Course Reflection

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Concepts and ideas that I have been trying to implement are to be more aware of my institution’s organizational sagas and the resource dependencies as a way to better understand the organization's relationship with its constituents. I have also started to use the conceptual approaches for organizational change, such as population ecology, structural inertia and institutional isomorphism as a way to understand better the institutional dynamics involved to promote change and the role of leaders while envisioning and implementing these changes.

One of the most useful tools was learning specific terms to label concepts and practices that I already knew throughout my institution’s working experience. I also appreciate having become aware of a few other existing groups within university structures that can directly or indirectly influence institutional governance. I learned to further analyze institutional goals while understanding leadership challenges, and how to use different frames to resolve issues and implement change. Moreover, I learned about the different types of governance structures and leadership models that play a key role in the decision-making process in today’s higher education system.

The most unexpected item learned in this course was the actual nature of the assignments given at the end of each module. This aspect of the course was the most important to me because these were strategically designed to provide us with hands-on experience by mimicking real-life scenarios. I feel these projects challenged our understanding of the course material, allowing us to apply the concepts learned, helped us practice reflective thinking, in addition to aiding us to exhibit our personal leadership styles while giving us the opportunity to express our individual creativity and skills. I think that a valuable addition or change could be the introduction of a group project to help students apply, strengthen and experience the share governance concept and decision-making aspects.

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