Design Thinking as a Catalyst for Change: Faculty Reaction to a Redesigned Meeting

Abstract

Academic governance is an important part of higher education (Kezar et al. 2006 ), and commonly takes place in meetings. Unfortunately, meeting inefficiency is widespread (Mroz et al. 2018 ). An academic department redesigned a day-long meeting to incorporate design thinking techniques. This qualitative study reported faculty reaction to the redesign. Recommendations are made for the design of future meetings with regard to faculty buy-in, diversity, relationships, professional development, and ongoing sustainability.