Most stakeholders in engineering industry and education agree that change is needed in engineering education in order to improve the quality of instruction and produce engineering graduates with a wide range of skills. However, despite this consensus and several efforts to implement change, the accomplishments of the past 20 years have not met expectations. Thus, we aim to develop a nationwide program to help engineering faculty members develop change leadership skills. In support of this goal, we held a collaborative workshop to engage engineering faculty and administrators in a conversation about effective ways of implementing campus change or developing programs that lead to change. Attendees discussed institutional and departmental challenges; the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) needed to affect change; and methods of motivating other faculty members to develop those KSAs. In addition, the attendees presented examples of their own successes and failures in implementing change. We strove to gain information from the experiences of change leaders in attendance in order to help frame an implementable program for developing change leadership skills. Attendees provided feedback both in person and through an online post-workshop survey. All attendees were expected to develop and execute related plans on their home campuses and to report on those activities. We had expected that these on-campus plans would relate to explicating and validating incentives to engage faculty to acquire change leadership skills. While some did, many served to engage faculty in specific change leadership activities without necessarily explicitly highlighting the leadership skills being gained as a result of engaging in the activity. This paper will summarize the lessons learned from the application process, the workshop, and the campus plan activities.
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