I work in an
unorthodox educational circumstance. I am the student support manager at
community college extended learning site. I manage three advisors located at
two military education centers where the two installations are connected by a
recently constructed bridge. We provide complete student services, online and
face-to-face instruction, financial aid services, disability services, and
veterans education benefits services. All of these services packed into tiny
cubicle laden offices. We serve more than 2,000 students.
I observed
our site at the Education Center. Over the past three months, we have
experienced increased student traffic due to some of our recent marketing efforts.
As result, our advisors are seeing a number of students asking for general
information. We saw more than 600 students in the month of August on a walk-in
basis. More than 340 of them were requesting general information.
It seems
that we have created a wicked problem. While making ourselves more
available to students, we are wearing down those who
are delivering the services. In the "people business" we
are constantly in danger of becoming imbalanced. Teachers, nurses, social
workers, care takers, and many other professions of like may become worn down
if they are not adequately supported.
We have
thought of two approaches to addressing the issue. We are planning to add an
additional advisor. We are also planning to implement group-advising sessions
to accommodate prospective students. This will enable the advisors to
speak with current students, complete educational plans, conduct more
telephonic and online advising, and complete transcript evaluations.
Our next
step is to turn our advising team meeting into team building and developmental
meetings. I am currently crafting a team development plan. I am
also working with my colleague and dean to develop a thank you system to
better appreciate the efforts of our staff.
In the
paper, Innovation and Diffusion as Theory of Change, the author highlights the
work of Australian
researchers Jonathan West and Keith Smith. I think that four of the five
identified essential functions of innovative systems can be utilized within my
office:
• Identifying opportunities
• Creating and spreading knowledge and
skills
• Managing risk and uncertainty
• Building and maintaining essential
infrastructure
Bentley, T.
(2009). Innovation and diffusion as a theory of change. In Second international
handbook of educational change (pp. 29-46). Springer Netherlands.
Jordan, M. E., Kleinsasser,
R. C., & Roe, M. F. (2014). Wicked problems: inescapable wickedity. Journal
of Education for Teaching, 40(4), 415-430.
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