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The Department as Double Agent: The Call for Department Change and Renewal

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Abstract

The well-known and respected Pew Foundation recently suggested four prerequisites for departmental change and renewal—a dedication to teamwork, collective dialogue and inquiry about effective teaching, a commitment to quality control and rewarding collective goals, and the leadership of a purposeful chair (Pew Foundation, 1996, pp. 7-9). Many realities that surround academic programs work against these critical conditions for renewal: conflicting faculty interests, turbulent environments, unclear institutional goals, to name a few. This paper examines teamwork, teaching, quality, and leadership as means to mitigate the contradictions and enhance department renewal.

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Wolverton, M., Gmelch, W.H. & Sorenson, D. The Department as Double Agent: The Call for Department Change and Renewal. Innovative Higher Education 22, 203–215 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1025187426795

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