I have just sat on the selection panel for two prospective members of the Changemaker consortium. Just to be clear, some universities that are presented to the selection panels don’t get selected, but the process of getting to this point is rigorous. The universities that want to be members have to complete a self-evaluation that is then verified by AshokaU staff and other members of the Changemaker consortium through a site visit. Letters outlining the strength and weaknesses of the proposals are sent to the senior leadership teams, who have the opportunity to check any mistakes, and to implement any of the recommendations before the interview stage.
The interviews are conducted by Change Leaders from existing AshokaU campuses and people closely associated with AshokaU like social entrepreneurs involved in higher education or charitable foundations with an interest in higher education. Two or three panels are convened, and the applicant campus change leaders are asked dozens of questions about the leadership, the curriculum and the community aspects of their institution. The panels independently score the quality of the institutions’ commitment to ‘everyone a Changemaker world’. All the panellists gather together without the applicants and *under the silent scrutiny of the AshokaU observers, the panellists debate whether they agree, with ‘80% confidence, that the institution will make a unique and substantial contribution to the aims of AshokaU’. Even those universities that are obvious candidates get a substantial debate because every campus is so different. In the selection process I have just contributed to (and no, I’m not going to tell you who the universities are and what the outcome was!) had two very different universities. One is a small university with many privileged but highly engaged students working in some very inspiring innovation spaces with the support of talented and experienced adjunct faculty who are creating some very compelling initiatives. The other was a huge institution with dozens of campuses serving many very poor communities, with a wide range of study options- from skills based vocational courses through to PhDs. These students are predominantly working as well as studying or studying to get a job, and don’t have ‘changing the world’ as a personal ambition. Many students are studying from prison, very few have time for high levels of volunteering even though they are probably making significant contributions to their neighbourhoods. One university is focussed on students doing great things for other people and the other is focussed on those less well off in the first place. One is highly resourced with talent and funding to encourage degree programmes to invest in Changemaker initiatives, the other is working primarily from direct involvement in the communities themselves, raising ambition and showing alternatives that can work. One Changemaker group is working around the existing university structures to effect change, as an internal change consultancy whereas the other is helping the university rediscover its original social purpose in some of the most deprived neighbourhoods of its country. Such is the diversity of the Changemaker campuses, community based colleges serving some of the most deprived people in the world alongside small, elite or specialist universities creating leaders and shapers of future society. This diversity of institutional model creates the problem of comparing apples and oranges. How do you judge between a group that has all the advantages of talent and resource that a well-funded university has, with highly motivated students with lots of free time and a group that are trying to achieve the same with no additional resource, with students whose ambitions are focussed on themselves and their families and have no time to contribute to someone else’s welfare? The comparison is not really between the type or quality of students, or between the quality or resources that the lecturers and staff bring to each university. It isn’t even really about the level of commitment of the president or vice chancellor. The comparison is to be made between the extent to which the Changemaker team intend to change the rules of the university, to shift from providing more experiences in and around the classroom to changing the way in which degree programmes are designed in the first place, and changing the basis on which a student is evaluated. There has been a period in AshokaU’s development where minor or elective modules, or even whole courses in a relevant subject were the fashion, then a shift to cross-campus co-curriculum offerings. Having an opt in module on social entrepreneurship is very common now, and so attention shifted to making sure that the influence of the Changemaker team was across all faculties, often bolstered by design workshops, incubators and inspiring innovation spaces. Student-led programming is also a favourite strategy. But, when it comes down to it, changing the way the university makes decisions is the only way to make sure that the critical mass of Changemaker type activities is grafted into the very skeleton of the university. Whereas all the initiatives and projects might be the visible flesh of a Changemaker campus, the viscera are the institutional strategies and written plans, but the skeleton is the committees, the processes of designing and validating the degree programmes, they are the day-to-day activity of the university- the core business. Building 'Changemakerness' into the very essence of the University is the next biggest challenge.
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AuthorAcademic, priest, family man and problem solver Archives
October 2023
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