Terry O'banion, Laura E. Weidner, Cynthia D. Wilson
{"title":"The Innovators","authors":"Terry O'banion, Laura E. Weidner, Cynthia D. Wilson","doi":"10.1201/9780429280542-1","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"As we approach the second decade of the new millennium, there is a renaissance of innovation in education, a resurgence of interest and experimentation that begs for analysis and review. To that end, the League for Innovation in the Community College proposed to conduct a national study on the nature of innovation in the community college using recipients of its Innovation of the Year award from 1999 through 2008 as a data set. With funding from MetLife Foundation, researchers examined these innovations and explored the perspectives of the winners of these awards. In September 2009, a survey created by the researchers with assistance from a focus group, field-tested on a sample of winners not included in the project, and vetted by a National Advisory Committee was distributed electronically to the 400 award winners; 117 respondents returned surveys for a return rate of 29%. In addition to the survey, more than 40 of the award winners were interviewed using interview questions created by the researchers and vetted by the national advisory committee. The full report and all project findings can be accessed at www.league.org/natureofinnovation. In the present article the authors report only on the survey of the Innovation of the Year Award winners, including who the innovators are, how they work. and why they choose to innovate. Introduction In a time of social and economic ferment and increasing calls from American society for the community college to play a role in addressing current challenges, innovation is often cited as one of the great strengths of American culture and of the community college in particular. In her keynote address at the April 20, 2010, annual convention of the American Association of Community Colleges, Melinda Gates said, \"The task ahead of you is to innovate at the necessary scale, so that your innovations have an impact on the entire community college system of more than 1,000 institutions and six million students\" (Gates, 2010). The call from Gates to innovate is echoed in numerous recent documents and statements from foundations, governmental agencies, research reports, and policy leaders. The call is based in the belief that the community college can respond to the current social and economic challenges in innovative ways, and community colleges will respond to that call because innovation is in their DNA. The community college itself is an innovation, an American social invention, radically different from the English-based four-year college and the German-based university that comprise the higher education landscape in the U.S. Additionally, the community college has become a crucible of innovation, experimenting and adapting to keep its promise to provide a second chance to underprepared and underrepresented students who never dreamed of college before there was a community college. But the college itself is not the innovator. The innovators are the faculty, administrators, and staff who were attracted to the philosophy and the programs of the community college as a reflection of their own deepest held values. They signed on to the community college to make a difference, and when they realized they had taken on the toughest tasks in all of higher education, they did not retreat. Indeed, in the face of overwhelming challenge they mustered their creative forces and became innovators. The National Study on Innovation Since 1982, the League for Innovation in the Community College has been recognizing the most outstanding innovators in its member colleges with the Innovator of the Year Award. League membership includes over 750 member colleges representing every state and every kind of technical/community college both urban and rural, large and small. Each member institution may submit an innovation for this prestigious award. Criteria for the awards include Quality, Creativity, Timeliness, Efficiency, Cost Effectiveness, and Replication. Faculty committees select the winners based on a review of applications from interested individuals and teams whose innovations meet the criteria. …","PeriodicalId":147861,"journal":{"name":"Vintage Games 2.0","volume":"4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2010-09-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"2","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Vintage Games 2.0","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1201/9780429280542-1","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 2
Abstract
As we approach the second decade of the new millennium, there is a renaissance of innovation in education, a resurgence of interest and experimentation that begs for analysis and review. To that end, the League for Innovation in the Community College proposed to conduct a national study on the nature of innovation in the community college using recipients of its Innovation of the Year award from 1999 through 2008 as a data set. With funding from MetLife Foundation, researchers examined these innovations and explored the perspectives of the winners of these awards. In September 2009, a survey created by the researchers with assistance from a focus group, field-tested on a sample of winners not included in the project, and vetted by a National Advisory Committee was distributed electronically to the 400 award winners; 117 respondents returned surveys for a return rate of 29%. In addition to the survey, more than 40 of the award winners were interviewed using interview questions created by the researchers and vetted by the national advisory committee. The full report and all project findings can be accessed at www.league.org/natureofinnovation. In the present article the authors report only on the survey of the Innovation of the Year Award winners, including who the innovators are, how they work. and why they choose to innovate. Introduction In a time of social and economic ferment and increasing calls from American society for the community college to play a role in addressing current challenges, innovation is often cited as one of the great strengths of American culture and of the community college in particular. In her keynote address at the April 20, 2010, annual convention of the American Association of Community Colleges, Melinda Gates said, "The task ahead of you is to innovate at the necessary scale, so that your innovations have an impact on the entire community college system of more than 1,000 institutions and six million students" (Gates, 2010). The call from Gates to innovate is echoed in numerous recent documents and statements from foundations, governmental agencies, research reports, and policy leaders. The call is based in the belief that the community college can respond to the current social and economic challenges in innovative ways, and community colleges will respond to that call because innovation is in their DNA. The community college itself is an innovation, an American social invention, radically different from the English-based four-year college and the German-based university that comprise the higher education landscape in the U.S. Additionally, the community college has become a crucible of innovation, experimenting and adapting to keep its promise to provide a second chance to underprepared and underrepresented students who never dreamed of college before there was a community college. But the college itself is not the innovator. The innovators are the faculty, administrators, and staff who were attracted to the philosophy and the programs of the community college as a reflection of their own deepest held values. They signed on to the community college to make a difference, and when they realized they had taken on the toughest tasks in all of higher education, they did not retreat. Indeed, in the face of overwhelming challenge they mustered their creative forces and became innovators. The National Study on Innovation Since 1982, the League for Innovation in the Community College has been recognizing the most outstanding innovators in its member colleges with the Innovator of the Year Award. League membership includes over 750 member colleges representing every state and every kind of technical/community college both urban and rural, large and small. Each member institution may submit an innovation for this prestigious award. Criteria for the awards include Quality, Creativity, Timeliness, Efficiency, Cost Effectiveness, and Replication. Faculty committees select the winners based on a review of applications from interested individuals and teams whose innovations meet the criteria. …