Work in Progress: Creating an Interdisciplinary Research Agenda on the Social Dynamics of Campus Change

A workshop was held that brought together researchers from the fields of engineering education and sociology in order to examine what is known, and what needs to be known, about the social dynamics of campus change, specifically within engineering colleges. The goal of the cross-disciplinary working group was to develop a research agenda that will provide a context for examining the social and organizational processes that affect the diffusion and acceptance of new engineering curricula and pedagogy. Workshop attendees participated in sessions related to one of three topic areas: organizational context and faculty behavior, faculty rewards, and diffusing innovations. This paper examine how well these two communities of researchers worked together, what the outcomes of the workshop were, and what the next steps are for the project