The
article, Engaging Undergraduate Students to Be Agents of Social Change
addresses how faculty in public administration program can use The Social
Change Model of Leadership Development (SCM).
The authors propose SCM will prepare public administration students to
become more active and develop the skills necessary to become change agents in
their professional life. There are three
lessons included to assist faculty members to incorporate SCM directly into
their teaching.
SCM
is a social change model created to use specifically in the high education
environment and targets college students.
There are two main goals to the model, which include: “to enhance
student learning and development and to facilitate positive social change at
the institution or in the community (Nickels, Rowland & Fadase, 2011, pp.
46). The model includes eight C’s which
are broken into subcategories of individual, group and societal. The C’s by
subgroup are: Individual: Consciousness of Self, Congruence, and Commitment;
Group: Collaboration, Common Purpose, and Controversy with Civility; and
Societal: Citizenship. The final C- Change
occurs from the interaction and development of the other seven C’s.
The
individual category encompasses the student’s ability to better understand
their own identity, values, and biases in order to make connection of their
life experiences (pp. 47). The Group
category enables students to understand the development of relationships. This is essential for students desiring to
work in the public administration field as it will be necessary for them to
understand how to develop and balance relationships in the work they do.
When
viewing this article in connection to the reading from class, direct connections
can be made to Burke’s levels of Organizational Change. The three levels of change are individual,
group, and large system. Burke writes
that organizations are a whole and to make systemic change, it is necessary to
have change occur in all areas (p. 99). Similarly,
Nickels, Rowland and Fadase use the eight C’s of SCM to reinforce this theory
of levels of organizational change. The
first seven C’s hit at the heart of addressing systemic change at the
individual, group and societal level. SCM
only recognizes the eighth C of change as occurring from the interaction and
development that occurs when students experience the other seven levels. Connecting the article to the Goldsmith book,
is the overall goal of Nickels, Rowland and Fadase to help public
administration students to make rethink how they understood themselves and then
made parallels with the needs of the community they planned to serve with their
learning in the classroom. Using SCM,
the students will be to “practice a kind of public service that seeks to
transform people and institutions that focuses on social and economic justice”
(Nickels, Rowland and Fadase, 2011, p. 45).
The
article was different than any other article I have read before. The authors provided a more hands on lesson
plan in order for other practitioners to implement their class activities. I found this interesting because normally
research articles show only their research and connect it to the literature. However this article is a toolbox that public
administration faculty can easily read and then use to incorporate into their
teaching.
One
of the issues I see with the article is the lack of quantitative data. The authors provided only anecdotal evidence
for their findings. The vague use of
terms leaves the reader questioning how they defined terms. For instances, how many students is
many? How many students applied to the
Peace Corp or won awards working in the Native American community (pp.
51). As well, the authors wrote several
times, “Students must believe that positive and sustainable social change is
achievable” (pp. 51) or “It is important for students to believe that they can
create change in their communities and in their work” (pp. 51). Both of these statements were without
findings or research to validate them.
As a reader, I question if this was the authors’ personal opinion or if
it was central to the success of using SCM.
Finally, it was difficult to discern what the real impact SCM had on
public administration students. Future
readers might question why the framework is the best for this particular group
of students.
When
thinking about this article, I am quite interested in understanding more about
SCM. The model appears to be in line
with my interest in Higher Education. Although
the article was written from the perspective of serving public administration
faculty, I can even see ways to implement the lessons into the work I do with
diversity education. A lot of diversity
work is similar to what Burke writes in Chapter 3 on sensitivity training, allows
the participants to have active feedback on their experiences. For instance, “Examining Our Lenses” lesson
can easily be implemented by having attendees not just create a pair of lenses
to reflect on themselves as individuals but then connecting this to how others
view them. The attendees can engage in
active feedback to help develop a clearer understanding of their views and how others
interact with their views, while also providing an opportunity to adjust the
perceptions they are giving out to others.
