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的相互作用和相互依赖的代理人（例如，学生，教师和工作人员）。复杂性理论家将这样的系统描述为社交网络，当网络中的代理人相互作用和影响时，这些系统会不断重构。复杂性领导理论家开发了管理这种社会系统的策略，以引导这种动态并改善社会网络及其代理人。在有效领导下，这些社会系统可以创造共同的愿景和集体行动动力，产生新的行为模式或新的运作模式。在这些原则的指导下，这个NSF IUSE/PFE：RED项目旨在改变克莱姆森大学土木工程格伦系的学术文化，使该计划的教师和学生能够更好地满足21世纪世纪不断变化的社会需求。很少，如果有的话，研究探讨了新兴的行为在复杂的，动态的社交网络和这些网络的能力，以启动和维持部门文化的变化;通知研究的创新思想的出现，以改变;评估的影响，社交网络对创新能力的个人成员;或提供了一个有用的情况下，学术部门希望作出类似的转变。因此，这项研究有可能作出重大贡献的文献，因为它侧重于理解和沟通的基本动力，解释为什么和如何发生变化的社会系统，如何持续的变化，以及如何类似的变化战略可以在其他地方实施。在克莱姆森验证，这一变化框架将传播到全国其他工程部门，包括60个ABET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世纪的问题创造解决方案的新一代土木工程师，这些问题对我们的社会构成了前所未有的威胁。为了创造一个低成本，可扩展，可复制的学术变革框架，该项目采用了三种策略。策略1涉及改变我们的课程，通过异质团队创建新的教师/学生互动和相互依存关系，为创新思想的出现创造成熟的环境。这种策略旨在创建一个课程脚手架，通过精心设计的，社会相关的，实际有意义的问题陈述，以及项目利益相关者的投入和政府合作伙伴的监督，纵向和横向地编织课程。这种策略旨在打破现状，促进学生，教师和专业人员之间的新形式的互动。策略2涉及改变部门的结构和文化，以促进创新，通过对新的教师教师之间的互动和依赖关系所产生的变化的集体动力。项目团队使用软组织结构来创造有利于教师之间出现复杂、动态合作的条件，以实现创新和快速适应。而不是围绕教师可以提供的解决方案进行组织，软连线使教师能够围绕他们可以解决的社会问题进行组织，从而形成灵活的混合教学形式。战术3涉及在不舒适区聚会中巧妙地利用不适和紧张，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。该项目的学术价值集中于创造一种创新和适应性的学术文化，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和它所预测的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。 该项目由本科教育部联合资助;工程教育和中心部，土木，机械和制造业创新部;电气，通信和网络系统部;和工业创新与合作伙伴关系部;反映了该项目与各部门及其计划的各自目标的一致性。

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.