Abstract: Adoption of the recommendations of ‘Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education: A Call to Action’ will require changes to how the life sciences are taught, how academic departments and institutions support faculty, and how curricular decisions are made. To promote these changes, HHMI, NIH, and NSF created the Partnership for Undergraduate Life Science Education (PULSE) and identified 40 Leadership Fellows to develop strategies to support adoption of the recommendations in the Vision and Change (V&C) report. While there are many barriers to adoption of the V&C recommendations, a hypothesis of the Leadership Fellows is that even when departments have the will and means to change, they may need information, personal guidance, and support from life scientists who have experience with making the curricular changes recommended by V&C.

Therefore one of the Fellows working groups (designated Spreading the PULSE or StP) has devised a program to recruit, train, and organize a group of facilitators, called V&C Ambassadors, to assist departments in instituting curricular change. We are seeking funds to recruit individuals with the interest, experience, and interpersonal skills to be effective Ambassadors and to create a multiday workshop program to train Ambassadors in the tools and resources available to support the recommendations of V&C and in the approaches necessary to promote and sustain departmental change. In support of this initiative, we have been gathering print and online resources to serve as a portable “toolkit” that Ambassadors can provide to interested departments.

Departments that identify themselves as interested in V&C reform (or having begun the process, that wish to move further towards institutionalizing it) will complete a self-assessment of their activities to date, where they have achieved successes, and what barriers they may have encountered (see the poster of the Taking the PULSE group of Leadership Fellows). These departments will be partnered with a team of two or three Ambassadors who have expertise in strategic planning and promoting such reform. The Ambassador team will visit campus to meet with faculty, administrators and students to assess the departmental culture and to provide advice, guidance, and resources to advance the department’s goals. Subsequently the Ambassadors will submit a written report and then be available to the department for regular follow-ups by phone or videoconference, with at least one return visit to campus about a year after the initial visit.

Curricular change is not only an intellectual but a social endeavor; we believe that departments are more likely to change if they have the guidance and encouragement of colleagues they respect and ready access to the resources they need. By recruiting, training, and vetting such Ambassadors, and developing the PULSE V&C Toolkit and website, we will provide a support network effective in helping departments embrace Vision & Change.

Edwin Barea-Rodriguez, University of Texas, San Antonio, Betsy Desy, Southwest Minnesota State University, Alix Fink, Longwood University, Rick Gonzalez, University of San Diego,

Nitya Jacob, Oxford College of Emory University, Michael Kelrick, Truman State University, Karen Klyczek, University of Wisconsin, River Falls, David Marcey, California Lutheran University,

Joann Otto, Western Washington University, Gary Reiness, Lewis & Clark College, Mary Smith, North Carolina A&T State University, Akif Uzman, University of Houston, Downtown

Spreading the PULSE (StP): Ambassadors and Toolkits to Catalyze Change*

Work with organizational change specialists to develop training materials for PULSE Ambassadors

Train first cohort of Ambassadors

Assess training and conduct pilot

departmental visits

Assess visits and conduct expanded

training session of new Ambassadors

- Additional

department visits- Assess and Expand

program- Disseminate results

Figure 2. The PULSE V&C Ambassador Program. We are designing a workshop and developing materials to train a cadre of V&C Ambassadors who will be prepared and equipped to conduct productive visits that will aid departments seeking to implement V&C recommendations (The Ambassadors Training Program—ATP). StP group members will lead the first Ambassador training workshop for up to 20 more V&C Fellows. These and additional Ambassadors will be trained in facilitating organizational change as well as in the use of the PULSE V&C Toolkit [see Fig. 3]. StP will provide departments with initial preparation materials prior to the Ambassador team’s site visit (e.g., PULSE rubrics for evaluating levels of V&C implementation [see the PULSE TtP poster]; an Online Toolkit [see Fig 3]; and selected preparatory readings identified during the ATP design phase. Prior to the team’s arrival, each department will reflect on its specific needs or concerns using the PULSE V&C rubrics. Based on the type of institution, its location, and the type of guidance needed, a team of three Ambassadors will be assembled who have expertise that matches the department’s needs. During the visit, Ambassadors will engage, support, and guide the faculty in developing an action plan for change. To evaluate our progress in accomplishing the aims described above, StP members and liaisons will meet in person in spring 2015 to document, evaluate, and project a future plan for the Ambassador project, yielding:

A thorough assessment of the developmental stages of the ATP. With two levels of assessment, StP will evaluate both the efficacy of the ATP and the Ambassadors’ work, as well as the larger effort to facilitate change at the departmental level.A plan for a sustainable Ambassador effort that will involve the larger life sciences community. We are currently focused on the development of the ATP and the campus visit model. Successful work at this stage will allow for implementation at many more institutions and for the involvement of Ambassadors from outside the V&C Fellows. Dissemination of the lessons learned. Through regional and national meetings and the Online Toolkit, StP members and other Ambassadors will share the outcomes of this approach to department-level transformation.Foundation for future funding. Evaluation of this project will provide the necessary foundation for identifying and seeking suitable funding mechanisms to sustain future ATP workshops, Ambassador visits, and follow-up visits with institutions already engaged via the Ambassador program. Partnerships with professional organizations. Outcomes of this project will enable us to strengthen collaborations with interested national partners, such as PKAL, AIBS, and NABT, thus establishing a wider national network for the future success of the Ambassador program.

Fig. 3: The PULSE Online V&C Toolkit. The Toolkit, an online collection of annotated resources on student-centered pedagogical approaches, assessment, regional and national organizations, and cognate web sites, is already available in beta form. It will continue to provide up-to-date, essential resources to support departments as they implement V&C reforms, and will provide a core of information, tools, and networks for undergraduate biology educators. It will be used extensively by V&C Ambassadors as they help departments develop a plan for change, remove barriers, and plot the department’s trajectory along the V&C roadmap (Fig. 1).

To that end, an important section of the Toolkit is a Strategic Planning template that incorporates departmental self-assessment rubrics (see the Taking the PULSE poster) and follow-up activities that will recruit faculty and administrative stakeholders to a change agenda, one of the key goals of V&C. The Toolkit is thus an important node that links together a wide variety of tools that foster department-level change. It also will connect the PULSE community to resources from other V&C-inspired endeavors such as CourseSource and RCN-UBE projects focused on undergraduate research (CUREnet), case studies and problem-based learning (Science Case Network), and life science education research (SABER).

www.clunet.edu/BioDev/PULSE/resources.html

Figure 4. The PULSE Community Website. The PULSE Website is currently a NING-based portal that provides access to FORA, GROUPS, BLOGS, News, Updates, Resources, Events, etc. that are of interest to the PULSE Community. The four working groups of PULSE V&C Leadership Fellows have each established a featured Group open to all community members (The Spreading the PULSE Group, a.k.a. PULSE Ambassador Group, is highlighted by an orange outline in this figure). PULSE Community members are invited to check the website regularly for information on the PULSE framework for V&C implementation in Life Sciences departments, nationally. The website will also provide information on how to get involved in PULSE. Visitors are encouraged to examine the website layout and peruse the FORA, GROUPS, BLOGS, ONLINE TOOLKIT, News, Updates, Resources, Events, etc.. Please join PULSE and please do not hesitate to share your ideas! Together, we are building a movement that depends upon a vibrant PULSE Community network to spread V&C.

www.pulsecommunity.org

Acknowledgments:

We are grateful for the support of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, National Institute of General Medical Sciences, and the National Science Foundation who jointly initiated the Partnership for Undergraduate Life Science Education and assembled the team of Leadership Fellows. The StP group benefitted greatly from the advice from our liaisons with other PULSE Leadership Fellows groups: Bill Davis (RtP); Sharon Gusky (TtP) and Kathy Miller (F3). We also acknowledge the vision and commitment of the PULSE Steering Committee (Judy Verbeke and Chuck Sullivan, NSF; David Asai and Cynthia Bauerle, HHMI; Shawn Drew Gaillard and Shiva Singh, NIGMS) in getting PULSE off the ground. Discussion facilitation and technical support by KnowInnovation is greatly appreciated.

* Vision and Change in Biology Undergraduate Education: Chronicling Change, Inspiring the Future, The AAAS National Conference on Vision and Change, Washington D.C., July 28-30, 2013

Figure 1. The PULSE Roadmap for Change. The StP group is developing programs to assist departments that are in the pre-aware and aware stages of development or that desire help with maintaining their adoption of Vision & Change recommendations.