Professors Can Help Make a Project Fly

College leaders often face a common obstacle to realizing grand plans: the skepticism of faculty members. Initiatives that seem too far afield from the institution’s mission or the status quo tend to draw criticism from professors. Projects that lack widespread faculty buy-in may fail to thrive.

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College leaders searching for transformative change must avoid letting ambition — or caution — imperil their institution.

“Colleges and universities have extraordinarily powerful immune systems and are inclined to reject foreign entities that try to enter the body,” says David W. Strauss, a principal of the Art & Science Group, which advises colleges on strategy.

One approach that can persuade wary faculty members is to highlight ways in which projects would improve teaching and learning.

“You get a committee together at a university, and you spend half your time wondering if whatever good idea you come up with is actually going to make it,” says Mark Lombardi, president of Maryville University, in St. Louis. Initiatives like a push for classroom technology there can give professors room to experiment.

Art & Science Group

Jason Telford, director of the chemistry and biochemistry program, was among the skeptics when Maryville issued iPads and learning apps to all students and faculty members. “I think that’s kind of natural when you’re faced with a large change,” he says.

But two weeks of required professional development for all faculty members helped him see new possibilities and put them within his grasp. He now uses the tablets to create a virtual whiteboard that he shares with his students, and to administer interactive pop quizzes.

Maryville U.

He has also written a few short iBooks for his classes. “I want what’s best for the students,” he says, “and if it helps the students learn, I’m all in.”

Wake Forest University’s new STEM campus, in downtown Winston-Salem, N.C., offered an opportunity for professors, not just administrators, to dream big, too. Campus leaders had high hopes for the Wake Downtown project, but they knew it would never work without faculty members on board to brainstorm and support the new programs. “It felt like a wake-up-at-4-a.m. risk that the faculty would not be interested,” says Rogan Kersh, the provost.

The first faculty forum about the project wasn’t promising. “It immediately went to the reasons it might not work,” he says. “The first seven questions were, how on earth could we get students there, and how would we possibly have dining? What would the security be?”

Ken Bennett, Wake Forest U.

But then professors started to come up with their own thoughts about the project’s potential. About 45 minutes into the meeting, Mr. Kersh says, one of them brought up an idea for a new program, and “it felt like manna.”

That idea became the germ of a new degree in medical chemistry and drug discovery. Now it’s one of the anchor programs at the new Wake Downtown.

Lee Gardner writes about the management of colleges and universities, higher-education marketing, and other topics. Follow him on Twitter @_lee_g, or email him at lee.gardner@chronicle.com.