The concept of the learning college begins with Terry O’Banion’s two questions: “What are our students learning?” and “How do we know they are learning it?” ?” These questions define a process of inquiry into the values and mission of the college, toward the goal of building a culture of evidence for all learners: students, staff, faculty, administration, as well as external constituents. This transformation cannot be initiated as an administrative mandate, for the values of an institution are not owned by any stakeholder group. They are a synergy of individual desires, constituent needs, and external opportunities. An inclusive an honest process creates values and goals that are broader and more diverse than any single vision.
For this reason, the role of a transformational leader in a learning college is primarily inspirational. Its qualities include thoughtful stewardship, a commitment to excellence, and willingness to question and listen.

A transformational leader inspires by teasing out the shared vision and strategic intentions embodied within the institution. Immediate and symmetrical communications are crucial. As an institution grows toward a learning focus, it is all too common for faculty and staff to see transformations as additional work assignments. Focus groups, SWOT-T sessions, informal conversations – all data mining necessary for defining a learning focus initially appears to observers as aspects of a downward driven initiative. This is troubling paradox of institutional transformation: poor communications can turn even a broadly-based initiative into what appears to be an administrative mandate. This trend can quickly dissipate the “positive change core,” that David Cooperrider has identified as the positive motivating force in organizational growth and change.

Thoughtful stewardship by a learning leader avoids this issue by advocating for multiple discussion methods, including Appreciative Inquiry, and immediate, often face-to-face communications with constituents. It is essential that all stakeholders, particularly those asked to volunteer additional efforts, recognize their possession of the process. Conversations must accentuate the upwardness and inwardness of the information flow. The learning college is built on existing values, existing practices, and the learning college concept empowers all constituents. It is not additional work or an additional layer of bureaucracy. Resource alignments for participation and early inclusion of students and external stakeholders can often enhance conversations.

A learning leader can inspire by nurturing an innovative institutional environment. The learning college fosters a culture of evidence, an atmosphere of inquiry. Scholarship, partnerships, risk-taking, and other creative endeavors are often the first to disappear beneath the crush of daily schedules. Pilot projects and collaborative efforts, even when successful, are seen as immediate, single-term goals rather than contributors to institutional learning. Assessments of student and organizational processes become ends and not means.

A committed leader must maintain the journey from steps to strides. Developing active, collaborative learning environments and ongoing assessments requires a consistent analysis process and continual questioning. It is important for best practices to be presented and celebrated by all, but it is more important to make them available to all learners. Assessments shared externally can lead to partnerships and resource and funding possibilities.

A transformational leader inspires by sharing and celebrating evidence. Though initial development of a learning college requires inward and upward communications, a college becoming more learning-centered will recognize more downward and outward conversations. As critical issues, such as, “Are we closing the gap in achievement between diverse groups?” produce substantive data, and the issues move from identification, to experimentation, to implementation, the role of all learning leaders becomes one of sharing the evidence with a wider and wider group of inquiring minds. The persistence of the learning college, in an ideal sense, is directly related to the willingness of all stakeholders to retain the questioning attitude that energizes the learning process itself.

Buckminster Fuller has noted that the only force in the universe that counters entropy is the inquisitive, adaptive, evolutive force of life itself. Life strives for complexity and permanence; it strives for success. What better expresses that life force than the learning process? From inquiry, toward adaptation, and permanence, a transformational leader inspires through stewardship, excellence, and a commitment to lifelong learning.

25 November 2004