Academic departments are complex, knowledge-intensive social systems of interacting and interdependent agents (e.g., students, faculty, and staff). Complexity theorists describe such systems as social networks that are continuously reconstructed as agents within the network interact and influence one another. Complexity leadership theorists develop strategies for managing such social systems to guide this dynamic and to improve the social network and its agents. When effectively led, these social systems can create a shared vision and collective impetus for action, producing new patterns of behavior or new modes of operating. Guided by these principles, this NSF IUSE/PFE:RED project aims to transform the academic culture of the Glenn Department of Civil Engineering at Clemson University so that the faculty and students of the program can better meet the changing societal needs of the 21st century. Few, if any, studies have explored emergent behavior in complex, dynamic social networks and the capacity of these networks to initiate and sustain change in departmental cultures; informed research on the emergence of innovative ideas toward change; evaluated the influence of social networks on innovative capacity of individual members; or provided a useful case for academic departments looking to make similar transformations. Therefore, this study has the potential to make a significant contribution to the literature as it focuses on understanding and communicating the underlying dynamics that explain why and how change occurs in a social system, how continuous change can be sustained, and how similar change strategies can be implemented elsewhere. Validated at Clemson, this change framework is to be disseminated to other engineering departments nationwide, including 60 ABET-accredited civil engineering departments. Hence, the potential societal impacts of the project include a cultural shift in civil engineering education across the nation to produce a new breed of civil engineers capable of creating solutions for 21st-century problems that are posing unprecedented threats to our society.

With the aim of creating a low-cost, scalable, replicable academic change framework informed by complexity leadership theory, this project undertakes three tactics. Tactic 1 involves transforming our curriculum to create new faculty/student interactions and interdependencies via heterogeneous teams to create an environment ripe for the emergence of innovative ideas. This tactic aims to create a curricular scaffold that weaves the coursework both vertically and horizontally through carefully designed, socially-relevant, practically meaningful problem statements with input from project stakeholders and oversight from government partners. This tactic is envisioned to disrupt the status quo and facilitate new forms of interaction among students, faculty, and professionals. Tactic 2 involves transforming the departmental structure and culture to promote innovation through a collective impetus for change resulting from new faculty-faculty interactions and dependencies. The project team uses a soft-wired organizational structure to create conditions conducive for the emergence of complex, dynamic collaborations among faculty to enable innovation and rapid adaptation. Rather than organizing around the solutions faculty can offer, soft-wiring enables the faculty to organize around the societal problems they can solve, leading to flexible, hybrid teaching formats. Tactic 3 involves tactful utilization of discomfort and tension in Discomfort Zone gatherings to create a shared vision for transformation among all engineering departments at Clemson. The intellectual merit of this project focuses on creating an academic culture of innovation and adaptability, which is a prerequisite for sustainable change. The use of complexity leadership theory in an academic setting and the collection of longitudinal data on the emergent outcomes it predicts fill an important knowledge gap in the pertinent literature. This project is jointly funded by the Division of Undergraduate Education; the Division of Engineering Education and Centers, the Division of Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation; the Division of Electrical, Communications and Cyber Systems; and the Division of Industrial Innovation and Partnerships; reflecting the alignment of this project with the respective goals of the divisions and their programs.