Change in Higher Education: Theories

     Higher education is driven by the environmental needs of people who will be attending an institution in the future, and the stakeholders within the institution.   Thus, change is imminent and it is important for student affairs professional to be able to understand, articulate, and create change.  Change is all about perception, and it depends on the individual you are asking about change. The perceived change has much more of an impact than actual change.  It all depends on where you are in the organization, who is implementing change, how it is affecting you, and whether or not you see it as a positive or negative change.

     Enrollment in the course Issues in Higher Education: Change helped me gain knowledge of change theories, ways to implement change, and an understanding of how change is perceived and affects others in a system (specifically in institutions of higher education).  Throughout the semester, I focused on how change affects the mission statements of institutions of higher education.    The mission of an institution is a change agent that facilitates the growth of the organization and is the guiding principle of strategic planning efforts of the institution.  However, mission formulation is guided by the external environment.  Change is inevitable in higher education because the external environment is always changing, thus the internal environment must follow suit to keep up with these demands.  My internship has given me firsthand experience in dealing with change and observing how it is implemented. 

     Readings by Birmbaum (1988), Burke (2011), Demers (2007), Kezar (2001) and Van de ven and Poole (1995) helped me to gain knowledge of organizational leadership, organizational change, and facilitating change.  These readings, my coursework, as well as my experiences with working through change at my internship site have helped me to not only work through change, but to remain optimistic, and articulate change to others in a way that is understandable rather than discouraging.  Having knowledge of change theories has helped me to understand that change is an important process that needs to happen to keep businesses, as well as institutions of higher education, successful.  I hope to work as a professional in an institution of higher education as either a student affairs professional, counselor, or faculty member  and having this knowledge will help me to work with, rather than against, changes that will inevitably occur.