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The percentage of international faculty members at Korean universities peaked in 2013 and has been decreasing since, suggesting that Korean universities have a problem with international faculty member retention. This study investigates whether international faculty members' intention to leave is associated with their degree of acculturation. Results are based on analyses of data from 325 international faculty members with doctorates working at Korean universities nationwide. Regression analyses reveal that acculturation, work-related conditions (salary, workload, workplace climate) and mobility-related motivational factors (job market in home country, interest in Korea) explain international faculty members' intention to leave. A 'cultural advantage' (ethnically Korean or living with a Korean spouse) is not a significant predictor of intention to leave. Suggestions to support international faculty members, and to help bring about synergistic organizational change are ventured in the hopes of bolstering retention at Korean universities going forward.

In this article we share our learning experiences on the organizational design barriers we perceived to have encountered with scenario planning in higher education for program development. Our perceived barriers discussed include misalignment of culture and change intervention; constructing organizational reality and meaning making; knowledge creation and transfer of knowledge; and short term versus long term outcomes. Our retrospective analysis contributes to the understanding of the complexity of change in higher education and adds to the knowledge base on using scenario planning in a bureaucratic, hierarchical context. Our experiences are incongruent with implicit assumptions that scenario planning can be used in any context (Balarezo et al., 2017), and illustrate some important constraints to consider before using this type of forward-thinking intervention. We provide recommendations for using scenario planning and for transformational change in higher education. These changes have implications for more creative, future-oriented educational planning processes for improving higher education teaching and learning experiences.

The need for educators to utilize culturally responsive pedagogy to support culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) student populations is critical. This research examines the formation of teacher candidates' culturally responsive teaching self-efficacy (CRTSE) and attributional beliefs for teaching CLD learners. Findings inform existing research on teachers' CRTSE beliefs and attributional development as we identify areas for improving educator preparation programs (EPP) and discuss recommendations for transformative institutional change aligned with the Association of Teacher Educators (ATE) teaching standards, which support the need for EPPs to develop teacher candidates' capacity to create inclusive learning opportunities for culturally, socially, and linguistically diverse students. This research also contributes to this professional literature by examining the formation of teacher candidates' CRTSE and attributional beliefs for teaching CLD learners and identifies areas of improvement regarding social justice principles and the application of cultural competence in EPP coursework and practicum experiences.

Drawing on perspectives from top state-regional universities' authorities (known as "rectors") and public statistics on higher education, we discuss the sources of regional inequality in the Chilean university system. While there is scarce research on regional inequality for Chilean higher education, it is a well-recognized concern within global debates. In this study, the testimonies of rectors link perceptions of regional inequality to the historic, political, and managerial dimensions that have determined their institutions' development. As the problem of regional inequality stems from a tradition of political centralization, the neoliberal transformations, imposed since 1981, were singled out by the rectors for institutionalizing patterns of marketization that reinforced "inequalities of origin" for state-regional universities. Since the 2000s, trends of massification, regulation, and student protests reshaped higher education, leading to sectorial reform in 2018. However, competitive disadvantages are seen to continue to hinder the public role of state-regional universities. Institutional development strategies emerged, under the direction of rectors, to compensate for such inequalities, differentiating between winners and losers of neoliberal higher education. This article characterizes the modes of reproduction and overcoming of regional inequalities among state universities under neoliberal policy.

This paper analyses Sol Plaatje University's (SPU) progress on increased research activities. The paper employs bibliometric analysis review method to demonstrate the university's transition from being a predominantly teaching-focused to a more research-oriented institution. A novel, data-driven methodology is also adopted in this paper, to identify and examine SPU's research niche through publications. This paper's data were collected from the Scopus and Web of Science databases. The paper's findings reveal that there was an overall significant increase in research outputs, observable on yearly basis for a decade (2014 to 2023). The yearly increase in research output is recorded from diverse research fields, including machine learning, cryptography, environmental research, and public health. Findings further reveal that SPU has built its international research collaborations within the African and European continents. This paper's findings contribute to literature on higher education development by offering insights into how newly established universities can transition from a teaching-centric focus to becoming research-active. This paper revealed the importance of strategic planning, interdisciplinary research, and international collaboration in the development of a vibrant research environment.

The purpose of this research was to understand faculty mentors' perspectives on the impact of CPED-aligned methodology courses on doctoral students' development as scholarly practitioners. This study was a pilot study and exploratory in nature. Methods included distribution of a survey which included Likert items, as well as open-ended questions. The study presents descriptive statistics and thematic analysis of the survey results. Additionally, exemplar DiPs were analyzed to demonstrate alignment with CPED principles. Findings indicated that faculty mentors perceive that the CPED-aligned methods coursework is having a positive impact on students' learning and development as scholar practitioners. However, areas for growth and continuous improvement were identified. Implications of the research indicate a need for ongoing program assessment and evaluation of the impact of methodological coursework as the institution moves forward in program redesign and improvement. This study also serves as a model for incorporating faculty mentor perspectives in course and program assessment.

Sub-degree education is one of the key higher education sectors in Hong Kong. With the effect of managerialism, tertiary institutions tend to transition from a collegial toward a managerial model, and have shifted from teaching-intensive institutions to research-intensive ones. In this study, two key research questions are addressed: to what degree can managerialism influence organisational change? To what degree and how will an exogenous force generate organisational development? To answer the research questions, we present a case study at "Hong Kong College" via 15 face-to-face, semi-structured interviews with the administrative staff, academic staff, department head, and a visiting scholar. The key research findings identified the difficulties or obstacles experienced in carrying out research or scholarly activities, the long-term impacts on the workplace of staff and sub-degree institutions changing from teaching to research, the advantages of the staff and institutions regarding their working areas in the process of new research directions, and the driving forces for enriching a research culture in sub-degree institutions. Academic and managerial implications are also provided in the paper.

After reading Chris Lowney's (2003) book, Heroic Leadership, with its concept of "twice born" individuals, the author asked himself what it might mean, as a university administrator, to be "twice born." Yet, he was more curious to consider this concept as a framework for shaping, and perhaps even reshaping, the academy itself. He asks, "Can a university be twice born?" Might it be possible for an established institution to "turn inward to re-emerge with a created rather than an inherited sense of identify?" What calls for a college or university in 21st century America to be re-birthed, twice born? Simply, caste. More fully, the legacy of caste in American society generally and the academy specifically, and the resulting hierarchy of privilege and power embedded within.

In his writing in the mid-nineteenth century -- "The Idea of a University," John Henry Newman argues that the university provides a platform for human advancement through teaching and research. Over a century later, our public university now hedged on several social, political, ecological and economic factors that bully its traditional mission daily. More recently, neoliberalism -- a key feature of globalisation, knowledge economy, environmental crises and other economic logic -- continues to significantly shift universities' missions in another direction by creating winners and losers. Drawing on a range of theoretical perspectives, such as the glonacal agency heuristic, global economic and social forces, and empirical data, this paper examines the implications of these changes for equity in education, highlighting how global and national market-oriented policies, practices and outcomes continue to add to the stratification of higher education. Although the benefits of this global phenomenon are enormous, we maintain that the disbenefits are dire and could contribute to the narrowing of universities' traditional missions, increased academic managerialism, the death of academic collegiality, and uneven development and unhealthy competition among universities locally and globally if not carefully considered. We admit that competition will continue to transform universities because the pressures of globalisation, as seen in recent times, increasingly influence higher education systems. However, since universities still operate mainly in their national context, we believe national educational policies can focus on reducing competition with other universities and promoting equity. To cement this way of thinking in universities both nationally and globally, we must understand the critical role of leadership as well as get it right.

Feeling the exhaustion of multiple disability-related violations occurring in the classroom, staff from the Office of Disability Access at Heneton College have begun to feel isolated and hopeless. When the opportunity for collaborative, college-wide disability-centered training becomes available, it is met with mixed reviews and lots of opinions from across the institution. Some are supportive, many are feeling the pressure of multiple professional development and training obligations, and some question why the institution even needs this kind of training. Leaders in this case are faced with questions around shared governance, organizational change, and equity and inclusion.

This research deals with the question of how the COVID-19 pandemic affected discourses on competition in higher education organisations and how other discourses occurred and gained power. Additionally, it focusses on changes which take place in windows of opportunities that occur through discursive change in times of crisis. We show that discourses on competition have been highly influential in the field of academia. However, the pandemic rapidly introduced or empowered new or different discourses. These discourses either replaced existing discourses on competition, ascribed different meanings or redefined the frame under which a specific discourse is important. We merge our observations of such processes into the argument that the COVID-19 crisis has put competition discourses on hold during the first stage of the pandemic. At later stages, we show that competition discourses regained power. To make these contributions, we analyse interviews conducted at two universities at the organisational leadership level and in different departments in subjects such as social sciences, product design, music and engineering. We also examine official statements by the German rectors' conference and further documents such as emails and press releases at two stages of the pandemic crisis. The first stage took place during the lockdowns in 2020 and gives us rich insights into the changes during the pandemic. The second stage took place in 2022 when organisations returned at least partly to their pre-pandemic routines allowing us to analyse changes over time.

Mergers in higher education are large-scale, complex organisational change processes seeking to integrate former independent institutions into a new organisational entity. Mergers are often justified by reference to broad overarching goals such as quality, relevance, and efficiency. In practice, mergers entail attempts at organisational integration which can be inhibited by several obstacles, increasing and large internal distances can be such a hindrance to integration. In this paper, we explore how different forms of distance to leadership in the context of higher education can be conceptualised, and how experiences of different forms of distance interrelate. This paper shows that geographical distance can also mask other conceptualisations of distances and that geographical distance can also interact with other forms of distances. The empirical basis consists of data from a large-scale research project addressing the organisational transformations taking place in Norwegian higher education due to mergers between 2016 and 2017.

Building on the previous chapters in the volume, this concluding chapter provides a practical overview of theories relating to religious diversity and organizational change to outline recommended actions for practitioners across higher education functional areas who want to create a more equitable landscape for non-Christian college students.

The dearth of historically underrepresented minorities (URMs) in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) faculty positions is one of the most significant challenges in higher education in the U.S. Increasing underrepresented groups' success in academia through achieving and retention in tenure-track faculty roles has been the central goal of the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP) program. In the present study, we draw on organizational change theories in higher education reform and interpret the landscape of AGEP project alliances through mapping their theories of change, barriers to success, levels of change, and foci of change, based on semistructured interviews with 17 AGEP alliances' core teams. Our mapping reveals local structures as well as interesting patterns across AGEP alliances that inform national trends. We identify alignment and misalignment between our analysis frameworks and AGEP projects which amplifies contemporary questions of providing direct student support within a deficit mindset context as well as sustainability and scalability for both the AGEP community and the broader community of diversifying STEM.

Many professors, especially at the associate level, say yes to service requests despite the pervasive advice to "just say no." Much of this service constitutes "invisible labor" that diverts time and energy from efforts required to advance to the full professor rank. Based on in-depth interview research with 25 tenured professors, this article outlines how different groups of faculty negotiate invisible labor, highlights institutional inequities that unevenly determine patterns of invisible labor, and connects invisible labor to broader neoliberal forces. For women faculty of color in particular, a "no" is not always respected by more powerful institutional actors, and the individualized emphasis on "just saying no" to service brings with it both individual and collective costs. This article suggests that institutional and cultural change may ameliorate the racialized and gendered inequities associated with invisible labor more effectively than the individualized advice to "just say no."

Leading organizational change is a daunting aspect of leadership. However, effectively leading change enables positive individual and organizational outcomes. Herein, we present a case-based classroom exercise to teach students about organizational change, demonstrate different aspects of the change process, and teach how to overcome resistance to change. We draw upon research on leadership and organizational change to introduce the exercise. In the exercise, Taylor Smith, a CEO of a farm equipment manufacturing company, is pressed by the company board to lay off a significant portion of their workforce as production is being moved overseas. In this context, the exercise provides students with an in-depth look at the change process as they discuss how the company will be affected by the layoffs and then explore ways for the layoffs to be carried out.

Acting as a governmental tool to enhance competitiveness and integrate research and education by merging a local university and a provincial academy of sciences, this case study provides an example of a novel cross-sectoral complementary merger in higher education in China. Through a qualitative analysis of its three-stage process and the factors influencing its preliminary positive outcomes from the university leadership perspective, this study examines a unique higher education merger, emphasizing the effects of cultural issues and leadership. This study adds an interesting example to the growing literature on higher education mergers and offers suggestions for future research and practice.

This article offers key considerations regarding how leadership educators can alter their relations with institutions and campus community members (e.g., students, faculty, staff) to align with and advance liberatory struggles. The article also explores the drawbacks and contradictions of institutionalizing liberation within leadership learning and education spaces in colleges and universities. The author underscores the significance and immediacy of establishing spaces and advancing discourse outside the contours of institutional higher education where individuals, in collaboration and solidarity, can rehearse, plan, organize, and study the path toward collective liberation and the creation of an otherwise world that has yet to exist.

Institutional change is being called for to renew higher music education (HME). But what institutional pressures, specifically, are driving these calls, and how are HME organisations responding to pressures to change? By turning to institutional theory, we lean on the concept of institutional isomorphism to shed light on how HME organisations may be navigating pressures to appear legitimate in the field to secure organisational survival. Drawing from a comparative case study of two HME organisations from Norway and the Netherlands, in which strategic plans and interview transcripts with students and professors have been analysed, we discuss how change processes are intertwined with an organisational quest for legitimacy. The findings suggest that there are overarching pressures to change in the field of HME and that variables in the institutional environment indicate how processes of change may unfold. Finally, implications of this unveiled landscape are discussed.

Drawing on the data collected via a European funded project with eleven higher education partners, the article proposes a five-stage working model which can be adopted in and adapted to different institutional contexts so as to shift perceptions, strengthen engagement and channel commitment with a view to developing the desired quality culture. The project explored ways in which quality in higher education was viewed and practised by three main stakeholder groups: students, academics and quality managers, referred to as three 'quality circles'. It adopted a reflective approach to issues of quality based on grassroots discussion and cooperation between key, but in some cases disengaged, stakeholders in the quality process. The project designed, tried and tested a series of activities which demonstrated lasting impact. The analysis of the project data revealed a patterning, which, if organised sequentially, carries the potential to crystalise into an action model which may be replicated by individual higher education institutions in support of advancing towards the quality culture they might be striving for. This article highlights the building blocks of the model and explains practices which can underpin their successful implementation.

This article is an ethnography of a student protest against a Finnish university's plans to give up 25 percent of its campus buildings until 2030. The Finnish universities faced financial deficits primarily due to education cuts implemented by Finland's right-wing government between 2015 and 2019. To balance the budget, Tampere University proposed surrendering some of its buildings, including the Linna, the home of social sciences, and the main library. The students organized the We Will Not Give Up the Linna Building movement (WWGU) to oppose the university's decision. This article is an ethnography of the movement's resistance and outcomes and analyzes what the student activists learned and how they changed during the protest wave in 2021. Our analysis uncovered six key insights the student activists learned on democracy, social media in activism, activism's temporality and persistence, the role of emotions in activism, and the university's power structures. The study contributes to a general understanding of the student protest movement, the social transformations that student activists undergo, and how they learn to perceive democracy, develop political imagination, and understand power structures.

This study investigated how institutional leaders within an alliance navigate and use their agency to cultivate organizational change to support the success of underrepresented racial minority (URM) science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) students. As part of this study, we partnered with the Illinois Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (ILSAMP), a signature program of the National Science Foundation (NSF), to explore our research question. The phenomenon of interest is the institutional leaders' perceptions of their agency and their organization's efforts to engage in the Alliance and support URM STEM student success through the various initiatives. The research team conducted 20 semi-structured interviews with institutional leaders and faculty at 11 public and private institutions as part of the STEM alliance. We utilized Braun and Clarke's (2006) six-phased thematic analysis to identify patterns of meaning within the data that respond to the research question. Findings revealed a leadership perspective that frames approaches to STEM initiatives becoming a part of an institution's fabric. The contribution of this study relates to the illumination of the tension between institutional leaders' agency to make change sustainable versus structural and leadership networks inhibiting STEM success efforts.

Community colleges are challenged with creating and sustaining student success organizational change. Institutional-level student success reform efforts are needed to combat the unacceptably low student completion rates, but colleges often struggle to initiate and maintain organizational reforms. After many years of reform efforts, researchers have provided theories for whole-college organizational change, in particular guided pathways, that show great promise in helping community colleges realize student success and completion gains while targeting and reducing racial equity gaps. A literature review focused on determining the internal reasons why institutions struggle to create and sustain organizational change was conducted. Contextual challenges, awareness and motivation, and change management process challenges within the institutions were several of the key causes identified. Within contextual challenges, organizational structures including college policies, practices, and governance, as well as leadership and funding challenges were cited as barriers to organizational change for student success. A lack of awareness of the need for or how to change by faculty, staff, and administrators, along with a lack of motivation or resistance to the change can also create significant roadblocks for colleges. Change management process challenges within the institution including a lack of professional development for leaders in change management strategies was also cited as a significant challenge to developing and sustaining an effective organizational change effort. Knowing these challenges can lead to informed approaches that college leaders, faculty, and staff take to implement, hopefully helping institutions sustain change reform at scale over the long-term and ultimately benefit the overall goal of increased student success and completion.

Several European countries have made it possible for public universities to become foundation universities. The transformation has also involved a change in their governance model with external actors taking important decision-making positions. We believe that these changes also imply a transformation of the organisational culture of the said universities. This study examines the transformation of a Finnish and a Hungarian university into a foundation one based on documents, interviews and questionnaire surveys. We found that for both universities there is strong pressure to move towards a corporate culture, but that change is not happening without resistance at either university.

The multifaceted influences of coloniality in higher education continue to be explored to reshape and transform spaces that can either reproduce structures of coloniality or bring about decoloniality. The University of Puerto Rico, the central higher learning institution of the archipelago, continues to undergo changes that are influenced by its sociopolitical context. The aims of this research included the critical observation of the influence of coloniality in the public university system of Puerto Rico through exploring community engagement by university professors. This research implemented qualitative inquiry through document analysis. Pattern analysis was performed through three conceptual frameworks: coloniality, colonial state of exception, and ecologies of knowledge. Findings included both the interruption of coloniality by university professors and the reproduction of coloniality by the university administration. These findings illustrate current spaces of decoloniality in Boricua higher education.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused massive disruption to business as usual across all industries, including education, and there is a growing consensus that the higher education (HE) sector may never go back to 'business as usual'. While universities are now developing strategies for 2030, several management consultancies are projecting a very challenging HE landscape in the next decade. Suggestions, from the death of the normal university campus to shutdowns, mergers and collaborations are widely predicted including new opportunities for growth. University administrators should develop innovative strategic plans to address the challenges and harness the growth opportunities. Although other industries have faced such disruptions and have coped with responses such as partnerships and mergers, it may be time for universities to reconsider business models for the future. The strategies adopted in the aviation industry have been used to recommend a way forward for universities. [Note: The page range (17-33) shown on the PDF is incorrect. The correct page range is 17-32.]

The paper aimed at exploring intercultural communication as a means to promote inclusivity in diverse organisations. The study adopted a case study design with qualitative data. A semi-structured interview guide with open-ended questions was utilised as the main data collection tool from a sample of ten purposively selected professionals from the departments responsible for transformation, employment equity, and diversity; human resources development, corporate affairs, and marketing. The study's findings showed that the university lacked a well-thought-out action plan for taking a deliberate approach to intercultural communication as a means to promote inclusivity. In particular, the staff felt that there was no deliberate attempt to guarantee that intercultural communication was handled uniformly throughout the university and that communication strategy documents did not offer direction regarding how successful intercultural communication could take place. The university's current practices in relation to cultural awareness and training initiatives only focus on cultural diversity and should be amplified to include raising awareness of how intercultural communication can unify people who differ culturally towards a common purpose. Furthermore, the university should consider expanding its current cultural diversity training programmes to include training on intercultural communication dimensions. Cultural awareness campaigns in the form of information fliers, cultural events, and cultural training sessions should form an integral part of intercultural communication enhancement initiatives.

Merrimack College is a midsized Catholic Augustinian College pursuing its historical service-based commitments while shifting priorities toward research. With limited time and resources, these two aims can create tension at institutional and faculty levels. This single institutional case study shares the work of faculty and College leadership to affirm and institutionalize community engagement (CE) through community-engaged research and the development of a Food Justice Research & Action Cluster (FJRAC), connecting community priorities for food justice with faculty expertise. Based on the literature on institutional change and assessment (Eckel, Hill, and Green's Typology of Institutional Change, 2001; Holland's Levels of Commitment to Community Engagement, 2005), this paper frames the stages and timeline that led to the formation of the FJRAC. We advance a Transdisciplinary Ecosystem Model for community-engaged research to analyze the depth and pervasiveness of the institutionalization of CE and explore how colleges can reinvigorate and deepen institutional change. Results of the FJRAC include student experiences (e.g., curriculum development, food security research); community opportunities (e.g., food sources, data analysis); and research projects (e.g., external funding applications). Lessons learned highlight the importance of supporting efforts that align with values, supporting faculty teams, navigating conflict around institution/faculty tension, communicating commitment, keeping timelines flexible, demonstrating value propositions to stakeholders, and balancing conflicting goals.

Popular films afford a creative and effective teaching method to stimulate robust student interaction and engagement of concepts in ways that enhance learning outcomes. This paper describes a study of the effective use of a purposefully selected, fact-based film as an instructional case analysis to identify and examine the critical aspects of a change management process. This research applied a case study method that used pre- and post-surveys of university undergraduate students in an active learning setting. Results of this study showed that the teaching innovation produced a 76% increase in students' understanding and comprehension of change management principles and related power dynamics in a volatile environment.

With the continued interest in trauma-informed practice (TIP) knowledge at the P-12 level, it has become imperative to consider the role of teacher preparation programs in providing this crucial knowledge to preservice educators. The TIP program at Mountain U (pseudonym) School of Education (SOE) is working to increase the current TIP knowledge of preservice teachers so that they are ready to implement TIP from the beginning of their careers. This paper adds to the trauma-informed literature in teacher preparation by describing the TIP initiative at Mountain U. It provides a roadmap for schools and departments that want to undertake this endeavor and explains each step in the roadmap. This roadmap is a three-pronged approach that includes capacity building, individual course integration, and departmental integration through creative, flexible, and patient TIP support.

State wildlife agency professionals are realizing they need new mindsets and practices for collaboration with diverse stakeholders and community partners to achieve policy, management, science, and education goals. This realization led to a partnership between a state agency, a land-grant university's outreach and engagement office, and University Extension to codesign professional development certificate programs about community engagement. The authors describe the codevelopment process of both basic and advanced community engagement certificate programs, including goals, descriptions, curricula, and evaluation outcomes. Three years of programming resulted in lessons learned about moving community engagement concepts from theory to practice, the value of participant-generated case studies, and the importance of opportunities for adult learners to practice new ideas in their own professional contexts. In addition to participant impacts, the authors share how this codevelopment process and partnership has improved practices and influenced culture change in the state agency, university, and Extension.

This article presents a tri-party collaborative course-design framework using a case study based on the launch of a new 4th year course at the University of Toronto, Mississauga, Department of Management. This study employed a multi-method qualitative approach consisting of a survey, followed by three focus groups with distinct stakeholder groups: students, industry practitioners, and academics. The results revealed a surprising overlap of interests among the different groups, with the data supporting the design of the new course, which was launched in the Fall of 2022. In addition, data from current students indicated robust positive acceptance of both the course content and class dynamics. The results confirm the proposed framework's promise for use in designing new courses or redesigning existing ones.

This article explores how teacher education operates within market-organized environments. We argue that the forces of the market have acted "against institutional isomorphism" in teacher education, as evidenced by the emergence of new graduate schools of education (nGSEs), which are a new population of teacher preparation providers. We suggest that nGSEs are animated by logics based on highly-specialized missions, alternative funding models, and membership in powerful networks that set this population apart from others within the organizational field of teacher education. We also argue that there is remarkable variation and diversification "among" nGSEs, which has resulted in highly specialized "teacher preparation niches" that distinguish each nGSE from other members within the same population through mission-specific branding, publicity, and funding, which in turn prompts increased demand for specialized programs. Finally, we suggest that although nGSEs have been shaped in many ways by the forces of the market, most of them are "not completely dominated by market logics." Rather, most combine elements of the logic of markets with elements of other powerful logics, forming "hybrids" that create tensions, some of which are highly productive, prompting rapid organizational evolution, including name changes, reorganizations, and new partnerships.

This paper presents the results of thirty-seven interviews of senior library leaders at American Association of University (AAU) institutions conducted in Spring 2023. The author replicated a 2016 study from "portal," revealing an increased focus on strategic plan-based decision-making along with new priorities of open scholarship and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). The COVID-19 pandemic had a drastic impact on staffing and budgets, requiring academic library leaders to balance internal operations and external collaboration. A younger, more diverse AAU library leadership population achieves success through strong advocacy to campus leadership and the inclusive leadership practices outlined in this paper.

Purpose: The primary objective of this study was to gauge resident and faculty sentiments surrounding a general surgery program merger between two programs, and to assess the effect on workplace morale and productivity. Secondarily, the authors sought to objectively examine the impact program expansion had on in-service training exam results and operative volumes. Methods: This was a single-center, prospective, observational study that evaluated surgical resident and faculty feedback pertaining to the merger of two regional general surgery residency programs. The survey utilized the Likert scale at merger onset and post-merger to gather responses from residents and faculty from July 2020 to August 2021. Secondary outcomes evaluated case volume and ABSITE performance pre- and post-merger. Results: A total of 27 residents and 31 faculty participated in the initial survey. The merger onset and post survey investigation found that there was increased workplace efficiency (78% onset, 96% post; p = 0.004), and increased comfort with effectively triaging patients (41% onset, 83% post; p = 0.001). Satisfaction levels regarding research infrastructure and mentorship also increased significantly (63% onset, 83% post; p = 0.03). ABSITE performance and operative volumes were not significantly changed post-merger. Conclusion: The merging of two academic programs led to feelings of increased mentorship, operative competency, and workplace efficiency among the residents. This was achieved without significant detriment to resident case volume or ABSITE performance. Our investigation also identified legitimate challenges that speak to the need for fluidity in a residency program and the constant need for continued growth and development.

Appreciative inquiry is a strength-based organisational transformation approach developed in 1987 by David Cooperrider at Case Western Reserve. It is based on the idea that organisational change is more effective when the approach focuses on the positive attributes and experiences within an organisation instead of the challenges. Several studies have been conducted on applying appreciative inquiry in the strategic planning process at higher education institutions to discover the impact of appreciative inquiry on organisations and individuals. This study examines how the use of appreciative inquiry in a higher education institution's strategic planning process influenced participants' emotional, social and professional experiences. We found that using appreciative inquiry in the strategic planning process may improve contributor social experiences and attitudes towards an organisation, which could lead to higher retention rates through greater contributor satisfaction levels.