The 1990s have been a time of change and refocusing of institutional missions for many American colleges and universities.

For Ann Austin, associate professor of educational administration, it is a period not unlike late 1800s, an era of intense change that produced the modern American university as we know it today.

Thus, Austin has focused much of her research career on seeking to understand those changes, and how universities and colleges take their place as key institutions in society.

Austin was co-director of a project funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Kellogg Foundation that studied six universities, MSU among them, that are engaged in significant institutional change to clarify and rebalance their missions.

"Universities like MSU are thinking through what their missions are to society," said Austin, who worked closely with Kathryn Moore, professor of educational administration, on the 15-month study. "They are usually focused on a tripartite mission: teaching, research and service. A number of universities are trying to think through what the appropriate balance is between those missions.

"Finding an appropriate balance and integration between those different missions is difficult, and as that balance is adjusted, it has direct implications for faculty and how they conduct their work."

Along with MSU, the other institutions involved were: Clemson University, Kent State University, Portland State University, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Austin said the research involved case studies and interviews with university leaders, administrators and faculty at all of the campuses. But the project was also action oriented in that the researchers tried to support the work of the institutions and facilitate communication among them.

The project sponsored two conferences where teams from the various institutions were able to discuss changes at their respective universities and the impact on faculty and department chairs.

The project has also produced a number of findings that illuminate the intricacies of change.

Austin said the research has revealed that universities can be categorized by levels of change as it relates to their missions. At the first level, a university might seek to refine its understanding and commitment to one of its missions. For example, refining its commitment to the teaching mission, and appropriately supporting that effort.

A second level, Austin said, is geared toward a rebalancing of the missions. An institution might be committed to all three areas, but may have over the years placed higher emphasis on research, for example, and thus paid less attention to the two others.

The third level is the most nuanced, and the one that is of most interest to Austin. At this level, a university’s goal is to integrate the three missions. "The university is starting to ask not just how to rebalance the missions or how to choose a single mission and support it better, but also how to integrate all three, how to think about faculty work that sees connections across the missions so that it is not simply a matter of more teaching, more research, and more outreach."

At this stage, institutions begin to rethink some assumptions such as whether one individual is responsible for working across all the missions or if it is better to view that integration from the perspective of a unit or department, and consider in which a department as a collective unit can be responsible for all three aspects of the mission.

Austin said it is clear from the research that there is no one way to achieve change. Instead, change strategies must be crafted that are appropriate for the specific commitments, circumstances, and history of a university. Also, change seems to be most effective if it takes place in steady steps as opposed to one major event.

In addition, Austin said there needs to be a feedback mechanism in order to monitor what faculty, university leaders and the public are understanding about the changes taking place, and whether the change processes are producing the correct or desired results.

The study has also found a number of strategies universities use in producing change. Austin said no one strategy alone is sufficient, but rather viewing the university as a system and using multiple strategies applied in systemic and systematic ways is effective.

Austin and Moore conceptualize the university system in four levels: institutional, colleges, departments or units, and faculty/staff. Austin is careful to point out that the levels are not hierarchical. Each represents an equally important aspect of the university system.

The research, she said, indicates that it is vital for institutional leaders to clearly articulate the university’s mission and to repeat it often in many different venues. But that alone is not enough. Leaders must think about the multiple institutional levels and how new efforts are being interpreted throughout the system

"We believe that many of the change efforts that are occurring across country tend to be at the institutional level and they are often rhetorical presentations of goals by institutional leaders," Austin said. "We would say that it is probably a good idea for institutional leaders to consider how those change efforts are being interpreted throughout the levels of the institution because, we would argue, it is especially at the department and faculty levels that these changes must be interpreted and understood."

In order to facilitate change, Austin said universities must emphasize faculty and leadership development. She said the research indicates that department chairs and faculty sometimes found it challenging to interpret messages from senior leaders and sometimes need opportunities to learn such skills as team management and strategic planning.

It is also effective if universities set procedures and policies that support the change efforts. At times, organizational restructuring, she said, can also be effective in creating better connections to meet institutional needs.

Another critical component is the evaluation and reward system for both faculty and department chairs. If faculty members are asked to work in ways that address the various missions of the university and that requires new ways of doing things, Austin said, then the evaluation systems needs to altered to reward those new expectations.

"To put it simply: If faculty are being asked to work across the missions, evaluation systems should not only focus, as they sometimes have in American universities, on research productivity."

"Institutional leaders have a significant role in articulating the mission and vision consistently and in many ways," Austin said. "But we also have to recognize that no single person is in charge of these change efforts. They are organic. They are in the hands of everybody in the institution. Effective change comes from two directions simultaneously.

"Institutional leaders need to think very systemically, and they do need to articulate the institutional mission. But within this articulation of the mission, faculty members and their individual departments and disciplines can find and express to the institution at large what the commitments mean to them."

Ann Austin, who joined the faculty in 1991, is spending the year at the University of Port Elizabeth in South Africa as a Fulbright Fellow. Named one of the 80 "past present and future leaders" by Change Magazine, she earned her bachelor’s degree from Bates College, an M.A. from Syracuse University, and another from the University of Michigan. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.