IMPLEMENTING LARGE-SCALE CHANGE IN EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS; ONE INSITUTIONS' RESPONSE TO FILL THE SKILLS GAP OF 21ST CENTURY INDUSTRIES

Educational institutions confront the challenge of preparing students with the competencies desired by employers and with the skills and abilities needed to fill the skills gap identified by industries of the 21st century. To respond to the changing nature of business, institutions exist within a continuous state of flexibility and innovation to change, thereby exhibiting a readiness and eagerness to enhance course curriculum. At the start of the 2017 calendar year, DeVry University began a large-scale institutional curriculum change. The national deans, approximately 20 local campus administrators, and more than 80 full-time faculty from across the United States began working on an ambitious project with the goal of enhancing the curriculum of more than 200 courses across the university. Using this curriculum enhancement project as a case study, this paper explores the theory of change readiness and the process of change in higher education. Following a brief discussion of the theory of change readiness, the paper introduces a framework for understanding change efforts for the purposes of contributing to the organization change literatures and provide change agents with a framework for conceptualizing the change efforts implemented within their respective institutions.