost $35,000 to add [geothermal wells], and so the relative cost to the building was relatively small, but with the insulation, it probably added 5% to the cost of the building, but the criticism was: ”Why are we spending that five percent there instead of on faculty salaries or on programs for students?” (Shinn, personal communication, 2010). Despite the higher price tag, several campus members recognized the need of the renovation in meeting campus sustainability efforts: I know that Bruce-Trades has the highest electricity usage every month, so the fact that this particular building was chosen, and especially since we do these tours of Appalachia, where there’s mountain top removal and that’s the Appalachian Center, I think it was really appropriate (B13, personal communication, 2010). Still other campus members do not believe enough resources are have been allocated to make Berea more sustainable. In discussing the major barriers for the campus to be more sustainable, one staff member stated: Budget cuts. I feel like, in that sense, there hasn’t been any support at all. We had a sustainability coordinator for campus, and she was grant-funded to begin with. The college hired her and terminated her after that because of budget cuts. The loss of staff often feels like its own unsustainability (B13, personal communication, 2010). Shinn accepted that the dedication of resources came almost completely from his position as the head of the institution: When you are making decisions about the budget, we don’t ask faculty to vote on the budget. We don’t ask for a faculty vote on renovations. So that is an area where you can 80 make independent judgments, and there my influence has been very strong (Shinn, personal communication, 2010). The implementation stage also saw Shinn return to the role of entrepreneur in developing new ways to approach sustainability for Berea’s campus. One campus administrator recalled Shinn’s willingness to pause construction of the apartments to consider the feasibility of the EcoVillage: “We have an opportunity here to do something different, different and somewhat toward the cutting edge of things. [Shinn] was very much involved in that, and led that thinking. He’s really keen on that” (B9, personal communication, 2010). That same campus member acknowledged the potential downside to Shinn’s innovative spirit: Larry’s always been a micromanager. Sometimes, his activism, in getting the EcoVillage going and in pushing us toward more sustainable ways of doing things is good, but sometimes his preaching goes to meddling (B9, personal communication, 2010). Shinn recognized his position as president allowed him the administrative control to pause projects to consider sustainable alternates, and it also allowed him to play the role of entrepreneur in setting high expectations for campus: The challenge I gave to the administrative committee, my vice president colleagues and me, was on every single project, we should up the standard of our insulation, welcoming natural light, as opposed to artificial light, putting systems in place that were more efficient for heating and cooling, so we kept moving up that standard (Shinn, personal communication, 2010). Confirmation Stage As Berea moved into the confirmation stage, the campus acknowledged the progress made at the college, but struggled with where to go beyond the “low hanging fruit” that had 81 already been ”picked” in terms of sustainability. Therefore, the confirmation stage required a renewed use of the monitor role for Shinn. As one campus member recognized, “One of the things we have to do is pull ourselves together structurally, and we’ve got to organize in a way that we can really use that leadership position that folks outside think that we have and use it more effectively” (B3, personal communication, 2010). Confirmation, therefore, included a reassessment of the campus climate action plan, formally defining the vice president of business administration as the campus’ chief sustainability officer, and discussions about future goals in regard to carbon neutrality. One campus administrator agreed, “Compared to a lot of places, I think Berea has made incredible strides in the sustainable world” (B11, personal communication, 2010), but there was a consensus that Berea was ready for a reengagement of the sustainability efforts: We almost have to re-transition back into sustainability efforts. For me, I believe the campus kind of got energized around it when Larry first got here. A lot of these efforts have become the status quo. It’s how we do things. There’s not a recognition that this is anything special anymore. We need to reenergize campus, the students. These things have fallen out of the public eye (B3, personal communication, 2010). In addition to his role as monitor of the campus’s progress, Shinn also revisited his role as a disseminator in communicating the next steps for the campus. He recommended that sustainability added its own great commitment, pulling out the notion of “plain living” to be its own great commitment. One administrator reflected on Shinn’s role in this stage of the process, “He’s establishing the transition from what he’s doing, so this is probably very much an effort to make sure that one of the things that he valued and that he thinks he brought to this 82 Table 5.1. Summary of Stages at Berea College. Stages Knowledge Persuasion Decision Implementation Confirmation Roles Entrepreneur Disseminator Disseminator Spokesperson Res. Allocator Negotiator Disseminator Dis. Handler Entrepreneur Res. Allocator Figurehead Monitor Monitor Disseminator Examples Consideration of energy savings possible with renovations Emphasis on “plain living” in convocation Discussions with students regarding Kyoto campaign and solar panels Constructing first LEED Silver building in Kentucky Pushing new goals for carbon neutrality Discussion of sustainability as part of Great Commitments 20+ buildings renovated to LEED standards Introduction of community responsibility in public addresses Devoting resources to geothermal renovations Acquiring grant for endowed chair of SENS department Balancing faculty concerns of sustainability with concerns of students lack of academic preparedness 83 Partnering with other Kentucky schools on sustainability conference Integration of SENS department Developed position of VP of Business Administration as Chief Sustainability Officer 50% energy reduction over the past decade institution, exists well beyond him” (B3, personal communication, 2010). Shinn defined that legacy himself as he revealed, “Simply put, we believe that as a learning institution, every one could be model learners and teachers. With this frame of mind, we have built a knowledge base that is still growing” (Shinn, 2009, p. 23). After reviewing the major events at each stage of the change process, I now offer a look at Shinn’s style as president of Berea College. I will discuss Shinn’s persona as a president of passion before reviewing the development of Shinn’s roles throughout the transformation and what roles were most salient for him in the change process. A President of Passion Raised in a blue-collar family, Larry Shinn knew where his milk came from, because he milked the cow before heading off to school. His interest in sustainability was part of his upbringing, which included a family that raised its own food and butchered its own meat. “When you are close to the land like that,” Shinn says, “[you] understand that it’s what sustains you.” With his education at Baldwin-Wallace and then at Princeton, Shinn returned to Ohio in 1973 to renovate a condemned house that was three-doors down from the president of Oberlin. The skills Shinn gained in rebuilding his first home would later benefit him when building the first air-collecting solar home in Ohio in 1977. Shinn demonstrated a commitment to the change process of developing a sustainable campus through his own passionate evangelism and through communicating the Berea story to both internal and external stakeholders. He described the mission of incorporating sustainability into the campus culture as: 84 What we were doing, you can see, is simply treating this as a learning project. If we are a learning institution, how do we ourselves learn about sustainability? How do we practice it? And then, how do we teach it? (Shinn, personal communication, 2010) The commitment to integrate sustainability into the learning process may have been born from the renovations to the campus facilities, but Shinn used the fiscal responsibility of reducing energy costs and addressing the deferred renovations on campus to build a reputation for Berea College. Shinn was an ardent advocate for the changes that Berea College made. In his address in 2002, “Living Upstream,” he underlined that “we have a moral imperative to act conservatively and sustainably” (Shinn, 2009). He regularly used his convocation addresses in the fall to renew the vision of sustainability on campus as part of the institution’s fabric. Sustainability has been linked to Berea’s Great Commitments, which include the lasting view of “plain living,” The willingness to use the administrative task of renovating as an opportunity to develop a more sustainable campus demonstrated Shinn’s ability to become the initiator to make this a campus conversation. In addition to his entrepreneurial role in regards to campus sustainability, Shinn understood the importance of being both a leader and a visionary as the head of Berea College. Shinn signed the American Colleges and Universities President’s Climate Commitment in 2007. In 2008, he joined with the presidents of Centre College, the University of Kentucky, and the University of Louisville to create “Energizing Kentucky,” a statewide consortium to discuss issues of sustainability for the state of Kentucky. In April 2011, Shinn announced that he would retire in June 2012. Even in his announcement, he lauded the campus sustainability efforts. Shinn’s Roles at Berea College 85 President Larry Shinn of Berea College demonstrated three signature roles throughout the transformation process. Shinn brought an extensive knowledge base about sustainable construction, which made the role of entrepreneur most notable. The second most prevalent role was disseminator. Finally, the role of spokesperson was prominent for Shinn. I will look at how these roles presented themselves. Entrepreneur When Shinn first took the presidency at Berea College, he was presented with an exorbitant amount of deferred maintenance on the campus. He saw this as an opportunity to rethink construction and design across campus. “It begins with renovations, which was something you can do from the administration.” (Shinn, 2010). Shinn brought in the design and architectural firm to create a partnership in which both the institution and the firm could learn more about ecodesign. Shinn’s interest in developing a sustainable campus grew from his personal interest in sustainability and ecological design in construction. As a campus member noted, “He likes to talk about how he built the very first solar water heated house in Ohio. He grew up on a farm, so he kind of knows the earth and its workings. He’s been on board and a driving force” (B3, 2010). In discussing the implementation of a new heating and cooling system, Shinn indicated, “and so our focus has been reduce, reduce, reduce, reduce. Reduce your footprint, get smaller and smaller as our 50% reduction shows” (Shinn, 2010). His personal commitment to sustainability was admirable. Additionally, the campus was cognizant of his desire; as one member remarked, “President Shinn pushed [sustainability] right from the start.” Shinn was instrumental as an entrepreneur in creating sustainable change through the strategic planning and renovation on campus. Shinn was “driving the Strategic Planning 86 Committee [SPC] to create the SOS,” the Subcommittee on Sustainability, which would go on to create two significant reports on how Berea was incorporating sustainability into its mission and planning. EcoVillage plans were already drawn when Shinn put a hold on the moving forward, opting to take that opportunity to rethink how Berea was incorporating green design in the erection of the new apartments. Moreover, Shinn was “clearly the impetus for putting together the SOSII,” in moving forward on a second assessment of sustainable efforts on campus. Shinn’s role as an entrepreneur in the change process was not limited to his own campus. Shinn organized Energizing Kentucky in 2008 to discuss, debate, and raise awareness of energy issues in Kentucky (BC Magazine, 2009). This consortium resulted in three conferences to develop integrated policy and communication about energy and in a white paper on future energy concerns produced by the four member presidents, as well as lasting collaborative relationships across Kentucky. Perhaps most notable in Shinn’s role as an entrepreneur was his self-awareness of the influence he could direct in the role of the president. “There are places where I’ve played a direct role all throughout this process” (Shinn, 2010). Shinn discussed the power of the president to stop a process and say, “study this for two years” before moving forward. Implementing sustainable building and renovation was “primarily an administrative process and [we] ended up renovating about twenty-six buildings, $126 million” (Shinn, 2010). Shinn worked within his administrative purview, understanding where he had the most influence on the process, acknowledging, “There are times in the administrative decision-making structure when I have played a forceful role, partly, and people have respected my knowledge” (Shinn, 2010). 87 Disseminator Through Shinn’s strategic and communication efforts, he also presented himself in the role of disseminator, in sharing information with his organization in a manner that fit the intent of the change process. “Berea’s mission focuses upon the idea of ‘plain living’ and recognizing the interdependence of each of us in this world” (Shinn, 2009), a mantra that was repeated by campus members at every level. Several other campus members mentioned that connection of the sustainability efforts to the college’s mission of “plain living.” Shinn further explained the idea of plain living put into action and thought, “If we have concern about our children and grandchildren who come fifty years downstream from us, then how would we act differently, and we act before we have all the scientific evidence in” (Shinn, 2010). Shinn was recognized by several staff members for his efforts to link the sustainability to the college’s mission: [He] really put that into the frame of sustainability, which I think is one of the real, more forward thinking [ideas]. It’s not just environmental or ecological sustainability. He really sees it from a mission perspective here. Sustainability, physical sustainability, comes out of a value kind of living simply, living with little impact on those around you, or minimizing the impact, your impact, the way that you live, on other people, but also living in a way that’s fulfilling, brings value to you, and the simplicity of it. So in the midst of all this busyness, he speaks very clearly of sustainability in a bigger sense (B3, personal communication, 2010). Shinn’s control over information dissemination around sustainability was also evident in the academic mission of the institution. “Simply put, we believe that as a learning institution, everyone of us could be model learners and teachers. With that frame of mind, we have built a knowledge base that is still growing” (Shinn, 2009, p. 23). The development of the 88 Sustainability and Environmental Studies (SENS) program was at Shinn’s prompting. “You’ll notice that Sustainability is in that title” (Shinn, personal communication, 2010), referring to the creation of the SENS program. Shinn’s role as a disseminator also included his communication of expectations of faculty and staff in program development. Shinn directed a faculty committee to develop what became the SENS department by posing the question, “What does the faculty think their responsibility here is in sustainability?” (Shinn, 2010). The intent was to make the SENS program more than simply an environmental science program. The faculty committee that developed the SENS program balanced the scientific and the social track of sustainability (Shinn, 2010). As president, his disseminator role was evident in the processes he created to engage the campus in dialogue and inform them of the decision making occurring on campus. Shinn issued weekly em-ails, updating the campus on activities regarding campus planning and budgeting (B11, 2010), which served as a method to educate the campus on what was happening, especially in terms of construction. However, as with any communication, the effectiveness is limited. As one campus member remarked, “I’ll admit that I probably don’t read all the stuff he sends out” regarding weekly emails (B13, personal communication, 2010). Shinn also served as disseminator in his public addresses and communication, even though much of that communication had multiple audiences. In the winter 2009 BC Magazine, Shinn provided a chronological perspective on the sustainability efforts at Berea College and the future direction. Shinn used the convocation addresses, directed at the incoming students, faculty, and staff at the beginning of every school year, to frame his goals and agenda for the upcoming year. In 1996, during his convocation speech, “What if the Mountains Could Speak?” 89 he likened well-being to healthy living, not necessarily sustainable living yet. Additionally, in 2002, as part of his convocation address, Living Upstream” Shinn examined the “Moral imperative to act conservatively and sustainably” (Shinn, 2009). In the 2007 convocation address, “Lessons from Easter Island,” Shinn paved the way for the work of the SOS II. “Sustainable environmental solutions require all of us to abandon narrow, self-serving policies and to embrace collaborative approaches to problem-solving across social, political, economic, and religious divides” (Shinn, 2009). Shinn continued to integrate the idea of sustainability into the structure of the institution and its decision-making. Shinn “drives what the agenda is, and sustainability, from his perspective, needed to rise to the top again,” (B4, personal communication, 2010), said a campus member, in discussing the development of the VP position to include sustainability. In more recent discussions, Shinn’s focus shifted. “His time recently has been transitional. The transition will be much more subtle in terms of the way that we do [sustainability]. He’s establishing the transition from what he’s doing. So this is probably very much an effort to make sure that one of the things the he valued and that he thinks he brought to this institution, exists well beyond him.” (B4, 2010). However, Shinn continued to play the role of disseminator in sharing with the college information from outside the campus that can help push sustainability forward at Berea: Next is to ask the campus to formally make a commitment to sustainability as among the very highest priorities we have. Now I would say, among the very highest priorities. Some faculty members on the committee now would say, THE highest priority. Nothing is higher. I am still educating students with low income and when you have tradeoff between those two, where’s the balance and so, but that’s the whole set of issues that 90 will be debated. But we’re bringing forward among those recommendations that we move, not just toward carbon neutrality, but we do so as fast as we can. Another recommendation is that we create a new great commitment on sustainability out of the plain living, just that phrase, pull it out and create a new great commitment. That is a big deal, not a little deal at Berea (Shinn, personal communication, 2010). Spokesperson Shinn’s role as a Spokesperson, specifically as a communicator to the external stakeholders for Berea, appeared to be the most natural among his roles. He truly seemed to enjoy sharing what Berea College had learned about sustainability and what the campus had accomplished in regard to ecodesign. Shinn also used other avenues to communicate the changes happening on campus to other external audiences. In the winter 2009 issue of BC Magazine, his article, “A Contemporary Berea Imperative,” detailed the efforts regarding sustainability at Berea, and reached alumni, donors, legislators, and campus members alike. Through our formal governance and informal public dialogues, we at Berea College have learned much about living sustainably in a complex world. We have grown in our capacity to describe the ecological and personal sides of sustainability, even as we have experimented with actions meant to alleviate the enormous challenges we humans face. (Shinn, 2009, p. 25) Whether it was the decision to make the Boone Tavern LEED certified, or the decision to not convert the forest land over to agriculture, “Well, I have to ultimately be the spokesperson for whatever the campus decides to do” (Shinn, personal communication, 2010). For many of these decisions, Shinn was a vocal advocate, such as for creation of the SENS program, the construction of the EcoVillage, and many more. “So, the president finds himself or 91 herself in the unusual position of ultimately . . . he or she must really be behind making happen, behind the scenes or out in front, but this is one of those tags I am willing to accept (Shinn, personal communication, 2010). Shinn’s role as a spokesperson did not serve just to inform, but to persuade. “I have been a person willing to exercise the bully pulpit in trying to persuade others” (Shinn, 2010). Shinn presented multiple proposals to the board of trustees, including a delay on EcoVillage to consider more sustainable options, the replacement of the heating and cooling systems, and the consideration of a retirement community. Through much of the strategic planning, the board was willing to adopt Shinn’s thinking, though the retirement community was voted down. Shinn used the public microphone to engage other campuses and stakeholders in the sustainability discussion. In developing the Energizing Kentucky conference, Shinn worked to “frame sustainability as a state issue, and not just his campus’s issue” (B14, personal communication, 2010). Shinn continued to pursue sustainability as an issue larger than Berea’s campus. “Berea College has made concerted strides toward achieving ecological sustainability and, by example, leading others toward a simpler and less cluttered life. This goal is an imperative not only for each of us and Berea College, but for our planet” (Shinn, 2009). Shinn also used his keynote address at the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO) conference to push the conversation of sustainability (B3, personal communication, 2010). “We’ve always been a group that shares whatever we’ve learned with other people,” whether with other schools or designers (Shinn, personal communication, 2010), and Shinn has served that spokesperson role to those audiences. Summary 92 Shinn served as an entrepreneur, disseminator, and spokesperson most notably during the change process at Berea College. His personal knowledge of sustainability prompted him to design the process of making Berea more sustainable. He developed a greater understanding of how sustainability was intrinsic in the mission of the institution, and he communicated with both campus and external stakeholders about the experience that Berea was having in transforming into a sustainable campus. However, as we look at Shinn’s own assessment of his time as president, we once again see that he identifies with a larger-picture way of functioning as president. As we saw with President Durden, President Shinn also demonstrated an overarching persona in his presidency during change. For President Shinn, his persona was one of a leader of conviction, with a deeply rooted support for a cause. His commitment to sustainability was evident throughout all of Rogers’s (2003) stages of the change process. During knowledge, it was Shinn’s conviction for sustainability that framed many of the convocation addresses, community interest in sustainable renovation, and the interpretation of the mission of the institution. As the campus moved into persuasion, the persona of conviction was evident in how Shinn presented the need to be more sustainable as a “moral imperative” for us all. During both decision and implementation, Shinn’s persona of conviction served as a testimonial of the progress that the campus was making in regard to sustainable renovations, energy reduction, and moving forward on sustainability in academic programs. Although Shinn respected the role of shared governance, his sense of conviction was apparent in his use of his administrative role to direct the sustainable renovations on campus. Additionally, Shinn’s persona of conviction was evident in confirmation, in which Shinn sought to develop ways that the commitment to sustainability would live on well beyond his presidency. 93 This overarching persona of conviction also heavily influenced the roles that were more salient for President Shinn. This was a president committed to the cause of sustainability and seeking innovative ways to integrate it into the physical structure of his campus. This is the persona of conviction influencing the role of entrepreneur. Perhaps influenced by his background as a minister, his persona as a leader of conviction directly influenced his roles as disseminator and spokesperson, both of which focus on communication. Shinn acknowledged his use of the ”bully pulpit” when he needed to express the urgency of sustainable living. In communicating with both the internal members of the campus (disseminator) and the external stakeholders (spokesperson), this persona of conviction influenced the passion with which Shinn spoke of Berea College. I will continue to discuss how this overarching persona of conviction influenced Shinn’s roles in Chapter Six. 94 CHAPTER 6: RESULTS My goals for this final chapter are to provide the following: 1. an overview of the study, including the rationale, the research questions that guided the study, and the methods; 2. an examination of the conceptual framework that guided this study, including its usefulness and limitations in understanding the role of leadership during organizational change; 3. seven significant contributions of this study to the field; 4. the relationship of this study to other literature; and 5. recommendations for future practice and research. Overview of this Study As I discussed in Chapter One, higher education is poised to influence cultural change (Shin, 2009) by developing the next generation of business leaders, educators, designers, and policy makers. Today’s institutions are also faced with continual internal and external pressures to do more with less. Transforming institutions around central tenets of carbon neutrality and sustainability will allow college presidents to meet the needs of tomorrow with the institutional resources and potential of today. As A. Astin and H. Astin (2000) suggested, transformational change must involve the leadership of the organization. I sought to examine how the role of the president was involved in the change process by examining the following three questions: 1. What roles do presidents of small, liberal arts colleges play during a period of institutional transformation? 95 2. How do presidents select the roles that they play throughout the institutional transformation? 3. Do these roles change as the period of transformation occurs? If so, why and how? To address these research questions, this study was conducted as a qualitative study, using a multi-site case-study strategy (Stake, 2000). I used purposeful sampling to identify two institutions that were at least 5 years into their transformation as sustainable campuses and met my criteria for small, independent colleges. I conducted interviews with the presidents of each institution, in addition to interviewing executive level administrators, faculty, and staff involved in the sustainability transformation on campus. I reviewed pertinent documents, including public speeches, strategic planning materials, and historical documents. I conducted data coding and analysis for each individual case before conducting cross-case analyses to determine patterns and themes. The Conceptual Framework Revisited This dissertation was designed to answer three research questions concerning what roles presidents play during organizational change, how they select those roles, and how those roles change over time. I used Rogers’s (2003) diffusion of innovation model as a way to examine the change process in each case. Rogers’s model includes five stages: knowledge, where the organization becomes aware of the change and begins to understand what the change is; ersuasion, in which the organization develops a favorable or unfavorable opinion toward the change; decision, during which the organization chooses to adopt or reject the change; implementation, when the change is carried out; and confirmation, when the organization evaluates the results of the change to determine a continued course of action. 96 Using Rogers’ model to view change on each campus, I then examined how each president experienced the roles throughout the change process. This study was grounded in Mintzberg’s (1979) system of managerial roles. Mintzberg presented 10 different roles for managers, in three subsets. The informational subset included monitor, disseminator, and spokesperson roles. The role of monitor actively seeks out information from the organization and surrounding community to maintain relevance and improvement. The disseminator role communicates pertinent information to members of the organization, and the spokesperson represents the organization and its interests to the broader audience or community. The decisional roles included entrepreneur, negotiator, disturbance handler, and resource allocator. The entrepreneur seeks out opportunities for the organization, creating and managing change within the organization given those opportunities. The negotiator facilitates conversations and negotiations among various factions of the organization or among the organization and external parties. The role of disturbance handler manages any obstacles for the organization and facilitates corrective action. Finally, the resource allocator prioritizes and applies human and fiscal resources to determined efforts. The final group of roles within the interpersonal arena included figurehead, leader, and liaison. The figurehead serves a symbolic and ceremonial function, all while inspiring and motivating the organization. The leader is responsible for personnel, in selecting and training staff, and managing priorities and performance. The role of liaison is the networker, managing communication among all contacts pertinent to the organization. As I described at the end of each of Chapters Four and Five, from the perspective of the conceptual framework, the presidents indeed performed a variety of roles throughout the change processes; however, neither president demonstrated any cognizance of the variety of roles they 97 assumed. What was evident to the presidents and the members of their campuses was the overarching personality of each president. They perceived this persona in a general sense, but the more analytical attention that I have been able to bring establishes that such a persona becomes more nuanced than Mintzberg’s specific roles throughout the change process. Through his persona as a narrator, Durden used the role as a disseminator to tell the story of Benjamin Rush to the various audiences on Dickinson’s campus, convincing them of the revolutionary spirit of the college. In his persona as a leader of conviction, Shinn used the role as a disseminator more to call people to action from his pulpit of sustainability. Though both demonstrated the same role, both leaders expressed those roles through the lens of their persona. By examining each leader in light of Mintzberg’s roles, I was able to see the overarching persona that framed the leadership of each president. The benefit of drawing upon a previously defined set of roles proved valuable to use in combination with the self-ascribed definitions that both the presidents and their campus members identified. However, although helpful in providing a unique set of roles not identified or considered by the participants of the study, Mintzberg’s roles were somewhat limiting in how they isolated certain components of typically collaborative behavior. For example, communicating with internal organizational members would be behavior categorized within the disseminator role, but may also be considered part of the negotiator and spokesperson roles. Additionally, the role of resource allocator may align more with corporate settings, in which budgets and profits may be reallocated as needed. However, within the higher education setting, fundraising for new funds is more typical of resource-getting behavior by institutional leadership, as was evidenced by both Durden and Shinn securing major grants to help in the establishment of their academic centers for sustainability. 98 Using Rogers’s (2003) stages of innovation diffusion proved beneficial in providing a lens through which to examine the progression of a change process. The stages were clear and concise enough to provide ample examination of the entire process, from the initial exposure to the change to the actions and reactions of the organization throughout the process. However, Rogers was limiting in how the linear model did not represent the often-circuitous nature of a change process. After gaining initial buy-in from the faculty and administration on campus, Durden had to revisit the persuasion stage to engage students in understanding the need for adding sustainability to the already globally minded campus. Furthermore, Shinn moved the campus into the implementation stage of much of the renovations on campus, but he needed to return to persuasion on whether to slow the EcoVillage project to consider sustainable alternatives. Using a change model that considers the non-linear nature of change may provide a more in-depth understanding of how leadership engages in the rather messy process of transformation. Contributions of this Study Applying the conceptual framework to the case studies to address the research questions helped me to characterize patterns of how presidents perform their roles during organizational change. The patterns that emerged included the idea of an overarching persona guiding presidents, that presidents were like to rely on that persona rather than simply select a role, that the interplay of the persona with the stages was influential in determining the role played, that themes emerged from which roles were used, and that certain roles were less dominant in the process. The Presidential Persona 99 As I discussed at the ends of Chapters Four and Five, each president had an overarching persona. A central perspective or personality that pervaded all roles and was central throughout all stages of the change process. The way of being a president, this persona, was different for each president but was significant for both leaders. Each president acknowledged their persona as a critical part of the role they played throughout the change process, and the campus members also identified these presidential personas. For Durden, his overarching persona was that of a narrator (Figure 6.1), while for Shinn, his overarching persona was that of a leader of conviction (Figure 6.2). Durden indicated the responsibility of the president of Dickinson College was to tell the story of the college. He discussed how he focused on creating a “narrative of urgency” (Durden, personal communication, 2010) to push the sustainability agenda. Durden also developed a narrative around Benjamin Rush, the oft forgotten founder of the college. Throughout all stages of the change process, Durden’s persona as a narrator was evident, whether in researching the story of Dickinson College during the knowledge stage or serving as the protagonist of the story during implementation. Additionally, the persona of narrator could be seen in Durden’s more significant roles, from creating the story of the revolutionary college as an entrepreneur to sharing the story with campus members as a disseminator. The persona of narrator was a strong influence for Durden throughout the entire change process. Figure 6.1 highlights three meaningful occurrences in the course of Durden’s leadership of the change process. First, the strength with which Durden played the role of monitor during the knowledge and persuasion is related to the effort Durden placed in determining Dickinson’s distinctiveness as an institution. He did his research on Dickinson. Although this role was done in collaboration with other members of his administrative staff, he was an active agent in culling 100 and defining the uniqueness of the college. Second, during persuasion, Durden’s development of the story of Benjamin Rush was a symbolic representation of the story of Dickinson College. Durden shared this story in his figurehead role as a way to help people identify the changes of the campus with the intents of the institution. He used the symbolic representative of the campus, Benjamin Rush, as a way to aid campus members to give meaning to the change process. Third, Durden’s active involvement in facilitating the understanding of the faculty and students as a negotiator, and sometimes as a disturbance handler, in both the decision and implementation stages, was truly the denouement of the story he had created. Durden attended to the resistance of students while developing faculty competence and understanding of how sustainability fit into the broader curriculum. These three episodes demonstrate Durden’s balance of both active and symbolic engagement as a narrator of the story of Dickinson College. For Shinn, the overarching persona of being a leader of conviction was evident in his passion for sustainability throughout the change process and even before coming to Berea College. Shinn and several campus members referred to Shinn’s accomplishment of building a first solar home in Ohio. While at Berea, Shinn’s persona of conviction was seen in his attention to details regarding sustainable renovations and maintenance of campus. During the change process, the persona of conviction was seen in how Shinn spoke of sustainability as a “moral imperative” in trying to raise awareness during the knowledge stage and convincing the campus of the need for change in the persuasion stage. Additionally, Shinn’s persona of conviction was evident in how he orchestrated sustainable renovations and construction as an entrepreneur and how he spoke of Berea’s sustainability accomplishments to the broader community as a spokesperson. Through all stages of the change process, Shinn demonstrated the persona 101 Figure 6.1. 102 Figure 6.2. 103 of conviction, his commitment to sustainability. Figure 6.2 highlights several incidents that show Shinn’s leadership throughout the change process at Berea College. First, both during knowledge and implementation, Shinn played an active role in developing new ideas of how sustainability would be realized at Berea. He did this through his own knowledge and passion for sustainability in the entrepreneur role. Second, during persuasion, Shinn demonstrated adeptness at communicating the sustainability needs of campus as both a spokesperson and disseminator. His conviction for developing a sustainable campus led him to a passionate call to action, often verging on preaching. Third, his commitment to sustainability was evident in how attentive he was to the results of his policy decisions and the efforts of campus members to make sustainability happen. During both implementation and confirmation, he was mindful of the legacy which he would leave the campus, as he played monitor of how sustainability had been integrated into the campus. Although Shinn exemplified symbolic leadership in connecting the sustainability efforts to the mission of the college, he demonstrated a stronger tendency toward agent leadership in the active role he played in overseeing the various elements of sustainable changes, through his knowledge of sustainable construction, through his attention to sustainable policy implementation, and through his budgeting for sustainable innovation. All of these experiences demonstrated the conviction for environmental sustainability with which Shinn led the campus through the change process. From the presidents and the members of each campus, these overarching personas were more readily identified than any specific role from Mintzberg’s (1979) model. The personae were viewed as consistent throughout the entire process. Despite the transitioning of change 104 stages or the variation in roles used throughout the process, these overarching personae were seen as constants in the change process. While I expected that the presidency would be defined by different roles, what I found was that the overarching personae were what the president and the campus associated with the position of the president throughout the change process. Each president and the members of the respective campuses were more likely to identify the persona of each president as more salient than the roles that Mintzberg used to define managerial roles. This overarching persona played a significant part for both presidents during the change process. Presidential Role Selection Although the particular persona of each president was significant; nevertheless, specific functions performed by each president throughout the change process could be characterized as pertaining to Mintzberg’s roles. However, the way these leadership roles were expressed was heavily influenced by the overarching persona. The second research question asked how the presidents selected their roles, and my conclusion is they did not intentionally select them at all. Rather, they adjusted their overarching persona to each stage. Again, I was imposing Rogers’s stages to better examine the roles in the course of organizational change. The presidents were actually engaging their persona in reaction to the stages. Their sense of the role of the president, expressed as the overarching persona, was quite sophisticated and nuanced. It was adaptable. The presidents were not performing the same thing all the time, but they were relying on the same overarching persona all the time. Shinn playing the disseminator role was quite different from Durden playing the disseminator role because those roles were influenced by the presidents’ overarching personas of conviction and narrator, respectively. 105 If we consider how each president enacted the same role, we can see the influence of the overarching persona of each president. Both presidents employed the entrepreneur role at various times during the change process. Durden, with his persona as a narrator, enacted the entrepreneur role through sharing ideas of his narrative and engaging others in the story of sustainability. Shinn, as a leader of conviction, engaged his persona in the entrepreneur role through his willingness to orchestrate renovations, based on his commitment and knowledge of sustainable construction, and his use of administrative power to make the decision to move forward on the renovation. The overarching persona of each leader was so strong that it guided their actions through the various roles demanded by situations while they were not thinking about roles. They each worked within the frame of their overarching persona. There was a sensitivity to their enactment that led them each to adjust as the process went on. The reason I may not have seen clearly how they selected the roles was that the guiding principle for each president was their commitment to the overarching persona as president. The case studies show us that the each president expressed different roles through the frame of their overarching persona. Each of them was aware of his overarching persona, and as they enacted these personas, different roles emerged in response to the stages. These personas were not enacted in the same way throughout the entire change process. They were expressed in different ways, depending on the need for different roles. Mintzberg’s roles were relevant to the functions the leaders performed, but I found no indication they were aware of those roles emerging. Persona and Stage Interaction 106 At the end of each case, I concluded that the roles were not as important as the overarching persona of each president and that the president interacted with the stages of the change from the perspective of his persona. This interaction of the persona with the stage of the change process influenced what role was used by the president at any specific time. Durden’s persona as a narrator resulted in different influences on the stages of the change than Shinn’s persona as a leader of conviction. In considering Durden’s persona as a narrator in relation to the Mintzberg roles demonstrated throughout the process, the following demonstrates the persona’s interaction with the stages of the change process. In knowledge, Durden developed the narrative, researching the strengths of the organization to determine Dickinson’s distinctiveness. He used the monitor role to assess the campus’s strengths. In persuasion, Durden developed a “narrative of urgency” around sustainability and expressed the disseminator role in communicating with campus. Durden sought to convince the students of the need for sustainable change, placed himself in the protagonist role with the students, and moved into the disturbance handler role in addressing their concerns at the town hall meeting. In routinely managing the pluralism of the faculty, Durden sought to engage them in the narrative of the change, regularly calling on the negotiator role to develop their understanding of the narrative. Finally, as more students were drawn to Dickinson’s commitment to sustainability in confirmation, Durden saw the narrative of the campus changing and drew upon the monitor role again. For Shinn, his persona of conviction demonstrated his commitment to sustainability through all of the stages of the change. When first faced with the mountain of deferred maintenance on campus in the knowledge stage, Shinn’s conviction for sustainability resulted in his use of the entrepreneur role to consider innovative and sustainable renovations. As a leader 107 of conviction trying to convince the faculty of the need for change in persuasion, Shinn sought a grant to support an academic component in sustainability, employing the resource allocator role. As Berea moved into the confirmation stage, Shinn maintained his commitment to maintaining campus effectiveness regarding sustainability and expressed the monitor role to continually assess the campus’s progress. Throughout the change process, Shinn’s persona as a leader of conviction interacted with the stages of the change to influence the roles used. Effective Leadership of Managing Meaning As discussed in the literature review, “effective leadership rests heavily on the framing of the experience for others,” directing action as to what should transpire for the organization (Smircich & Morgan, 1982, p. 62). Both presidents navigated between symbolic and active leadership through the lens of their personas to manage the meaning of the change for their respective campuses. For Durden, his use of Benjamin Rush as an illustration helped the campus identify with the innovative nature of Dickinson. To identify a campus understanding of how sustainability fit into what it meant to be a Dickinsonian, Durden engaged the history of the campus in his narrative of the greening of campus. However, in addition to his symbolic framing of the experience of campus, Durden served with agency by conducting an organizational assessment of the distinctiveness of Dickinson, managing the dissent from the students, and developing the faculty to contribute to a new type of curriculum on campus. This sensemaking was not achieved in isolation. Durden enlisted his senior staff on a regular basis. He relied on his vice president of operations for the innovation of the facilities on campus. His vice president was integral in providing transparency of the budget process to justify the need for adjusting resources, such as laundry and printing quotas, as well as significant adjustments to campus energy policy. Furthermore, Durden’s partnership with his 108 provost was instrumental in fostering the pluralism of the faculty in developing new interdisciplinary curriculum around sustainability. Although never recognized as problematic, there was no mention of any partnership between Durden’s initiatives and the Student Life department. This lack of a strong collaboration may have enabled the initial resistance of students. At Berea College, the management of meaning by Shinn was closely tied with his own passion for developing a sustainable campus. His framing of the need for sustainability as a moral imperative demonstrated his conviction that the campus needed to seek drastic measures for transformation. Although likely to serve as the symbolic spokesperson for the campus’s accomplishments, Shinn relied more regularly on an active role in seeking sustainable measures for campus. He was contributory in the planning, coordination, and implementation of much of the renovation to campus. In seeking ways to incorporate sustainability in Berea’s campus, Shinn readily engaged off-campus partners, whether the board of trustees or the design firms hired for the sustainable renovations. Shinn was also engaged with the select group of students interested in sustainability. However, rather than partnering with his vice presidents in helping to define the role of sustainability on campus, Shinn was more likely to directly engage campus members through his involvement on campus committees or through communication directly with members of the college. Durden may have relied more readily on the symbolic context of Dickinson’s history, while Shinn was a more active agent in transforming the physical campus of Berea; however, both presidents incorporated a balance between symbolic and agent leadership in facilitating their campuses’ understanding of the new campus environment being created as part of their 109 change processes. The flexibility between the symbolic and agent forms of leadership allowed both presidents to navigate the complex nature of managing the sensemaking for multiple layers of organizational members throughout the change process. The Change Changes the Sensemaking As discussed in Chapter Two, the change process itself experiences significant shifts and the organization experiencing the change process experiences multiple variations of itself throughout a transformation process. As Gioia and Thomas (1996) posited, for “substantive change to occur, some basic features of identity must change” (p. 394). For Dickinson College, the institution moved from an internationally focused campus to one that was trying to identify its strengths in environmental sustainability to an institution engaged in both global and sustainable development. At Berea College, the college moved from a campus filled with deferred maintenance to one transforming its physical plant to one that was looking for the next step in innovating around sustainability. The transformations did not simply involve a prechange organization and a post-change organization. There are many variations of the institution throughout the change process. Likewise, the composition of both campuses’ populations shifted to include pockets of people who were interested, resistant, or engaged in sustainability. What this study demonstrated was that during the “fluid and malleable” identity of the organization (Gioia & Thomas, 1996), the leadership guided the attention of the organization (Smircich & Morgan, 1996) not through any specific role, but through the consistency of their personae, Durden in his creation of the story around Dickinson and Shinn through the moral conviction of sustainability, both created a focus for the creation of meaning for each campus. Noteworthy Roles 110 Although the overarching persona was a significant theme, additional insight was revealed by using Mintzberg (1979) to examine the change process. Each president used the roles of monitor and disseminator. The role of resource allocator was salient for both presidents during the persuasion and implementation stages. All ten roles were used during the implementation stage. The only two roles that were present for both presidents throughout the entire process were those of monitor and disseminator. Communication and information management proved an ongoing requirement for the presidents, both in seeking feedback and in sharing information with their constituents. The presidents not only demonstrated these roles throughout the change process, but both roles were often the most noted of roles during several of the stages of the transformation. Whether for new presidents or for experienced professionals, understanding that certain roles have unique places within the change process can reduce some of the unknown involved in a change process. The importance of the monitor role is in line with Heifertz’ (1994) emphasis on leaders stepping “out on the balcony” to gain outside perspective on their organizations. During organizational change, presidents are well served to be in a constant state of learning about their organization and to seek feedback on the change process. Additionally, the weight of the disseminator role underlines the importance of using both formal and informal communication channels with the internal members of the organization. This substantiates what Eddy (2003) found as the need for multiple levels of framing during change, along with the prominence that many researchers have put on communication with internal members to reduce uncertainty during change (Berger & Calabrese, 1975; Eisenberg & Riley, 1988; Feldman & March, 1981; Lewis, 1999; Lewis & Seibold, 1998). 111 The role of resource allocator was prevalent for both presidents during the persuasion and implementation stages. When convincing an institution of the need for an organizational change, resources are required to seed the potential of what the change might include if adopted. During the persuasion stage, presidents need to commit resources and personnel to demonstrate early success in convincing organizational members of the value of the change. The persuasion stage includes allocation of new resources to support new priorities. After the commitment of the organization to move forward with the change process (decision), implementation requires additional resource allocations. At the point of implementation, a higher level of commitment of resources is necessary to substantiate the decision to move forward and to ensure the change is accomplished. For any president entering a change process or initiating a change, understanding when resources will be in greater demand will help appreciably with planning and fundraising. Additionally, both presidents employed every one of the ten roles during implementation. Although the presidents performed a variety and several combinations of roles at various times throughout the process, implementation was the only stage in which all roles were demonstrated. Implementation demanded the most of the presidents, involving them in all levels of personnel and resource management, decision-making, and information administration; therefore, the use of all roles was logical but noteworthy, given that they happened for both presidents, who expressed different personas. Presidents planning for the implementation of a change process should account for the energy and skills set required of the implementation stage. Moreover, presidents less proficient in certain stages would benefit from understanding the members of their cabinet who might best serve as a surrogate in those roles. Using Mintzberg to examine the change process provided a more defined understanding of not just the 112 roles themselves, but their unique interplay within certain stages in the process. Using Mintzberg to understand the change process can also help to identify vice presidents and other staff to best complement the president or to identify hiring needs for senior staff. Also notable were the roles that received little to no use by both presidents. The roles of liaison and leader were infrequently demonstrated by the presidents. These roles are more likely to be seen in everyday management functions: personnel management of the presidents’ offices, staying abreast of current research in higher education, connecting with other executive level professionals, and so on. Potentially, both of these roles were performed by each president with more regularity but were not seen by either the presidents or organizational members as uniquely associated with the process of transforming the campuses into sustainable entities. The Influence of Institutional Type Breneman (1990) argued that liberal arts colleges were evolving to meet the needs of a new economy and new demands on graduates. Sustainability is certainly part of the changing economy. The demands on our natural resources and the influence of conservation on corporate and non-profit organizations are demanding a new kind of graduate, one who is globally and environmentally minded. Institutions such as Dickinson and Berea are developing this new type of citizenry. Baker, Baldwin, and Makker (2012), in revisiting Breneman’s work, emphasized the need to preserve the “test kitchen for innovation in undergraduate education” that is the liberal arts college (p. 49). In the close-knit communities, small classrooms, and interdisciplinary curriculum of liberal arts colleges (Spellman, 2009), environmental problemsolving and critical analysis can be fostered, no matter the academic discipline. With its heavy emphasis on undergraduate education and student development (Breneman, 1990), liberal arts colleges are uniquely positioned to engage sustainability in a 113 manner that reaches the majority of its populace. From this study, we saw that both Durden and Shinn sought to incorporate sustainability into the central missions of the institutions, created centers that integrated sustainability into the curricula of the colleges, and encouraged and directed significant changes to the physical plant functioning of their campuses to increase sustainability. These changes dramatically influenced the physical community for students, the academic environment, and the overall intent of the education within their colleges. Positioning the Study This study offers additional insight into the role that college presidents play during organizational transformation. Considering how this study relates to other literature in organizational change, sustainability, and college leadership is important in developing our understanding of the field of higher education. The following presents a look at how this study contributes to the growing body of literature in these areas. Kezar (2007) examined the leadership strategies used at different phases of institutionalizing a diversity agenda. Corresponding with this study, Kezar suggested that presidents are best served by being methodical with what strategies they select. I also identified a need for attention to the stage at which specific roles are employed, given that the interaction of the stage of the change process with the overarching persona of the president influenced the role selection. Additionally, certain roles were more prevalent in specific stages of the change process. The role of resource allocator was more readily used during persuasion and implementation, and all ten roles were used during the implementation stage. Presidents should be aware when a strategy is being employed and what strategy or role is being used during the change process. 114 Additionally, just as Kezar emphasized the need for the president to support organizational learning when managing a complex issue such as diversity, my study underscores the feedback seeking and communication (monitor and disseminator) needed to manage issues of sustainability throughout the process. Maintaining that feedback loop throughout the entire process can improve a president’s understanding of the organizational culture and challenges. However, whereas Kezar (2007) examined the institutionalization process solely from the perspective of the presidents at distinct stages of the process, my study considers the perspective of other organizational members, as well as a consideration of roles played by the presidents as observed by an outside researcher. Additionally, Kezar’s work focused on several institutions that were at specific stages of the institutionalization process, but did not assess strategies employed by an individual institution over the course of the change process. My study found that the way that presidents enact their personas varies across the stages of change. Without considering the entire process for each institution, I would have limited my understanding of university presidents to the framework offered solely by Mintzberg and would have neglected the theme that emerged around the president’s overarching persona. Given the similarities and differences in what these two studies offer, several questions should be considered for future research. Does the overarching persona of the president affect the institutionalization of the change? Kezar (2007) examined presidents at a particular phase in the process, rather than presidents over the course of the change process. At the time, my study concluded, both presidents were preparing to step down from their presidencies to make way for new leadership. Such an opportunity would allow examination of how the persona of a 115 particular president influences the durability of changes enacted after that individual leaves the campus. The institutionalization a diversity agenda or the development of a culture of sustainability both represent complex transformations. Would transforming a campus’s general education curriculum yield the same conclusions about the importance of the president’s persona and the ways in which different roles are enacted through a president’s persona? If Mintzberg (1979) and Rogers (2003) were applied to a diversity agenda, would the findings be similar? Or does the content of the transformation bring its own influence to the change process? In evaluating the expanse of leadership taxonomies, Yukl (2012) suggested that future research needs to unveil how “a leader’s skills and personality traits influence the choice of behaviors and leader flexibility in adapting behavior to different situations” (p. 77). This study can offer additional insight into how university leaders advocate and envision change through the management of meaning as expressed by their overarching personas. Additionally, this study offers further insight into how university presidents encouraged innovation through their roles as entrepreneurs and negotiators at their institutions. Yukl (2012) also suggests that how leadership facilitates collective learning be considered in regard to change-oriented behaviors. Although I discussed the partnerships that each president had with his senior staff, this area could be explored more to determine how these collaborations aid organizational learning around change. This study did align with Yukl’s assertion that situational variables need to be considered together rather than individually. Examining each of Mintzberg’s roles individually did not prove as informational as considering how those roles engaged with the stages of the change process and the persona of the presidents. 116 Recommendations I offer the following recommendations for practice based on the understanding gained through this study in how the persona of the presidents during organizational change had significant bearing on the interplay of the stages of change and the roles the presidents play during change. The following recommendations are directed to college presidents entering a change process and committees charged with selecting a president. For the President of Change Understanding that certain roles retain a more notable place during the change process is important; but understanding who you are as a president and how you approach the job is the more imperative focus. What is the central tenet of the president’s persona and how does he or she approach being president? This persona will influence how a president engages with the stages of the change process and what roles are used in the process. Presidents would be well served to develop a strong grasp of their ways of being a president to best understand the influence their persona will have over all other roles necessitated in change. College presidents are seen as mere fundraisers with more and more regularity. However, this study shows that resource allocation may be focused more in the persuasion and implementation stages of a change process. Understanding that fundraising may be more necessary while convincing the campus of change; actually implementing a change process will allow a president to focus his or her efforts in the planning of a change. Additionally, understanding that both monitoring and disseminating information to your organization will be crucial roles throughout the entire change process will assist in managing the change process. It will be helpful for presidents to establish methods for receiving feedback from the organizational members and communicating the change process to the organization. 117 Understanding the pivotal function of the overarching persona and the importance of specific roles within the change process will help college presidents entering an institution in the middle of change or embarking on a change process at their institution. Identifying senior staff members who are able to complement the president’s persona will also prove valuable. These senior staff members are essential in aiding the sensemaking of the organizational members, especially in light of the fluidity of the organization throughout the change process. For the president to development the partnerships with senior administrators and develop their proficiency in some of these roles is a way to capitalize on the strengths of the senior administrative team during the change process. For the Selection of Presidents For those in a position to select presidents, this study can offer additional considerations relevant to how best to choose a president fitting the needs of the institution. A selection committee can benefit from considering what stage the organization is in during any ongoing or planned change process, whether the candidate for president has a strong understanding of his or her own persona and how that would influence the change process, and if the candidates are ready for the demands of the roles required at the current and future stages of the change process. Given the importance of the overarching persona of each president found in this study, selection committees should identify candidates who demonstrate a strong sense of their own persona in approaching the position of presidency. Confidence in this persona would allow candidates to more readily interact with the stages of a change process and to determine the necessary roles they might use as presidents. 118 Understanding the difference between the candidate’s persona and skills in a given role will allow selection committees to more appropriately select a candidate that best fits a given change process and the institution for the long term. Personae and roles may be important if the campus is in the midst of change, but the persona may have a longer influence on campus. Understanding the interplay of roles, stages, and personas will help search committees as they make decisions appropriate for a particular campus. For Campuses Pursuing Sustainability This study provides a benchmarking opportunity for campuses considering a sustainable transformation. Examining Dickinson and Berea, which approached sustainability differently, can prove valuable in guiding novice campuses through the process. However, this study also provides other campus administrators a look at the important influence that the president can have on the process. The role of the president’s persona could be used to encourage sustainability. Presidents who have a data-driven persona may promote the change based on the evidence of energy reduction. Presidents with a student advocacy persona may engage in campus sustainability through the innovations of student projects. Campuses considering sustainability measures should look beyond simply what administrative power the president has but also consider what influence the president’s persona in developing the story of a sustainable campus, engaging campus and community members in the process, or encouraging the momentum of the change. For liberal arts colleges, the emphasis on undergraduate education and mission-driven practice can be an asset in the developing a sense of purpose and urgency around change. The trust granted the faculty and institution as a whole in the liberal arts setting by the president (Astin, 2000) grants them a certain amount of independence in exploring innovative practice. 119 This freedom to experiment (Baker, Baldwin, & Makker, 2012) may grant leadership at liberal arts colleges more leeway in managing change. For larger, comprehensive and research institutions, as well as for community colleges, the addition of various stakeholder groups (funding agencies, community governing bodies, professional licensing bodies, etc.) can potentially limit the ability to innovate. Experimentation and transformation may be easier to accomplish on a smaller scale within units of the institution. However, I hypothesize that the importance of the president’s persona would still resonate in how meaning is managed for the entire institution. Conclusion I have offered an exploration of the role of university presidents during organizational change. I have presented a qualitative study that used a multi-site case study to examine what roles presidents play during the organizational change process, how those roles were enacted, and whether the roles changed over the course of the transformational process. I found that presidents play a variety of roles in the change process, but noteworthy is the overarching persona with which a president approaches his or her position. This awareness serves as a stronger influence than specific knowledge of each role they may have expressed in various stages of the process. I offer the results of this study in the hopes that presidents of college campuses, selection committees who appoint them, and campuses considering transformational change processes might gain a better understanding of the intricacies involved with the roles and stages in organizational change. 120 APPENDICES 121 APPENDIX A E-MAIL TO PROVOSTS/VICE PRESIDENTS OF ADMINISTRATION Dear [Senior Administrator]: My name is Niki Rudolph, and I am a doctoral student in the Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education (HALE) program at Michigan State University, working under the supervision of Dr. Ann Austin. I am writing to ask if you would be interested in having your campus serve as a case study for my dissertation research on presidential roles during organizational change. For the purposes of this study, I am seeking to understand how the role of the president changes throughout institutional efforts to create a more environmentally sustainable campus at small, liberal arts colleges. In reviewing several organizational reports and rankings of colleges and universities that have created more sustainable campuses, your institution has been recognized as a leader in sustainable efforts. I would appreciate the opportunity to conduct my study on your campus. In order to achieve a depth of understanding about the topic, I intend to conduct a multi-case study, including review of relevant materials, such as strategic plans, admissions material, campus communications, alumni newsletter, etc. I am seeking to interview college administrators and faculty who have been engaged in the decision-making and development of sustainable practices. I intend to conduct one interview with each willing participant, and each interview will last approximately 60 minutes, depending on the length of the responses. The interview questions will focus on understanding the process of becoming a more sustainable campus and the roles that the president(s) have played in that effort. I would appreciate the opportunity to discuss this project with you in further detail. If you have any initial questions, please do not hesitate to contact me at nrudolph@msu.edu or 517.432.7715. I would like to follow this letter up with a phone conversation to answer any of your questions, to discuss your willingness to have your campus participate, and to provide any additional information you might need to make this decision. I look forward to our conversation, and I appreciate your time and attention to this request. Sincerely, Niki J. Rudolph Doctoral Candidate, College of Education Assistant Director, Undergraduate Student Affairs, College of Communication Arts & Sciences Michigan State University 122 APPENDIX B E-MAIL TO PARTICIPANTS Dear [Potential Participant]: My name is Niki Rudolph, and I am a doctoral student in the Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education (HALE) program at Michigan State University. My dissertation research seeks to understand presidential roles during organizational change. For the purposes of this study, I am seeking to understand how the role of the president changes throughout institutional efforts to create a more environmentally sustainable campus at small, liberal arts colleges. I have received initial approval to conduct this study on your campus from President Shinn. Because of your connection with Berea College in creating a more sustainable campus, I would like to invite you to be a participant in my study. In order to achieve a depth of understanding about the topic, I intend to conduct a multi-case study, including review of relevant materials, such as strategic plans, admissions material, campus communications, alumni newsletters, etc. I am seeking to interview college administrators and faculty who have been engaged in the decision-making and development of sustainable practices. Each interview will last approximately 60 minutes, depending on the length of your responses. The interview questions will focus on understanding the process of becoming a more sustainable campus and the roles that the president(s) have played in that effort. If you would be willing to meet with me for an interview, please respond to this email so that we may schedule a convenient time to meet. Please do not hesitate to contact me at nrudolph@msu.edu or 517.432.7715, if you have any additional questions regarding the study. I look forward to meeting you, and I appreciate your time and attention to this request. Sincerely, Niki J. Rudolph Doctoral Candidate, College of Education Assistant Director, Undergraduate Student Affairs, College of Communication Arts & Sciences Michigan State University 123 APPENDIX C INFORMED CONSENT FORM FOR IDENTIFIED PARTICIPANTS Study of President Roles during Organizational Change Study Description: You are invited to participate in a research project that examines the roles that college and university presidents play during the course of an organizational change. Specifically, the study focuses on small, liberal arts colleges that are engaged in institutional efforts to create an environmentally sustainable campus. My goal is to better understand the role of the president as the change process develops. Procedures: I am requesting that you participate in a 45-60 minute interview. I will ask you about the institution’s efforts to become more sustainable and your understanding of the development and implementation of those efforts. With your permission, I will audio-record the interview. Your signature below indicates your voluntary agreement to participate in this research project as well as permission to be audio-recorded. Risk and Benefits: The risks you may incur by participating in this study are minimal. One of the benefits of the study is that it will improve our understanding of how change is implemented at institutions of higher education. The results will help administrators assess and evaluate their role within a change process. Payment: You will receive no monetary compensation for participating in this study. Subject’s Rights: Your participation in this study is voluntary, and you have the right to withdraw your consent or discontinue participation at any time without penalty. You have the right to refuse to answer particular questions. Reports from this study may indicate your name, position, and institution. If you agree to participate in this research, your confidentiality cannot be protected due to your position at this institution. Even when your name is not used in reports or publications from this study, it may be possible to identify you based on your role at your institution If you have any questions or concerns about your role and rights as a research participant, would like to obtain information or offer input, or would like to register a complaint about this research study, you may contact, anonymously if you wish, the Michigan State University Human Research Protection Program at 517-355-2180, FAX 517-432-4503, or e-mail irb@msu.edu, or regular mail at: 207 Olds Hall, MSU, East Lansing, MI 48824. If you have concerns or questions about this study, such as scientific issues, hot to do any part of it, or to report an injury, please contact: Niki Rudolph, 189 Communication Arts & Sciences, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, 517-432-7715, nrudolph@msu.edu or Dr. Ann Austin, Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education, 417 Erickson Hall, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, 517-355-6757, aaustin@msu.edu. 124 □ I voluntarily agree to participate in this study. □ □ I voluntarily agree to be audio-recorded. □ Signature Date The additional copy is for you to keep. 125 APPENDIX D INFORMED CONSENT FORM FOR NON-IDENTIFIED PARTICIPANTS Study of President Roles during Organizational Change Study Description: You are invited to participate in a research project that examines the roles that college and university presidents play during the course of an organizational change. Specifically, the study focuses on small, liberal arts colleges that are engaged in institutional efforts to create an environmentally sustainable campus. My goal is to better understand the role of the president as the change process develops. Procedures: I am requesting that you participate in a 50 minute interview. I will ask you about the institution’s efforts to become more sustainable and your understanding of the development and implementation of those efforts. With your permission, I will audio-record the interview. Your signature below indicates your voluntary agreement to participate in this research project as well as permission to be audio-recorded. Risk and Benefits: The risks you may incur by participating in this study are minimal. One of the benefits of the study is that it will improve our understanding of how change is implemented at institutions of higher education. The results will help administrators assess and evaluate their role within a change process. Payment: You will receive no monetary compensation for participating in this study. Subject’s Rights: Your participation in this study is voluntary, and you have the right to withdraw your consent or discontinue participation at any time without penalty. You have the right to refuse to answer particular questions. Your confidentiality will be protected to the maximum extent allowable by law. The data will be reported in aggregate and a short summary will be provided to participating institutions. Data will be stored in a safe, locked location for three years, accessible only to the researchers (and Michigan State’s Institutional Review Board for auditing purposes). If you have any questions or concerns about your role and rights as a research participant, would like to obtain information or offer input, or would like to register a complaint about this research study, you may contact, anonymously if you wish, the Michigan State University Human Research Protection Program at 517-355-2180, FAX 517-432-4503, or e-mail irb@msu.edu, or regular mail at: 207 Olds Hall, MSU, East Lansing, MI 48824. If you have concerns or questions about this study, such as scientific issues, hot to do any part of it, or to report an injury, please contact: Niki Rudolph, 189 Communication Arts & Sciences, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, 517-432-7715, nrudolph@msu.edu or Dr. Ann Austin, Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education, 417 Erickson Hall, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, 517-355-6757, aaustin@msu.edu. 126 □ I voluntarily agree to participate in this study. □ □ I voluntarily agree to be audio-recorded. □ □ I agree to be contacted again regarding use of specific quotations attributed to me in a final □ report. Signature Date The additional copy is for you to keep. 127 APPENDIX E INTERVIEW PROTOCOL [Note: This protocol outlines the basic questions that will direct interviews conducted with institutional leaders and faculty members. However, the interviews will be managed as conversations, and therefore, the interviews may include follow-up questions that naturally evolve from the conversation.] Opening Comments: This campus has made a concerted effort to become a more sustainable campus, through its various programs and policy developments. This interview will focus on your perceptions of the role that the president has played during that process. Interview Questions: 1. Tell me about the sustainability efforts on campus. What prompted interest sustainability? What were factors that lead campus to make the commitment to these efforts? 2. When did you become aware of the efforts to become a more sustainable campus? What was your response at the beginning? What was the response from the campus at the beginning? 3. How aware are campus members of the different efforts to be more sustainable? To what extent is campus engaged in implementation of the efforts? What has been your involvement? 4. What has persuaded people to participate in the various efforts? 128 For those who did not participate, what do you believe was their reason? 5. What obstacles have arisen during the efforts? 6. What significant events have occurred throughout the efforts? 7. What is the current focus of making the campus more sustainable? What do you see as the future direction of the sustainability efforts? 8. What role has the president played in communication regarding the sustainability efforts? 9. How has the president initiated improvements to the programs? What role has he played in distributing resources for the sustainability efforts? How has he been involved in decision making regarding the efforts? 10. To what extent has the president assessed the campus response to the sustainability efforts? How has he/she handled resistance to the efforts? 11. Are there any other observations you have about the sustainability efforts on campus? 129 APPENDIX F DOCUMENT SUMMARY FORM Title of the document: Source of the document: Date acquired: Summary of the content of the document: Transcription of the document? Yes No Electronic version (PDF) of the document? Yes No If Yes, electronic file saved under the following file name: 130 APPENDIX G PARTICIPANT SUMMARY FORM Reference Code: Date of interview: Summary of interview: Interview transcribed? Yes Date: Transcription coded? Yes Date: 131 REFERENCES 132 REFERENCES Amey, M., VanDerLinden, K., & Brown, D. (2002). Perspectives on community college leadership: Twenty years in the making. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 26(7), 573–589. Asquith, C. (2007). Going green equals good business. Diverse Issues in Higher Education, 24(6), 14–16. Astin, A, & Astin, H. (2000). Leadership reconsidered. Battle Creek, MI: Kellogg Foundation. (ED 444437). Austin, M., Ahearn, F., & English, R. (1997). Guiding organizational change. New Directions for Higher Education, 98, 31–56. Baker, G.A. III (1999). Leadership competency assessment instrument. College Planning System. Barwick, J. (2002). Pathways to the presidency: Same trail, new vistas. Community College Journal, 73(1), 6–11. Bekessy, A., Samson, K., & Clarkson, R. (2007). International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 8(3), 301–316. Benford, R., & Snow, D. (2000). Framing processes and social movements: An overview and assessment. Annual Review of Sociology, 26, 611–639. Berger, C., & Calabrese, R. (1975). Some explorations in initial interaction and beyond: Toward a developmental theory of interpersonal communication. Human Communication Research, 1(2), 99–192. Beringer, A. (2007). The Lüneberg Sustainable University Project in international comparison. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 8(4), 446–461. Birnbaum, R. (1992). Will you love me in December as you do in May? Why experienced college presidents lose faculty support. The Journal of Higher Education 63(1), 1–25. Board of Trustees of Berea College. (1993). The great commitments of Berea College. Retrieved from http://www.berea.edu/about/files/2012/08/GreatCommitments.pdf. Bolman, L., & Deal, T. (1992). Leading and managing: Effects of context, culture, and gender. Educational Administration Quarterly, 28(3), 314–329. Bolman, L., & Deal, T. (2003). Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and leadership. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. 133 Bornstein, R. (2003). Legitimacy in the academic presidency: From entrance to exit. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers. Boyce, M. E. (2003). Organizational learning is essential to achieving and sustaining change in higher education. Innovative Higher Education, 28, 119–136. Brookfield, S. (2004). The power of critical theory: Liberating adult learning and teaching. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Collins, J. (2001). Good to great: Why some companies make the leap…and others don’t. New York, NY: HarperCollins. Creswell, J. (2007). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Desjardins, C. (2001). The leading edge: Competencies for community college leadership in the new millennium. League for Innovation in the Community College. National Institute for Leadership Development. st Duderstadt, J. (2000). A university for the 21 century. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press. Duderstadt, J. (2007). The view from the helm: Leading the american university during an era of change. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press. Eckel, P., Green, M., & Hill, B. (2001). Riding the waves of change: Insights from transforming institutions. On Change V. An occasional paper series of the ACE Project on Leadership and Institutional Transformation and the Kellogg Forum on Higher Education Transformation. Washington, DC: American Council on Education. Eckel, P., & Kezar, A. (2003). Taking the reins: Institutional transformation in higher education. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers. Eddy, P. (2002). There’s more than one way to skin a cat: How community college presidents frame change. (ED 470458). Eddy, P. (2003). Sensemaking on campus: How community college president frame change. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 27(6), 453–471. Eddy, P. (2005). Framing the role of leader: How community college presidents construct their leadership. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 29(9–10), 705–727. Fairhurst, G., & Sarr, R. (1996). The art of framing. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Ford, J., & Ford, L. (1995). The role of conversations in producing intentional change in organizations. Academy of Management Review, 20, 541–570. 134 Fullan, M. (2001). Leading in a culture of change. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Gioia, D. & Thomas, J. (1996). Identity, image, and issue interpretation: Sensemaking during strategic change in academia. Administrative Science Quarterly, 41(3), 370–403. Heifetz, R. (1994). Leadership without easy answers. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press. Holden, D. (2007). The missing ingredient in organizational change. Industrial Management, 49(3), 8-15. Hollander, E. P. & Offermann, L. R. (1997). (Eds.) The balance of leadership and followership. Battle Creek, MI: Kellogg Leadership Studies Project, Kellogg Foundation. Hoyte, D., & Greenwood, R. (2007). Journey to the north face: A guide to business transformation. Academuy of Strategic Management Journal, 6, 91–105. Johnson, S., & Blanchard, K. (1998). Who moved my cheese? An amazing way to deal with change in your work and in your life. New York, NY: Putnam. Katz, D., & Kahn, R. (1966). The social psychology of organizations. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Kempner, K. (2003). The search for cultural leaders. Review of Higher Education, 26(3), 363– 385. st Kezar, A. (2001). Understanding and facilitating change in the 21 century: Recent research and conceptualizations. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. th Kerr, C. (2001). The uses of the university. (5 Edition). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Koest, R., Elfin, J., & Vann, J. (2006). Greening of the campus: a whole-systems approach. Journal of Cleaner Production, 14(2006), 769–779. Korte, R., & Chermack, T. (2007). Changing organizational culture with scenario planning. Futures, 39(6), 645. Levin, J. (1998). Presidential influence, leadership succession, and multiple interpretations of organizational change. The Review of Higher Education, 21(4), 405–425. Lewis, L. (1999). Disseminating information and soliciting input during planned organizational change: Implementers’ targets, sources, and channels for communicating. Management Communication Quarterly, 13(1), 43–75. Lewis, L., & Seibold, D. (1996). Communication during intraorganizational innovation 135 adoption: Predicting users’ behavioral coping responses to innovations in organizations. Communication Monographs, 63(2), 131–157. Lozano-Ros, R. (2003). Sustainable development in higher education: Incorporation, assessment, and reporting of sustainable development in higher education institutions. Master thesis, IIIEE, Lund University. Lozano, R. (2006). Incorporation and institutionalization of SD into universities: breaking through barriers to change. Journal of Cleaner Production, 14(2006), 787–796. th Marshal, C., & Rossman, G. (2006). Designing qualitative research (4 ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Martin, J., & Marion, R. (2005). Higher education leadership roles in knowledge processing. The Learning Organization, 12(2), 140–151. Min-Huei, C. (2007). A study of human resource development and organizational change in Taiwan. Journal of American Academy of Business, 11(1), 309–315. Mintzberg, H. (1979). The nature of managerial work (2 nd ed). New York, NY: Harper & Row. Mintzberg, H. (2009). Managing. [Kindle for iPad version]. Retrieved from www.amazon.com. Morgan, G. (1997). Images of organization. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Moss Kanter, R. (1999). The enduring skills of change leaders. Leader to Leader, 13(Summer). Neumann, A. (1995). Context, cognition, and culture: A case analysis of collegiate leadership and cultural change. American Educational Research Journal, 32(2), 251–279. Neumann, A., & Bensimon, E. (1990). Constructing the presidency: College presidents’ images of their leadership roles, a comparative study. The Journal of Higher Education, 61(6), 678–701. Phelan, D. (2005). The changing role of the president as a fiscal leader. New Directions for Community Colleges, 2005(132), 87–98. Rhoads, R. & Tierney, W. (1992). Cultural leadership in higher education. National Center on Postsecondary Teaching, Learning, and Assessment. University Park, PA. Office of Educational Research and Improvement, Washington, D.C. Rhodes, F. (2001). The creation of the future: The role of the American university. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Rogers, E. (2003). Diffusion of innovations. Fifth Edition. New York, NY: Free Press. 136 Rossman, G., & Rallis, S. (2003). Learning in the field: An introduction to qualitative research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Rost, J. C. (1991). Leadership for the twenty-first century. New York: Praeger. Shinn, L. (2002). Living upstream. Berea College Convocation Address. Berea College; Berea, KY. Shin, L. (2009). U.S. Universities Aim for Carbon Neutrality. InsideClimate News. Retrieved from http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20090820/us-universities-aimcarbon-neutral-campuses. Smircich, L., & Morgan, G. (1982). Leadership: The management of meaning. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Sciences 18(3), 257–273. Smircich, L. (1983). Concepts of culture and organizational analysis. Administrative Science Quarterly, 28(3), 339–358. Stake, R. (2000). Case studies. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative nd research (2 ed.) (pp. 435-454). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Stimpert, J. L. (2004). Turbulent times: Four issues facing liberal arts colleges. Change, 36(4), 42–49. Storberg-Walker, J., & Torraco, R. (2004). Change and higher education: A multidisciplinary approach. Paper presented at the Academy of Human Resource Development International Conference (AHRD) (Austin, TX, Mar 3-7, 2004) p811-818 (Symp. 37-3) Stout-Stewart, S. (2005). Female community-college presidents: Effective leadership patterns and behaviors. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 29(4), 303–315. Tierney, William G. (1997). Organizational socialization in higher education. The Journal of Higher Education, 68(1), 1–16. Tourish, D., and Robson, P. (2006). Sensemaking and the distortion of critical upward communication in an organization. Journal of Management Studies, 43(4), 711–730. Trachtenberg, S. (2005). Academic leadership is not a piece of cake. Trusteeship, 13(4). Turner, C. (2007). Pathways to the presidency: Biographical sketches of women on color firsts. Harvard Educational Review, 77(1), 1–38. Vaughn, M. (1995). Organizational symbols: An analysis of their types and functions in a reborn organization. Management Communication Quarterly, 9(2), 219–250. Watkins, P. (2002). Leadership, power and symbols in educational administration, In J. Smyth 137 (Ed.), Critical perspectives on educational leadership. New York, NY: Routledge Falmer. Weick, K. (1995). Sensemaking in organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. rd Yin, R. (2003). Case study research: Design and method (3 ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Yukl, G. (2012). Effective leadership behavior: What we know and what questions need more attention. Academy of Management Perspectives, 26(4), 66–84. 138