| This research looked at individual leader's perception of their roles in implementation of mandated academic change over a twenty year period in UW System. The mandate was the 1976 mandate from the Board of Regents to UW System institutions to recruit and retain specific numbers of minority students, Administrative Policy AP #7.2.; The study organized institutional leaders into three categories: (1) Regent presidents as policy-makers; (2) UW System presidents as administrators of policy; and (3) campus chancellors as implementors of policy. Baldridge's political model and Newcombe and Conrad's grounded theory of mandated academic change were the theoretical frameworks chosen. During data analysis a model of the progress of mandated change in a system of higher education emerged.; Thirty-four open-ended interviews were conducted with individuals from the categories above. Background data on all informants, the UW System, AP 7.2, and summaries of each interview were included.; There were five findings. That: (1) leadership does make a difference; (2) the closer to leadership implementation occurs, the greater the success; (3) inclusion of implementors in policy-making is not as important as the commitment of System leadership to that policy; (4) inclusion of implementors, at the campus level, has a dramatic effect on the implementation process; and (5) implications of numerical goals need to be carefully addressed before assigning them.; Suggestions for additional research: (1) Does imposition of numerical goals have an effect on potential success of mandated change? (2) With growing conservatism and the apparent politicizing of Boards of Regents, what is the potential impact on socially motivated mandates?... |
