INNOVATIONS IN FACULTY LEADERSHIP AND CURRICULAR REVITALIZATION: MARKETING BEAUTIFUL IDEAS

Amanda Bernal-Carlo

Isabel Li

Lucinda Zoe

Imagination, Innovation, Ingenuity: How can you motivate senior faculty and inspire new junior faculty to excel in curricular revitalization and reach beyond their potential? What moves faculty to find the leader within and engage in radical and transformative curricular change? This article outlines the development of the Hostos Title V-funded Faculty Development Series, the Committee on Beautiful Ideas, and use of new marketing techniques and approaches for reaching faculty and transforming curriculum.

The story starts with the leadership of the Center for Teaching and Learning’s Advisory Council (CTL) and its director, Professor Amanda Bernal-Carlo. Under the terms of a Title V grant, “Shifting the Paradigm on Teaching and Learning to Improve Student Success,” the CTL was charged with the task of designing and implementing a faculty development seminar and innovation award series. The resulting Faculty Development Seminar program was conceived to challenge faculty to participate in a competitive, incentive-based initiative designed to generate faculty- driven innovations in curricular design and pedagogy. The goal was to increase faculty engagement in order to improve student learning outcomes and opportunities through curricular change. The development program we created challenges faculty to compete for a spot in a seminar series designed to support their ideas for curriculum innovations to be implemented on campus. Faculty with the most innovative ideas are selected for Innovation Awards and are supported by college administration via released time, to implement their new course, program, plan or pedagogical approach to teaching and learning. The initiative used sophisticated marketing techniques to reach faculty and inspire them to achieve excellence and renew their interest in teaching, leadership and professional enrichment.

The process began with the CTL’s advisory council—10-12 faculty, including the Title V Activity Director, and two administrators from the Office of Academic Affairs-- who met weekly and started talking. We talked about why we were teaching, why we chose this profession and what it is was that drives each of us. We talked about our students, and their great needs. As a transitional bilingual college in the South Bronx, we accept the most under-prepared students in the city of New York in the poorest congressional district in the United States and provide them with access to higher education. And then the collective brainpower in the room crystallized into a joyous communal power, and ideas began to fly like butterflies around the room. We determined to create a program so compelling that it would inspire faculty to excellence; renew their interest in teaching; encourage and reward faculty for taking leadership; and provide an ongoing opportunity for professional enrichment.

The resulting program calls for faculty to participate in an application process each fall, where they would submit a brief narrative describing their innovation concept and its anticipated impact on students and on the campus. A review panel was created to select a group of faculty to participate in a specialized seminar series that took place during the spring semester. The seminars were designed to provide technical assistance and stimulate faculty in the development of their ideas. Scholars from around the country were brought in to work with faculty and present on best practices, documented and emerging strategies for curriculum renewal and revitalization, leadership and new concepts in integrated learning. Upon completion of the seminar series, faculty were invited to compete for an Innovation Award in partner- ship with another faculty member. The collaborative team was to work together to submit a new, expanded, vision of their original concept and be in the running for one of seven Innovation Awards each year. Winners would be given support in the form of release time to breathe life into their concept and lead it to success.

While the idea is a sound one, the real challenge was how to get faculty to take notice. In the first year, we developed a marketing plan to reach both senior and junior faculty. It was done using viral marketing techniques not commonly used in an academic setting. The impact of that first marketing strategy was so profound that it marked a seamless rhythm of faculty engagement to be followed during the next two years.

MARKETING BEAUTIFUL IDEAS

Initially, our challenge was a big one. How could we present innovation in an innovative way? In our brainstorming meetings, we had to ask ourselves some difficult questions. For we knew that beyond one course of released time and attendance at the development seminar, there was no additional money for faculty, no funds to support research or attend conferences. How would we answer their questions when they asked: what’s in it for me? What do I get?

Our strategy, we determined, would be to appeal to their integrity, their professionalism, and their sense of honor and prestige as educators, as teachers and as leaders. We believed we could do this by engaging their sense of creativity, purpose, and playfulness. One of our group had been a second-grade teacher in a previous life and brought to the table and idea she had used while teaching poetry—to have a beauty contest of beautiful ideas. After much lively discussion about beauty con- tests, appearances of sexism and our primary objective, we finally resolved to brand our initiative and call ourselves the Committee on Beautiful Ideas. Thus, “COBI” was born in spring 2005 under the umbrella of our Center for Teaching and Learning. In that first year, the main challenge we faced for COBI marketing was timing. Spring break was approaching, and after it, only two weeks were left before faculty went on summer break. We knew we had to come up with a plan that would instill in faculty the need to know more about COBI and the desire to embark on a new journey when they returned to school in the fall. We identified marketing strategies that had caught our attention and came up with what is known as a “Mim” campaign. The approach involves the use of “teasers” to get your attention, whereby you do not know what, exactly, is being marketed, but your curiosity is peaked. At this point, all members of COBI took a vow of silence, for if our plan was to succeed, absolute secrecy and surprise was necessary. We planned to distribute three sets of 15 postcards, representing 45 individual designs. Each card included an inspirational quote that addressed some facet of leadership, teaching, creativity, innovation or teamwork. The postcards were so visually compelling that they were sure to end up on refrigerators or bulletin boards in faculty homes all over 5 boroughs and 3 states. In this effort, collaboration between COBI and OAA members was critical, as the printing and mailing were scheduled to occur during the summer when most faculty were on leave. Each COBI member took ownership of the effort, each contributing—from volunteering and designing and producing the post cards, to developing proposal and submission guidelines and mounting an interactive Web site.

We took an incremental approach designed to build suspense over the summer.

The first set of postcards was sent out in June with nothing more than the name of the college and the phrase “Brought to you by COBI.” No one knew who or what COBI was. The second set was sent out in July with the same information as before, only this time we included “Brought to you by COBI, the Committee of Beautiful Ideas.” As this point, faculty started talking and calling the college to find out about COBI but, we kept our silence and did not even tell the Provost or the President. The final card was sent out in August with an invitation to “find out about COBI on September 8th in the Faculty Dining room.” When faculty returned to campus for the fall semester they were greeted by a full COBI blitz across campus: giant-sized posters of the postcards and quotes were posted all over campus; we worked with the Information Technology division to have the whole postcard series mounted on the campus computer kiosks, running like screen savers all over campus, and we made mobiles, transparencies and flyers to distribute around campus. Everyone was curious, talking and wondering…. What IS this COBI?!

The final marketing event was a kick-off celebration and reception on September 8th. We invited a keynote speaker from a sister institution to present models of innovative and cutting-edge curricular initiatives. We offered refreshments and prepared informational packets that included a call for proposals—or “Beautiful Ideas.” The Faculty Dining Room was packed—the mystery was going to be revealed! COBI was presented as a call for Beautiful Ideas for curriculum innovation. We challenged faculty to share with us their dreams about the college they envision. We developed a brochure that outlined the program and proposal process, and to assist faculty, we created a simple online application process.

The deadline for submission of beautiful ideas was October 30th. The COBI committee provided constant reminders and support via email, brown-bag lunches, and individual consultations. The outcome went beyond our own expectations. On October 30th, 2005 we received 30 proposals fostering a range of curricular innovations from close to 60 faculty, representing over one-third of our total full-time faculty. This response from faculty was so successful it represents a record in the history of our institution.

AUTHENTIC FACULTY LEADERSHIP—THE ART OF COLLABORATION

The key factor of this initiative is about how COBI, as a group, managed to mobilize faculty in such a way that has never been seen in our institution. We believe the program’s success started in the core of COBI itself. It became a process of self-renewal, discovery and empowerment for each COBI member, as our personal agendas and egos fused into a single vision. We charged ourselves with the opportunity to exercise individual and collective leadership that resulted in a dynamic effort with a new sense of pride and joy in our work as educators as we began to shift the paradigm on teaching and learning to improve student success in our institution.

COBI enthusiasm was inspirational and contagious. Little by little the COBI effort morphed into a collective sense of responsibility for and commitment to all faculty who took a chance and responded to the call to share their dreams and submit their beautiful ideas. COBI became a thrill not only at our campus but also across the university as word spread of our faculty development initiative. Our cam- pus is one of 19 in The City University of New York system that is spread across all 5 boroughs. The buzz even reached the Chancellor’s office.

TAKING THE LEAD IN CURRICULAR INNOVATION

Planning began for the first annual COBI Faculty Development Series to trans- form the beautiful ideas that were submitted into full project proposals. The initial planning for the Faculty Development Seminar series called for 6 seminars over a semester that would expose our faculty to the best practices in curricular innovation, but the time line became a factor and we were concerned we would lose momentum and enthusiasm; therefore, we organized a two-and-a-half day COBI retreat that would re-create the energy and dynamic that we found in the COBI committee. Four expert speakers were invited from across the country to present two sessions each on such topics as integrated learning, learning communities, leadership, institutional change, general education, the scholarship of teaching and learning and E- Portfolios. We choose a very beautiful, and reasonably priced, conference center in the Catskill Mountains only 45 minutes from our campus, as we wanted to provide a safe and inspirational environment free from the daily routines of campus life that could distract us all.

All faculty who submitted a beautiful idea, as well as the COBI group, were invited to attend, for a total of around 50 faculty. We managed to bring together faculty from every rank and level of experience, from department chairs, full professors and associate professors, to brand new junior faculty representing from 1-35 years of service to the college. It was an extraordinary meeting of minds and disciplines, as every department on campus was represented. Our goal was to create an environment that fostered innovation, collaboration, ingenuity and team building as well as one that would renew faculty interest in teaching, leadership and professional enrichment. We managed to amplify and broaden the first stage of the COBI projects while providing opportunities for the development of interdisciplinary connections and approaches to teaching and learning. The retreat inspired faculty to assume an active role in curricular innovation by discovering a common commitment and unique opportunity to renew our institution as a collective critical force.

We all shared an extraordinary two and a half days—learning, sharing, getting to know one another, collaborating, designing programs, brainstorming and taking walks in the woods. It was a positive experience for participants, as was evidenced by the responses we received on the final evaluation forms. By sharing our plan and model, we hope to inspire others to generate new programs across the country and encourage further leadership development and curricular growth in our institutions.

Amanda Bernal-Carlo
Natural Sciences Department

Isabel Li

Academic Learning Center

Lucinda Zoe
Library