ABSTRACT
Like most chapters in this book, the story of change at Villanova University starts with non-tenure track faculty taking a leadership role to improve their working conditions. Villanova is a private Catholic teaching institution with a particular culture focused on community and social justice, and the non-tenure track faculty leaders realized that they needed to pay attention to their context and culture to make change effectively. Being aware of their particular context, non-tenure track faculty developed a multi-pronged strategy for change in which they engaged different stakeholders from tenure-track faculty to administrators, used political persuasion, utilized data and benchmarks, leveraged what peer institutions were doing, and capitalized on pressure from external groups such as the Middle States accreditation process. This chapter documents the changes that have happened at Villanova and highlights three elements: the changes they have accomplished to date; the process that occurred to create these changes; and the unique lessons they learned—some that are specific to their campus culture and institutional type, and other strategies that are more broadly applicable to most campuses trying to create change.
