IUSE/PFE:RED: Clemson University: Learning Teams and Innovation Ventures for Adaptable Training in Engineering (CULTIVATE)

学术部门是复杂的、知识密集型的社会系统，由相互作用和相互依赖的主体(例如，学生、教职员工)组成。复杂性理论家将这样的系统描述为社会网络，随着网络中的主体相互作用和影响，社会网络不断重构。复杂性领导理论制定了管理这类社会系统的策略，以引导这一动态，并改善社会网络及其代理人。在有效的领导下，这些社会系统可以为行动创造共同的愿景和集体动力，产生新的行为模式或新的运作模式。在这些原则的指导下，NSF IUSE/PFE：RED项目旨在改变克莱姆森大学格伦土木工程系的学术文化，使该项目的教职员工和学生能够更好地满足21世纪不断变化的社会需求。很少有研究探索复杂、动态的社会网络中的紧急行为，以及这些网络启动和维持部门文化变革的能力；对变革创新想法的出现进行知情研究；评估社会网络对个人成员创新能力的影响；或为寻求进行类似变革的学术部门提供有用的案例。因此，这项研究有可能对文献做出重大贡献，因为它侧重于理解和交流潜在的动态，解释为什么和如何在一个社会系统中发生变化，如何持续变化可以持续，以及如何在其他地方实施类似的变化战略。经过克莱姆森公司的验证，这一改革框架将传播给全国其他工程部门，包括60个获得教唆认证的土木工程部门。因此，该项目的潜在社会影响包括全国土木工程教育的文化转变，以培养能够为21世纪对我们的社会构成前所未有的威胁的问题创造解决方案的新型土木工程师。该项目的目标是创建一个基于复杂性领导理论的低成本、可扩展、可复制的学术变革框架，该项目采取三种策略。策略1涉及改变我们的课程，通过不同的团队创造新的教师/学生互动和相互依存关系，以创造一个成熟的环境，以便出现创新想法。这一策略旨在创造一个课程框架，通过精心设计的、与社会相关的、具有实际意义的问题陈述，在项目利益攸关方的投入和政府合作伙伴的监督下，纵向和横向地编织课程作业。这一策略旨在打破现状，促进学生、教职员工和专业人士之间新形式的互动。策略2涉及改变系结构和文化，以通过新的教职员工互动和依赖所产生的集体变革动力来促进创新。项目团队使用软连接组织结构，为教职员工之间出现复杂、动态的协作创造条件，以实现创新和快速适应。软连接不是围绕教员可以提供的解决方案进行组织，而是使教员能够围绕他们能够解决的社会问题进行组织，从而形成灵活的混合教学模式。策略3包括巧妙地利用不适地带聚会中的不适和紧张情绪，在克莱姆森的所有工程部门之间创造一个共同的转型愿景。该项目的学术价值侧重于创造一种创新和适应能力的学术文化，这是可持续变革的先决条件。复杂性领导理论在学术环境中的使用，以及它预测的关于紧急结果的纵向数据的收集，填补了相关文献中的一个重要知识空白。该项目由本科教育司、工程教育和中心司、土木、机械和制造创新司、电气、通信和网络系统司以及产业创新和伙伴关系司联合资助，反映了本项目与各司及其方案各自目标的一致性。

Academic departments are complex, knowledge-intensive social systems of interacting and interdependent agents (e.g., students, faculty, and staff). Complexity theorists describe such systems as social networks that are continuously reconstructed as agents within the network interact and influence one another. Complexity leadership theorists develop strategies for managing such social systems to guide this dynamic and to improve the social network and its agents. When effectively led, these social systems can create a shared vision and collective impetus for action, producing new patterns of behavior or new modes of operating. Guided by these principles, this NSF IUSE/PFE:RED project aims to transform the academic culture of the Glenn Department of Civil Engineering at Clemson University so that the faculty and students of the program can better meet the changing societal needs of the 21st century. Few, if any, studies have explored emergent behavior in complex, dynamic social networks and the capacity of these networks to initiate and sustain change in departmental cultures; informed research on the emergence of innovative ideas toward change; evaluated the influence of social networks on innovative capacity of individual members; or provided a useful case for academic departments looking to make similar transformations. Therefore, this study has the potential to make a significant contribution to the literature as it focuses on understanding and communicating the underlying dynamics that explain why and how change occurs in a social system, how continuous change can be sustained, and how similar change strategies can be implemented elsewhere. Validated at Clemson, this change framework is to be disseminated to other engineering departments nationwide, including 60 ABET-accredited civil engineering departments. Hence, the potential societal impacts of the project include a cultural shift in civil engineering education across the nation to produce a new breed of civil engineers capable of creating solutions for 21st-century problems that are posing unprecedented threats to our society.With the aim of creating a low-cost, scalable, replicable academic change framework informed by complexity leadership theory, this project undertakes three tactics. Tactic 1 involves transforming our curriculum to create new faculty/student interactions and interdependencies via heterogeneous teams to create an environment ripe for the emergence of innovative ideas. This tactic aims to create a curricular scaffold that weaves the coursework both vertically and horizontally through carefully designed, socially-relevant, practically meaningful problem statements with input from project stakeholders and oversight from government partners. This tactic is envisioned to disrupt the status quo and facilitate new forms of interaction among students, faculty, and professionals. Tactic 2 involves transforming the departmental structure and culture to promote innovation through a collective impetus for change resulting from new faculty-faculty interactions and dependencies. The project team uses a soft-wired organizational structure to create conditions conducive for the emergence of complex, dynamic collaborations among faculty to enable innovation and rapid adaptation. Rather than organizing around the solutions faculty can offer, soft-wiring enables the faculty to organize around the societal problems they can solve, leading to flexible, hybrid teaching formats. Tactic 3 involves tactful utilization of discomfort and tension in Discomfort Zone gatherings to create a shared vision for transformation among all engineering departments at Clemson. The intellectual merit of this project focuses on creating an academic culture of innovation and adaptability, which is a prerequisite for sustainable change. The use of complexity leadership theory in an academic setting and the collection of longitudinal data on the emergent outcomes it predicts fill an important knowledge gap in the pertinent literature. This project is jointly funded by the Division of Undergraduate Education; the Division of Engineering Education and Centers, the Division of Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation; the Division of Electrical, Communications and Cyber Systems; and the Division of Industrial Innovation and Partnerships; reflecting the alignment of this project with the respective goals of the divisions and their programs.