written by Charles R. Henderson and Kathleen Quardokus

Efforts to improve teaching in higher education have often focused on individual faculty. However, there is a growing consensus that the academic department is a more productive focus of change initiatives. Yet, academic departments are not all the same. Understanding the structure of relationships within a department is important for identifying who should be involved in the change effort and in what roles. It is also likely that a successful change effort will modify the structure of relationships within a department. This paper presents the preliminary results from a study of two academic departments at a research university. A social network for each department was constructed based on a web survey that asked faculty to identify colleagues with whom they had teaching-related conversations. We identify characteristics of the individuals and departments and describe how learning about this hidden structure can be beneficial to change agents.

• Download PERC2012_Henderson.pdf - 109kb Adobe PDF Document

Published January 24, 2013
Last Modified June 26, 2013