The Book Structure: An Overview of the Conversations

Abstract

This chapter outlines the book’s organization into three sections focusing on institutional structures, individual roles and identities within the academy, and specific pedagogies and practices. The sections include thirteen provocative narratives of educational experimentation, change, and reform that document diverse ways to create the space necessary for making teaching and learning matter. Each chapter demonstrates how change can be generated in any number of ways: by individual effort; small groups of faculty; committed and supported students; networks of administrators; and—most importantly—collaborative endeavors that cut across institutional roles and boundaries. Some chapters narrate an evolution in a long-standing program; others look at brand new ventures. Some look at local initiatives dedicated to one campus, department, or course; others look at larger-scale, cross-campus undertakings. In exploring successful programs alongside struggling endeavors, the book studies the missteps as carefully as the triumphs and enters into the national conversations about the evolving purposes and effects of higher education in the 21st century.