This document discusses fostering innovation in community college environments. It describes how leadership differs from management in producing change rather than consistency. Culture comprises customs while innovation involves imagination and risk-taking. Attributes of innovative organizations include brainstorming, transparency, and appreciating failures. Challenges to innovation in community colleges include funding, staffing, and rigid policies. The author outlines two initiatives at Prairie State College to promote innovation: sabbaticals and a fund for experimental projects. While some sabbaticals succeeded, the project fund was withdrawn due to controversies over incentives and faculty workload policies. Lessons include considering data, hierarchy, and brainstorming alternative approaches.

1. Leadership Dilemma
Leveraging Culture to Foster Innovation in
a Community College Environment
Adenuga Atewologun, PhD
Prairie State College

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Compare and contrast ranking of most
innovative businesses and
colleges/universities
Highlight how innovation separates
leaders from managers
Illustrate the importance of culture and
context
Share details and lessons learned
Identify controversial components of
stalled initiative
Objectives

3. 
Culture – comprised of various customs…
personalities.
◦ The artifacts of the institution, underlying
assumptions and espoused values.
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Innovation – Imagination playground, messy,
finding rule breakers, random accidents,
verbs not nouns—using various tools in hopes
of advancement and improvement.
Description – Culture and Innovation

4. Management –
Produces Order
and Consistency
 Planning and
Budgeting
 Organizing and
Staffing
 Controlling and
Problem Solving
Leadership –
Produces Change
and movement
 Establishing
Direction
 Aligning People
 Motivating and
inspiring
Northouse, P., (2013). Leadership: Theory and Practice, Pg. 12
Leadership and Management

5. “Leaders change the
way people think about
what is possible.”
Peter G. Northouse
Northouse, P., (2013). Leadership: Theory and Practice, Pg. 13
Leadership and Management

6. Culture
Leadership
Training
Innovation
Functions of Leadership
and Management

7. 
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Brainstorming
Identifications
◦ Strengths and Weaknesses
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Transparency
Taking chances
◦ Open to new ideas and methods
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Appreciate instead of Dictate
◦ Celebrate results (positive and negative)
◦ Avoid blame and the “my way or the highway”
concept
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Eliminate the “Office of They”
Attributes of Innovative
organizations

8. 
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Apple (#1)
Facebook (#2)
Google (#3)
Amazon (#4)
Twitter (#6)
Life Technologies (#9)
Southern New Hampshire University (#12)
NFL (#15)
Starbucks (#24)
LinkedIn(#30)
Narayan Hrudayalaya in India (#36)
UPS (#38)
http://www.fastcompany.com/most-innovative-companies/2012/full-list
Innovative organizations –
World’s 50 most innovative companies

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Alford University, NY ($8.2m)
Bringham Young University, UT ($24.3m)
Florida Agricultural & Mechanical University, FL ($26.4)
Iowa State University, IA ($238.8m)
◦ Second in the nation, behind only the University of California system)
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Montana State University, MT ($98.5m)
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, NY ($62.2m)
Springfield Technical Community College, MA ($N/A)
University of Akron, OH ($51.3m)
University of Central Florida, FL ($121.7)
University of North Carolina at Charlotte, NC ($25.1)
http://images.businessweek.com/ss/07/10/1017_innovative_universities/index_01.htm
Innovative colleges and universities

10. “The best way to get
a good idea is to get
a lot of ideas.”
Linus Pauling
Kelley, T.; Littman, J., (2001). The Art of Innovation
Leadership and Management

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Integrity
Respect facts
Quick study
Transparency
“Something New”
Can assimilate opposites
Strong capacity for abstract thinking
Tolerate uncertainty, ambiguity, and conflict
Like adventure
Optimism and errors are strategies
Attributes of Innovative
Individuals

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Developmental
education
Students’ life
challenges
Staffing
Alumni
Funding
Pedagogy
Technology
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Mission creep or
expansion
Rural vs. Urban
FT/ADJ ratio
Succession planning
Academic rigor and
standards
Assessment
Non-teaching
assignments
Challenges We Face

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Network, connect, network again
fewer written rules
people above process
Outlier discomfort
Less bureaucracy
More hierarchy
Relatively younger faculty
PSC Culture and context

14. 
Sabbatical Leaves
Number of
Community Colleges
reporting
Number of leaves
granted 2008 – 2010
3
0
6
1-2
6
3-5
3
6-8
4
9-11
2
12
Initiative #1

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A formal letter of request
Title of project or focus of proposal
Activities and timeline
Benefit of proposal to PSC and its
students
Relation to PSC strategic themes and
goals
Dissemination plan
Proposal guidelines

16. 
Fall 2011—completion of Ph.D. in
Mathematics and development of
undergraduate research projects
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Spring 2012—”basic writing as bourgeois
enterprise”; developing bibliography and
materials for a new course on African
American language and rhetoric
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Fall 2012—creating new form of art,
cataloging regional art and architecture;
professional gallery exhibition
Sample proposals—sabbatical

17. 
A special fund for Experimentation,
Innovation and Creativity (EIC)
◦ Provide course release time (3 contact hours)
for up to 10 tenured faculty members each
year
◦ Overload and course release may not be taken
in the same semester
◦ Mini proposal (2 pages max)
Initiative #2

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Project title
Summary
Activities and timeline
Expected outcome
Budget
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Key personnel
Student assistants
Supplies
Travel
hospitality
Proposal Guidelines

19. 
Assisted qualitative research
◦ Increase children mathematical knowledge
through classroom use of teacher-made path
and grid games
Sample proposal—EIC

20. 
Grievance
◦ A faculty member, with his/her consent, may
be assigned an overload for any semester.
◦ The maximum contact hours that may be
assigned to a faculty member for any one
semester is 23. However, faculty who select
two or more composition classes in English
099, 101 or 102 may accept 20 hours for any
one semester.
Contract Language

21. 
3 sabbaticals in 3 semesters after a 10year “drought”
◦ Energized a segment/cadre of faculty
◦ “Better Teaching Workshop” presentations
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1 EIC project
◦ Early childhood education student competition
◦ 3 students chosen and completed project
◦ Initiative withdrawn
Successes and failures

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Monetary incentive vs. release time
Don’t overlook data—% of faculty carrying
overload routinely
Hierarchy among faculty
Can’t import culture (who we are) and
values (principles for day-to-day
decisions)
The experience not the product
Brainstorm
Lessons learned

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Don’t dictate
Ask for ideas to reach the vision not opinions
Team problem solving—teams beat
individuals hands down!
Context—relatively young faculty
Why is the sabbatical successful, even for the
young faculty?
Audience
◦ Alternative paths for the EIC
Conclusion

24. Q&A