Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology recently led efforts that resulted in a $550,000 collaborative research grant awarded from the National Science Foundation to develop and provide research-based training, support, and resources for educators to initiate, implement and sustain academic change on their campuses – effectively a changemaker toolkit for higher education. 

The effort is in support of of NSF’s Revolutionizing Engineering Departments (RED) initiative. Rose-Hulman was the lead in collaboration with University of Washington’s Center for Evaluation & Research for STEM Equity (CERSE) on the grant, titled, “Academic Change and the RED Community of Practice: Sustaining a Revolution Through Change Leadership and Research.”

The Rose-Hulman program is being led by Eva Andrijcic, PhD, Associate Professor of Engineering Management, and Sriram Mohan, PhD, Head and Professor of the Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering.

Rose-Hulman will receive $255,655 over the next three years to introduce and train faculty, graduate students, and staff serving on RED projects throughout the country to research-based practices that will make them more effective change agents on their campuses. The efforts will also continue to support a consortium of RED teams through annual workshops and calls while also examining the overall process of academic change.  

“This project, through our work with University of Washington’s CERSE team, will enable the creation of research-based practical support for teams of change leaders trying to make change through the Revolutionizing Engineering Departments (RED) grant mechanism,” said Andrijcic. “The findings from this project will improve our understanding of institutionalizing systemic changes in higher education, and how organizational contexts impact the success and sustainability of academic change initiatives.”

Rose-Hulman’s continued involvement with the NSF – which began in 2015 with the inception of the RED program – will also include participatory research with RED teams in tandem with CERSE to study how academic change happens, and is propagated and sustained in different academic contexts.