by:
  Kris Bulcroft,
  Carmen Werder, and
  Glenn Gilliam

  Where are the Students?

In the first bi-weekly session of the faculty core group in Part II, the project took a surprising turn when an adjunct professor in the College of Education asked why students were not part of the group. Posed as a query regarding the intent of the Carnegie programmatic goals, the question brought the conversation to a halt. The group dynamics that followed clearly reflected a collective epiphany. Subsequent sessions led to in-depth discussion about the need for student perspectives in order to understand what constitutes "good" teaching, as well as to develop a scholarly approach toward the assessment of student learning.

The education professor's query prompted a sincere desire on the part of all faculty member participants to seek a means of incorporating student voices in the "3Rs" conversation. In November of 1999, as the concept of scholarly teaching was being explored in an open forum led by PEW scholars from the University of Washington (Drs. John Webster and Debbie Weigand), a faculty member suggested the creation of an undergraduate seminar dedicated to working with the Carnegie core faculty.

Organizing a course on such short notice could not have been accomplished had it not been for the partnership that emerged between Academic and Student Affairs. A new seminar, focusing on leadership training, had already been scheduled by Student Affairs professionals during winter term 2000. Based on the work of Astin and Astin (1996), the seminar was designed to foster leadership in academic settings.

Undergraduates who showed potential for leadership positions within and beyond Western Washington University had been nominated by Student Affairs units across the campus community. Offered as a 2-credit elective, the focus for the course (as originally designed) was to examine the organizational structure of Western Washington University and to develop a case study for organizational change.

The Special Assistant to the Provost approached the Vice President of Student Affairs prior to enrollment in the seminar and suggested that the Campus Conversation might serve as an excellent foundation for building a case study of change. Thus, students would not only study the dynamics of organizational change, but they would also be participants in that process.

This unique focus meant that rather than reviewing a previous change initiative and analyzing the change dynamics, they would be involved in actively designing the organizational processes that would facilitate the scholarship of teaching and learning at their own university. Rather than using a case study approach in analyzing organizational change, the students would participate in an ongoing change process that focused on the scholarship of teaching and learning.

• Introduction
• Campus Conversation at Western Washington University (Parts I & II)
• Where are the Students?
• Leadership Inside Out
• The AAHE Summer Academy
• A Web of Connections
• The Teaching and Learning Academy
• A New Course on Learning
• Diffuse Leadership
• A Public Rally for Learning
• Lessons Learned from the Students
• References
• print version