Deans' Perceptions of Their Ability to Promote Change in Schools of Education.

Many approaches, primarily formulated in product-oriented business settings, have been used to bring about involvement in innovation. One widely recognized strategy cites the identification of potential change agents who are in positions of authority and leadership, such as Chief Executive Officers (CEOs), and the enlistment of their support for and commitment to the change process. In higher education, the persons who most often serve in this capacity are the deans. These individuals often possess the necessary clout, through the use of psychosocial and monetary rewards, to encourage collegial and subordinate involvement in innovation. The Deans' Grants concept seeks to apply this change strategy to schools of education. Competitively awarded to deans of schools of education who have displayed an overt commitment to the change process and their role as change agents, the Deans' Grants are specifically designed to assist efforts to encourage curricular changes which incorporate mainstreaming concepts, as delineated by P.L. 94-142, The Education for All H and icapped Children Act of 1975, into the preservice teacher education curriculum. This study was designed to test the fundamental assumptions of the Deans' Grants. The Deans' Grants assumptions include the beliefs that (1)the authority to promote change is invested in the deanship; and (2)by application for a Dean's Grant, the dean is willing to use the power of his/her office to facilitate the innovation of mainstreaming in the teacher education curriculum. It was anticipated that a variety of personal, institutional, external, and temporal factors may influence the deans' ability to act as change agents. In delineating the strength and parameters of those factors, a measure of the validity of the Deans' Grants assumptions was achieved. To test these assumptions, a national survey and follow-up interviews were conducted. Of the 137 IHE-based Deans' Grants who were invited to participate, 111 responded; 104 of these responses were used in the data analysis. From these data, 16 schools were selected for interviews, according to criteria of grant year, grant dollar amount, size of the education faculty, and regional location. Interviews were held with the dean and two Dean's Grant target faculty at each of these schools. The results of this study suggest that deans perceive themselves to be in key positions to act as change agents in schools of education. While these perceptions are tempered by a variety of factors which affect the climate in which change can occur, there is a prevailing atmosphere of support, among deans and target faculty, for the Deans' Grants concept, as well as a consistent attitude that if the dean wants a project to be effective, its chances of success are greatly enhanced. The particular factors which appear to influence the deans' perceptions of their ability to promote change are largely determined by the specific institutional climate, whose components include the level of independent budgetary control, communication between the individual school and the central administration, and the degree of emphasis on faculty autonomy. Superimposed on these institutional factors are the personality, leadership style, and professional capabilities of each dean, and the way in which he/she meshes his/her goals and style with those of the institution.Ph.D.Educational administrationUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/158324/1/8116312.pd