Co-constructing an academic community ethos - challenging culture and managing change in higher education: A case study undertaken over two years

   To effect systematic change in higher education requires a sophisticated blend of management, collegiality and simple hard work over a prolonged period of time. The following paper seeks to describe a significant period of change within an Education Department of an English university and to analyse the process which sought to bring about change in both belief and practice through raising awareness and providing systematic support for change.
   Early work on change in higher education by Guba and Clarke (1966) suggested that in achieving systematic change in institutions of higher education 'there is a difference between what is needed and what is done'. The leadership team of this particular project at the Institute of Education (IoE), University of Worcester (consisting of the head of the Institute, a course leader and the project coordinator) knew the nature of the change that they wanted to bring about but the pathway to enable this change was not clear. Our objective was to achieve a common and shared vision of 'inclusive education', to include equality and diversity among all staff across five newly amalgamated but separate academic units or centres constituting the IoE.