By Pat Stanbro, Brooks Institute of Photography, CA, student of Robert Smith
11
Planning and Changing
“If you do not know where you are going, any path will do.”
Sioux Indian Proverb
The cliché “that the only constant in life is change” rings so true as one looks back over the years. Change is everywhere, and educational programs are no exception. Ten years or so ago, darkrooms and chemical processes were an integral component in photographic departments. Now they are a thing of the past, taken over by light rooms, digital cameras, scanners, computers, and software such as Photoshop. Analog has given way to digital.
Programs are not the only things changing in education. Schools and colleges have had their share of anticipating change, planning for it, and implementing it. Dick Zakia recalls his experience at Rochester Institute of Technology beginning in 1952. At that time he was a freshman and RIT had only a 2-year photography program leading to an associate degree. A few years before that RIT was not even granting degrees, and nobody on the faculty had the title of professor. Everyone was an instructor, regardless of years of teaching experience and degree status.
Zakia's goal was to get an AAS (Associate degree in Applied Science) and then to find employment with Eastman Kodak. He was interested in the science of photography. Some of his classmates, Peter Bunnell, Carl Chiarenza, Bruce Davidson, Ken Josephson, Pete Turner, and Jerry Uelsmann, were interested in taking and making photographs. There was no fine art photography program at that time. The only thing that came close was a program in photographic illustration, which his classmates pursued.
By 1954 RIT instituted BS and BFA degrees. Shortly after that, MS and MFA degrees were offered. As the MFA degree in photography expanded to include motion pictures and video as well as electives in the other visual arts, the program curriculum changed and so did the name of the program, from an MFA in Photography to an MFA in Imaging Arts. The BS in Photographic Science that Zakia received 50 years ago has evolved into a Ph.D. degree in Imaging Science, the first Ph.D. offered at RIT.
Photography and photography programs have come a long way over the past 50 years or so and will continue to do so. In the late 1800s, when George Eastman was a bank clerk in Rochester, New York, he experimented in his mother's kitchen trying to create a light-sensitive emulsion. He was told by his peers that he was wasting his time and that photography was going nowhere. He was made fun of but he persisted.
In 1952, Zakia's aunt tried to talk him out of attending RIT, insisting that it was only a vocational school and not a real college. She might have been right at the time, but she was totally wrong on its future.
Planning for change is a valuable undertaking but one has to realize that sometimes change is thrust upon us unexpectedly and we should embrace it and move forward with it. Zakia never planned on getting a BS degree, much less a graduate degree. His goal was to get an associate degree and go to work for Kodak. Goals are important but they should remain fluid so they can be adjusted with the times. This is as true for photographic programs as it is for photographers.
The Philosophy of Why
Planning is an ongoing concern in education. With the rapid changes in aesthetic approaches and photographic technology, curricular planning seems to have a real urgency. However, before entering into planning in haste, it makes sense to understand what change is, how to plan change, implementation of what is planned, and perhaps most importantly, why planning is required.
“Our Age of Anxiety is, in great part, the result of trying to do today's jobs with yesterday's tools.”
Marshall McLuhan
Let us deal with the “why” first. There are actually two questions: the first is why change is needed and the second is why planning is required for successful change. A system that does not change is in real trouble. This is as true for academic programs as any other system. But change for change's sake is wasting time and energy, so there is a real need to understand that change will be required, but not for its own sake. Change and its corollary, growth, are needed for an academic program to remain vibrant and valid. The issue is not “if” photographic programs will change—the issue is “why” your photographic program should change.
It is likely that your photographic program will have to undergo change over time. The environment in the photographic world is about changing technologies and varying aesthetics, therefore the curricula that educate future image-makers will need to change to better assist others' learning within this situation. Since the world we work and educate in is changing, the major tools that we use to help others learn must change. A curriculum needs to change to be in harmony with the external technological and aesthetic surroundings. Therefore, it becomes a matter of whether you will be involved with the changes that impact you or if you will be required to follow someone else's ideas about what photographic education will be. When change happens, will you walk to the future or be dragged?
“Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now.”
Alan Lakein
University of Reading, United Kingdom
The “why” becomes a directional choice made for adapting to change. In order to characterize how curricula will transform, the discussion of “why” is engaged. There will likely be many paths used to effect change, and each pathway has its own definition of what will be accomplished by changing the curricula. Without being able to identify why curricula need adjustment, the wrong route to the future for your program may be taken. As you answer the question of “why,” the first step in the planning process is taken. It is defining the target.
It is important to realize that you want to be in control of the “why.” Change happens more readily because of external threat than because of positive initiative. Particularly within an academy, higher levels of the institution will be more likely to engage in determined change if it is believed that something is threatening the photographic program. Describing the need for change in relation to how it addresses a threat to the institution helps the argument for change. The threat may be nothing more than the program's standing in the profession, but it is advantageous to the change process to use this method of discussing the “why.”
Change Happens
It has been said that change can have one of three effects on an academic program. It can make a program better, it can make things worse, or things can stay mostly the same. There are no guarantees, however, that making program changes will lead to any one of these three outcomes. We assume that change will benefit a program, but this depends on the situation; there is no way to be assured of positive effects from change.
“Education is harder to move than a graveyard.”
Lillian Johnson
University of Cincinnati, OH
The dynamics of change involve a positive/negative risk construct for assessing the effect of change. We can describe a simple change chart that has the top right corner as a positive outcome from change and the bottom right corner as a negative outcome, with the levels between the top and bottom as outcomes that are more or less positive, depending on their height on the chart. If the right side is the outcome, the left side can be used to describe the starting condition of the program. Using perceived quality is a reasonable standard to view the programs. This will have the best quality or performance at the top left and the poorest at the lower left corner.
Change Chart
With the change chart we can pick a starting point for change on the left and see what potentials exist for outcomes. A horizontal displacement refers to no change, i.e., staying the same, with an increase in height being a positive move and a negative change being seen as a declining line. With this model we can assess the risk of change on quality. Since a horizontal is no change, then for any starting point there is the potential to have an outcome that represents staying the same. From the bottom left corner there is no potential for a declining line and from the upper left corner there is no potential for an increasing line. From any point in the center of the left margin there are both increase and decrease potentials.
“I believe that the management of change must consider the emotional intelligence of the staff who are undergoing the change; staff can only change at the rate at which their emotions will allow them to; therefore for the change to be successful you must pace structure of the change to embrace this important factor.”
Paul Penketh
Brighton Hove & Sussex Sixth Form College, United Kingdom
The simple change chart view shows an important aspect of change. When a photography program is highly rated, then it is difficult to substantially increase its standing. Change will have a better chance to negatively affect a top program than to improve it. However, change is still something even top-rated programs need to engage in. For programs that are perceived in the middle of the quality range, implementing change can result in all three outcomes: the programs can improve, decline, or stay the same, depending on the effects the change has on the outcome. At the bottom of the program quality range, since there is only a small chance of decrease in quality, the most negative outcome will be to stay pretty much the same. This means that change favors positive outcomes for programs needing a lot of improvement.
Then why change a top-quality program? Because the photography world is changing and change will not be a choice. Staying in the same place in a moving environment is lowering relative quality. Thus the top program that does not change will decline based on the changes in the environment, not on any change strategy that it undertakes. Within today's technologically changing milieu, change is a constant and it impacts all, not just the weakest.
As a conclusion to this discussion of change, it becomes clear that change impacts organizational structure. If a program changes, it will alter the way the institutional organization responds in relation to the changing program. Likewise, change in institutional organization will affect the role of the imaging program within the institution. The interconnections between parts of the institution are important and interdependent. Dealing with change is not just about how the members of the photography program will react, but also how all parts of the institution respond and react to the transformations.
“We are, in my view, faced with an entirely new situation in education where the goal of education, if we are to survive, is the facilitation of change and learning. The only man who is educated is the man who has learned how to learn; the man who has learned how to adapt and change; the man who has realized that no knowledge is secure, that only the process of seeking knowledge gives a basis for security. ‘Changingness, ’ reliance on process rather than upon static knowledge, is the only thing that makes any sense as a goal for education in the modern world.”
Carl Rogers H. Jerome Freiberg
Planning for Change
It is convenient for those involved in academic planning to consider that planning follows constructs found in the old academic area of “Natural Philosophy” and in surfing. Such analogies can give good guidance to what we will need to consider in planning for curricular change: they provide a way to look at both the underpinning of planning in education and how to view moving toward a future.
“Plans are nothing…Planning is everything.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower
The Sciences of Natural Philosophy
In the 19th century the sciences, both physical and social, were part of the study of Natural Philosophy. Two of the major components of Natural Philosophy at the time of the invention of photography were what today we call physics and perception. Physics gives us many clues as to how to understand actions within academic planning. From Isaac Newton we get an understanding of “inertia,” which is certainly important in viewing educational change. Viewing Newton's laws, we can project onto academe that “a body (program) at rest tends to stay at rest and a body (program) in motion tends to stay in motion.” In photographic curricula, we can see institutions that seem to always be in motion and others that are stuck in their ways. This is academic inertia. It may be part of the photography program offering or it may be part of the institution.
Understanding the concepts of inertia shows us that the effort needed to start an object in motion from a stopped state is greater than the effort needed to deviate in direction. Institutional or program inertia is the same, because of the effort that is required to change a curriculum, and even just a course. It is far easier to divert a moving program than to start one moving that has been steady for some time. Key is that change demands energy, and the more entrenched the curriculum and faculty, the harder it is to change, regardless of the reasons for change. The energy that will be required to change a program's direction or to get one moving will have to come from people in the program or those who are brought in to assist.
“Certain changes are philosophical…Everybody here has a similar history, they have the same things in their background. I think there is nostalgia for it in many ways. We really do not want to let go of everything that we know about. That is problematic as we are also driven to stay abreast of current trends that are attractive to students.”
Steve Bliss
Savannah College of Art and Design, GA
Academic systems abhor change. They are reluctant to change without external force being applied. Most institutions find it easier to change because of an external threat than because of any ideas or concerns within the institution. External pressures, whether competition, accreditation, or other forces, are more effective forces than are great ideas from within. When change in the photographic program is desired internally, it often must be viewed as an opportunity to find an external stimulus that can be applied to the institution to influence institutional inertia—to force a change in direction or to start movement toward change.
Such an external academic changing force can also be viewed in relation to the Second Law of Thermodynamics. This law deals with the energy within a system and how it diminishes over time. The effect, known as “entropy,” will set into a system if energy is not applied to the system. Entropy is defined as the tendency for everything in the universe, whether energy, matter, or social orders, to move toward a minimum constant. Entropy is then the measure of randomness and disorder leading a closed system, one without external energy input, to evolve toward uniformity. As that happens, the system moves to a state of stasis, steadiness, and inertness; this relates to zero energy within the system.
That is a difficult situation for a photographic program to find itself in during a time of rapid change in technologies. The inevitable and steady deterioration of a system or program, without the input of new energy from professional development or outside participation, is unhealthy for a program. This will lead to a program that degenerates to its lowest energy level and is unable to change or even plan for change. This is unfair to the students and their learning.
A second part of Natural Philosophy is perception. It is important to realize that perceptions are not facts…they are real! Our reality is a mental construct and thus is not dependent on the truth of perceptions, but rather on their interpretations. Our minds often force interpretation, such as in a magic trick or in Gestalt closure; this allows us to relate to the “facts” that are required to fit with the mental construct. We do not see the facts or evidence as reasons to change, but our perceptions, which control the “politics” of our constructs, have great effect. Politics are required to plan things in any institution. While planning can seem to be done by individuals, implementation within the institution requires the efforts of more than just the planners. When efforts of others are required, politics are involved. Though politics often have a negative connotation, they are a natural human construct and can be a positive change agent. They are the enabling factor, though they can also impede change, of course.
The perception of change and/or institutional inertia impacts planning. Thus controlling the perception of how and why the change is happening or needs to happen becomes one of the prime factors in successful planning. By controlling how the planning and change mandates are seen, the politics needed to implement the planned changes become positive agents of change. The politics become a multiplier for the energy in the system.
“It is interesting to speculate on the “why” of reasons for doing nothing. Coupled with the possible loss of advantage is the fear of change—the necessity for leaving the comfortable though not entirely satisfactory routines of the present and substituting for them the hazardous, decision-making activities of the future.”
Edgar Dale
The News Letter, Ohio State University, December 1960
Surfing
The analogy to surfing is very important in today's rapidly changing technological environment, with change being driven not only by pedagogy but also by pulses in technology. Even for change that is not forced by technological advances, awareness of how a surfer rides a wave can assist in learning how to create change.
What we can see most clearly is the way surfers go about riding a wave. First the surfers understand how the waves will form. The right waves will not be formed in all areas—the winds, tides, shore shape, etc. combine to form a wave. Understanding how these and other factors create waves allows the surfer to plan to get a good ride.
As important as the understanding of wave formation is, identifying the moment to start also requires attention. To catch the ride, the surfer needs to be looking at where the waves are coming from, not where they will be going.
“Always plan ahead; it wasn't raining when Noah built the ark.”
Richard C. Cushing
However, more important than the wave formation and origin, it is imperative for the surfer to start moving before the wave arrives at their location. The surfer puts effort into moving toward a chosen direction so as to be moving at the same speed as the wave crest, in order to transition to the face of the wave and not get passed by. Inertia is also part of surfing: more energy is invested into getting started than is required once the wave is caught. Last, once the surfer is moving with the wave, balance is required to fulfill the goal of the ride.
This brings us back to thinking about energy. And the question becomes, “Where do we need to apply the work?” As apparent from entropy, we need to continually apply energy into the system or it will degrade to an inert form. From the surfing metaphor we see that a lot of the work is in getting started. Also viewed in light of surfing, we can see that part of the planning is identification of what is coming and how to time the implementation of the plan.
“The important thing to concentrate on is the quality of the education that photography students are receiving. The types of courses (curricula) available vary enormously, from those with a technical bias to those with a more academic or philosophical approach, with creative commercial photography sitting somewhere in the middle. They need a combination of skills and knowledge that encompasses the technical mastery of the subject at the same time as the creative and cognitive aspects. And that also means that there is a place for the more academic courses (curricula), which ask questions of the students more in terms of what they are saying with their pictures, rather than how they produced them. Many different areas of photography exist and they should all be nurtured.…They need to know about communicating with pictures and what they mean. They need to know about creativity and how to use it in their pictures. They need to know about the business side of their chosen field.”
Ian Kent-Robinson
Salisbury College, United Kingdom
Categories of Planning
Planning can be viewed in relation to the time frames that various types of planning address. Primarily three time frames are addressed with planning. Short-term planning tends to be a reaction to immediate situations. Over the long term, we find strategic planning. Last, moderate-term solutions and implementations fall into the category of tactical planning.
In its immediateness, short-term planning may seem to be a contradiction in terminology. Reacting quickly to the task at hand seems to be devoid of a planning function, but like all other planning, short-term planning benefits from a planning structure. This can be as simple as specifying a set of steps to be used, to assure “correctness” in the decision-making process. Often short-term planning happens prior to the time when there is the need to react.
Normally when we think of planning we are thinking on a longer term and at a more strategic level. Strategic planning is a process that matches long-term opportunities with environmental changes and threats. The changes and threats are the reason that planning must take place. The inputs that demand change may be external or internal to the institution. Threats and change provide rationale and direction to start planning. In a land without road signs, people with terrain maps have a better chance of getting where they wish to go. The major tenet of strategic planning is to create a plan that will lead to a predetermined destination.
“When planning for a year, plant corn. When planning for a decade, plant trees. When planning for life, train and educate people.”
Chinese Proverb
Tactical planning is a process that organizes activities needed to realize short- and medium-term goals, as well as being the implementation tool needed for strategic planning. Moderate-term, tactical, implementation planning's importance is often missed because those who do the strategic planning see their plans clearly and assume that others who will be involved in the implementation also see how the plan will function.
Tactical planning is the route to a positive future. Like chess, tactical planning takes the strategy and produces activities that, when sequenced, will arrive at the short- and moderate-term goals leading to the overall goal.
Planning Steps
Regardless of the category of planning, it is a linear process. The steps may vary based on the philosophy behind the planning, but they are there. One model is presented in the following table. It has two basic structural constructs, strategic and tactical. The linear pattern of this model breaks up the total path into two parts that interrelate and can be viewed as circular.
Planning Model
| Strategic | Tactical |
| Reason — Threat | Decision |
| Research and Support | Planning |
| Resource Inventory | Implementation |
| Concept — Goals | Evaluation |
| Decision | Reason |
The key dynamic of this model is that the reason for undertaking strategic planning resolves itself through the process to a new reason that will also become the new impetus for strategic planning. With this model the institution sees itself as a constantly changing organization.
In effect, this model provides that the original reason proceeds to the development of a further reason, needed to continue development of the organizational system.
In this model the primary element starts with the recognition that there is the reason or threat that will impact the photographic program. Although in recognizing that there is a reason to change, there must also be an inherent understanding within the photographic program and the institution that the reason must be addressed with action. Without an active progress model, the planning process tends to become rhetorical, leaving the institution and the photographic program exactly where it started.
“Setting a goal is not the main thing. It is deciding how you will go about achieving it and staying with the plan.”
Tom Landry
Once the photographic program and its supporting institutional structure have realized and committed to the need for change, it is important to formulate research, based on outside information as defining the support structures within the institution, that will facilitate both the planning for change and the subsequent implementation. This will naturally flow into building a resource model inventory that defines the various structures and individuals within and outside the institution that can assist in all aspects of this change model. While the research portion of this model is designed to address the reason or threat, the resource inventory is primary internally based to assure planning and implementation for the change.
Resource Inventory
A resource inventory includes who, what, where, and how much. It is important that when starting to plan change, the tools you will have are clearly defined. First, the question of who will accomplish what must be answered. This includes the planning, implementation, and, finally, the teaching of program changes. Beyond identifying the people who will plan, implement, support, and teach within the new program, the resource inventory should also identify potential opposition. While identifying potential involvement, it is also important to assess the readiness of individuals to identify those resources. Since several aspects of energy and enthusiasm are involved in successful implementation, the issue of readiness defines whether individuals will need professional development in order to be equipped to implement change.
The next area for a resource inventory answers the question of what you have and what you will need. This area of the resource inventory includes fiscal realities and intellectual realities. Within the area of fiscal realities you will find an existing curriculum, a curricular change regimen, financial and planning resources, and facilities and equipment existing in the institution. These same areas can be defined as needed if they presently do not exist in the program and/or institution. Often overlooked is the intellectual resource that can be brought to bear on the problems that change will create. This is important within the institution, since this resource can be used to both plan and support the change that is coming.
Though planning is important, it is the implementation aspect of change that resource inventory identifies that will lead to a higher potential for success for the program or institution. It is important to define those parts of the support systems that will positively affect the planning process; they will benefit implementation whether they are part of the planning process or are only used for implementation. These include, but are not limited to, the institutional mission and goals, organizational structure, external mandates and pressures, communication networks, personnel energy, and political resources, both positive and negative.
“Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes; but no plans.”
Peter F. Drucker
The issue of where to implement a changed or new program may seem obvious. However, with changes in the equipment needs and curriculum, it may be important to revisit the appropriateness of present curricular location, either physical or within the organizational structure. While not as important as the “who” or “what” of the planning and implementation steps, it is necessary to consider the “where” within the organization the changed activities take place. Similarly, the fiscal reality of how much the changes will cost must be factored into the planning and into the planning for implementation.
Because part of the inventory resource process is defining obstructions to change, part of the implementation planning must deal with how to move from the past or how the past structures may cause obstructions to change. Some of these obstructions will be people based and others will be program, institutional, or academic structural paradigms. Breaking down the old structural paradigm may be part of the planning process to implement meaningful change. As a caveat, before dismantling the structure, there needs to be a clearly defined replacement. Be careful not to destroy structures that you will need later.
“In planning we need to address where we will take the students and at the same time assure the needs of that teacher, that they will be comfortable in that classroom. The thing we tend to do the least is to prepare our teachers for that change.”
Mark Murrey
Arlington Intermediate School District, TX
Gestalt psychologist Kurt Lewin developed a schema dealing with forces of change and forces resisting change that can be seen as part of a resource inventory. This theory is known as Force Field Analysis. The concept is exceptionally well suited to discussing the way change happens in educational institutions. In Force Field Analysis a balance is defined between the change forces and the opposing forces. The driving forces and resisting forces push against each other, creating a moving point of equilibrium. By defining the driving factors and opposition factors, ways to influence change can be identified.
Primarily the Force Field schema is presented as a diagram, with a line dividing between change and no change. On one side of the balance line are the driving forces, change agents, while on the other side of the balance line are the opposing forces. In each case the forces are represented as arrows pointed toward the equilibrium line. Change moves the line against the opposing forces and no change moves the line against the driving forces. The resource inventory defines the forces.
While this chapter deals with planning as a needed part of change, it must be realized that the planning process in some situations can be a method to avoid meaningful change. Planning committees or task forces are often formed to show that change is being addressed. It must be realized that these groups may or may not be empowered to make decisions to implement change. Often they are no more than “window dressing” or recommending bodies that will not be involved in choosing or implementing change. This can reduce the potential for change within the academic structure.
The last elements that must be defined within the resources of the academic planning and implementation structure are the limits. You must know your limits as you approach the changes. It is more frustrating to go through the process of planning for change without the ability to meet the requirements for implementation than it is to realize that meaningful change may not be possible.
Putting the Implementation Puzzle Together
Having change take place is the goal. Beyond the strategic review planning happens, before successful implementation and with the resource inventory in hand, tactical planning must take place that deals with how to move to the future and how to move from the past. It is important that, as the planning and implementation go forward, more than the target is in view. Where the program is when implementations starts is important to the program's success. Problems can arise if planning for implementation does not consider how change will be enabled. Many individuals involved in planning fail to realize that the steps involved in implementation must include transition to the goal as well as the final change described in the goal. Without this connection to the starting point, individuals can miss taking the proper path that will reach the goals of the change.
“Ongoing faculty training will be at least as necessary as it will be for those entering the field at this point in time. We are living in a very dynamic environment with regard to the changes in our industry and the related industries such as design and printing. The best way to effect change with a faculty is to get ‘buy-in.’ Meetings of the entire faculty, initially to give everyone an opportunity to express their views of “where we are and where we need to be,” are essential to this process. It is essential that all faculty members be given the opportunity to be heard and to be on board with the proposed changes. Once buy-in is achieved the curriculum work can start.”
David Litschel
Brooks Institute of Photography, CA
A method to consider for use, as realization of a strategic plan is started, is the four “Cs” of successful implementation. This can be seen as successfully putting together a jigsaw puzzle. The four issues that impact the successful assembly of a jigsaw puzzle are the Complexity of the puzzle, having a Common vision of what the outcome will be, the proper Connection of the parts, and Communication within the process.
By Collin McNamara, University of Connecticut, CT, student of Christine Shank
Complexity is obviously a concern of implementation. If the implementation is to change the syllabus for an introductory photo course, or is to add a new assignment, the complexity is very low and implementation is also simple. It is easy to see that if the entire course must be revised to add digital technology, the task is more complex and thus the effort to realize change will be more involved. If the entire curriculum must absorb and address digital technology, these changes will have much more complexity and difficulty for implementation.
“We are most likely to get angry and excited in our position to some idea when we ourselves are not quite certain of our own position, and are inwardly tempted to take the other side.”
Thomas Mann
As the complexity of the team needed to implement change increases, the requirement for all to have a common vision of the ultimate goals of change becomes more important. If the vision for inclusion of digital imaging technology is not consistent, it is possible that newer technologies may be eliminated from consideration because all team members do not see what is needed in the same way. Because of issues such as institutional inertia, one of the parts of implementation planning may need to be the process of coordinating the visions of all those involved in the implementation and all those who will be affected by the change.
With the implementation of complex changes, it is important to assure a good fit between parts of the program. This connection of the parts includes coordination of content within the new program, alignment with other parts of the institution, and consistency with the photographic field external to the institution.
Perhaps the most important part of the four Cs is the communication required for successful implementation. All planning, and particularly tactical planning, is a communication process. A good idea within implementation is to develop a common language that is both used within the planning process and extended to arriving at the final goals. A language for planning can be developed and in turn provides consistency to the various parts of the planning and implementation process. Christopher Alexander originated this concept, which is explained in his book, Pattern Language of Architecture. The vocabulary that you will develop for your planning process needs to include the photographic technologies within the program and those that will be implemented, the course structures, attributes of the students cohort, the functions and educational methods used within the program, and the institutional structural elements defined in the resource inventory.
“Using our language we defined the patterns that we thought were important in education. The different kinds of classes, seminars and workshops, different types of experiences that students should have, the notion of a cohort, the idea that students should work together, became parts of a common language. Once we had developed the common terms to discuss what we need to do, we began doing the actual planning…the program planning.”
Dan Wheeler
University of Cincinnati, OH
Communication is particularly important if the ideas and impetus for change derive from the energy and research of one or a few individuals. The likelihood that extensive change can be accomplished by any one person within the academic setting is remote. Therefore, clear and effective communications will allow others to adopt and own the ideas originating from individuals and to assist in accomplishing the planning goals as a team.
This communication is an important aspect of leadership, from the planning stage through the implementation processes. The future may be well defined, the choices clear, but the path may be obstructed by politics and organizational structure. Leadership in planning implementation enables redirecting elements in the organizational structure to the proper path. This will allow knowledge and personal energy, the most powerful ingredients for success, to be introduced into the implementation.
Planning and Implementation Models
Models or paradigms for planning and implementation can be divided into three basic types, rational, transitional, and informal. Rational planning methods are based on delineated processes. Transitional types tend to be less structured and occur over short time periods. Informal models are not as obvious in their structures because they occur over longer periods of time.
Rational planning is seen easily by its reliance on structure of the process. This means that the elements of the process are predetermined and are followed from beginning to end. These processes are easy to define in terms of involvement and outcomes. However, there are to downsides to rational planning systems. First, rational models often substitute “the process” for implementation. Often when all the steps are completed it is assumed that successful implementation has occurred, though the goals of the strategic plan have not been reached. Also, because a rational system is used, the steps can be forced, but brute force implementation carries the most negative impact.
Of the rational planning models, P.E.R.T. (Project Evaluation Review Technique) is the most technical. This method is popular for large-scale construction and summarily complex implementation. Because it builds on concepts including the unexpected, it tends to be very predictable within the time frame. As with most rational systems, P.E.R.T. defines responsibilities as residing in individuals or structures within the institution.
Critical path planning is similar to defining a sports play. In this rational method the end point is defined, and the required steps to reach the end point are put into place using a path and evaluation points for the implementation. Like P.E.R.T. planning, critical path planning is a series of steps against a time line. The critical path is built on scenarios of completion for each of the steps, and it is the path that determines success, not the completion of the steps against time. Critical path planning works well for moderate complexity within an open system or institution.
“Our plans miscarry because they have no aim.”
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
An interesting adaptation of the critical path is a maze. The maze allows you to look at success from two basic points of view. The traditional manner is to enter the maze from the starting point and move toward the goal within the confines of the maze itself. The other potential place to start is at the completion point of the maze, and work backwards to the start. This aspect of critical path planning is particularly helpful with encouraging planning. It allows the reduction of the problem from completion to the point of origin. Using this concept for the development of a curriculum, it is easy to find the prerequisite alignment based on completion of the curriculum.
“When the State would not accept Photographic Sensitometry as a science course, we were not able to get accreditation for our Photographic Science curriculum. Sensitometry was not listed in their book of approved science courses. We were short four credits. Not to be outdone, I began looking through our College of Engineering catalogue to see what courses the State accepted as meeting a science requirement. One that caught my eye was called “Metrology.” Since metrology is a course in measurement, as is Photographic Sensitometry, I changed the name of the course to Photographic Metrology. The name change worked; the course was accepted as a science course.”
Richard Zakia
Rochester Institute of Technology, NY
Regardless of the central organizing element for personnel, the curriculum will be defined by how the courses interrelate. The impact of this organization is seen primarily in the prerequisite structure for each course. Photographic knowledge within most technical areas is vertical. This means that the knowledge and skills taught in a first course are needed as a base for all following courses. The curriculum itself may be constructed with a group of vertical or sequential courses, each leading to a desired end.
When a vertical curriculum needs to be developed, the end point must be considered first. This will set the standard and knowledge level, which can then be moved backward through the planning process to put checkpoints into the curriculum. Horizontal curricula are made up of courses that need not be taken in any specific order. This does not mean the courses do not have prerequisites, only that those portions of the curriculum that are aligned horizontally can be taken independent of any sequencing.
As planning transitions to a more informal and less structured operational pattern, we find “fact-based” empirical models. Several years ago these were known as total quality methods (TQM). In use, this system at times approaches the planning and implementation system and functions by relying on constant feedback. In these situations planning or implementation goes forward, and evaluation is used to relate to perceived interim or final goals. In this way, the time line for activities is flexible.
These systems require strong research to help define the changes needed and the steps along the line. It should be understood, however, that as data are collected, the system might get bogged down with analysis rather than moving forward with planning and implementation. Data are like chocolate—the more you have, the more you want.
As problems arise, often institutions will impanel groups to deal with the emerging issues. In the situation known as ad hoc, groups of interested or presumably knowledgeable individuals meet on an as-needed basis to address problems that need solutions. While these groups may propose more formalized planning, the method itself is primarily a transitional form because it does not structure the past to solution. Ad hoc planning believes that the process can adapt quickly with good solutions and depends on the abilities, energies, and knowledge of the group assembled. These planning groups are most effective for short-term problems or for planning with low complexity levels.
“We shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us.”
Winston Churchill
Informal implementation uses the missions and structures defined in the resource inventory as guides to reaching the goals of planning. Most important within this concept of implementation is the reality that institutional or curricular structures that encourage the ultimate change will need to be put in place. Within ecological psychology this is known as a “sociopetal” structure. Informal strategy toward implementation is transitional and does not tell individuals that they will change, but convinces them that they wish to change. Having the faculty change their beliefs toward digital photography will have a longer lasting effect than will forcing through a curricular change.
This method of implementation relies on people's natural ability to adapt. The more difficult and complex the changes are, the less adaptability and less success with informal implementation within a short time frame. For informal implementation to work, time is needed. Since the approach is to have people change the way they perceive the future and move to that new perception, this method of implementation cannot be accomplished quickly. However, when this method can be used, it will have the most lasting effects and stability for the goals defined within planning.
As a caveat in ending this discussion of planning and implementation, it must be recognized that successful implementation and planning deals with “what” will be done.…not who “will” be done.
“As soon as it is said that there is a new curriculum we were lost, because all there is…is curriculum evolution.”
Dennis Keeley
Art Center College of Design, CA
Curricular Design
Of course we must have reason for planning. Most common within our field is the need to adjust and/or modernize our curricula. The preceding discussions have provided a few examples of how change can be implemented and planned. But the end result will be measured in the way our photographic curricula will address student and societal needs.
“It always comes down to thinking ahead, two years a head…what's going to be out there. How can I make a certain thing happen; where are people going; what is going to come in two years? Do your research, know your curriculum, know your technology, know what is out there, know what you want to accomplish…be very, very specific, you've got to stay on track—what will make it happen and what is the progression and what is the transition.”
Howard Simpkins
Shariden Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning, Canada
In relation to the curricula to be designed we must look how the academic structure will view various aspects of the curriculum. In relation to the plans there are four major foci that may be central to creation of a new or remodeled curriculum. These deal with outcome, procedure, equipment, or aesthetics.
From an administrative point of view the prime objective will be seen in the outcome. While this outcome may be determined by threats or opportunities seen within the field of photography and photographic education, the real emphasis is on accomplishing a successful plan. With this in mind, it becomes important that the administration “buys in” to change, to benefit the photographic programs. Successes in this realm may be having the administration adopt the photographic program's ideas, and thus “own them.” Therefore, to develop this strategy of accomplishing goals for curricular change within the photographic program, it may be necessary for an individual to give up some of the credit for the ideas.
“To encourage curriculum change, administrators should reward innovators and also concern themselves with the need for security on the part of their faculty during the difficult period of change.”
Anonymous
Important reasons for outcome-based curricular planning are the economic constraints on the institution. While it would be nice to have carte blanche for curricular change, this is not a reality in most situations. More likely, it will be economic pressure that is the threat or impetus for change.
Common to many outcome-based curricula is the requirement for job placement. Whether this is accreditation-based or institutionally mandated, aspects of curriculum development will be determined by the ability of the photographic program to successfully place its completers into the workplace. The structure, timing, and equipment needs for the program will be decided externally to the program. Most institutional situations use advisory boards to help define the curricular design options that will be active in a new or revised photographic curriculum. Thus it is important in creating and using the advisory board that the individuals who are chosen to participate have both the knowledge and the vision to see the photographic field as the students will experience it, once they have completed the program. It is shortsighted to select advisers who are greedy or who will defer automatically to the faculty's vision. While in the short term this may be comforting to the faculty, in the long term it may be detrimental to the program and its students.
“I constantly ask myself what a graduate of the photographic program needs to know by the time they graduate. And based on the answer to that reoccurring question I will change the curriculum, the technology taught within the curriculum, or not, or try to integrate or interface them differently than I have done before.”
Jane Alden Stevens
University of Cincinnati, OH
Because of academic structures that are not within, but have an impact on, the photographic program, procedure often becomes the central organizing factor in program redesign or new curricular planning. These may define prerequisites or curricular options rather than approaching designed constraints leading to more coherent and substantial programs. Since these procedures that will determine much of the curriculum are external to any planning within the photographic program, they will have a greater impact on the number of options that can be included in the curricular design. The procedural controlling factors do not limit the academic strength of the designed curriculum or program. They only define the structural elements that will be found in the final design.
There is also a potential in today's rapidly changing technological environment that equipment changes will be the impetus and a controlling factor for curriculum change. Curriculum change based on an equipment-centric view has the potential to be limited in time. We have learned that the pace of change of the technologies, both hardware and software, is changing at a rapid rate. The ability of any academic institution to keep pace with the state-of-the-art is highly doubtful. This makes this type of curricular design less than satisfactory for the long term.
An aesthetic point of view can also be the central form of curriculum design. However, just as equipment has a limited time frame, developing courses around a genre or aesthetic point is both limiting in scope and likely shortsighted for the long run.
“To make a very serious attempt to redesign an art department to more accurately reflect issues of contemporary practice…One of the underlying concepts is to design a program of study that is not media specific—painting, printmaking, photography, sculpture, et cetera—but a program that is based on the concept of image formulation. At present we are looking at four distinguishing characteristics: still, moving, dimensional and interactive. The idea is then to form bridging structures from traditional forms as exclusively distinct, to a more interactive ground working with the theatre department, the dance department, the school of communications, and the music department. The concern here is to expose students not to a series of disciplines but to allow them to understand the underlying aspects of them; sound, movement, interactivity, spatial orientation.”
Nathan Lyons
Visual Studies Workshop, NY
Changing Curriculum to the Digital Age
Photography, the art of making photographs, has not changed over the years, but the technology certainly has—from daguerreotypes, to tintypes, to glass plates, to sheet film, to roll film, and now to CCD and CMOS—from analog to digital. This, of course, has required some changes in what we teach and how we teach, as can be seen in the following comparison between two associate degree programs, one from more than 20 years ago and one from today. The first, Lansing Community College's 1982 Commercial/Illustration curriculum, is compared to Harrington College of Design's current curriculum for the Digital Photography Program. (This comparison deals only with the photography-specific courses.)
Curriculum, Lansing Community College, 1982
Intro to Photo
Black & White darkroom introduction including camera operations, exposure, development, and printing.
Design I
A basic design course covering the elements of design.
Intro to Photo II
Intermediate Black & White photographic course concentrating on exposure and printing.
Intro to Photo III
An advanced Black & White course including introduction to medium and large formats and advanced exposure and printing.
Intro to Color
An introduction to color theory and color photographic processes.
Basic Photo Chemistry
An introduction to the photo chemistry of Black & White technology.
Large Format Photo I
An introduction to the view camera and its movements.
Portrait I
Posing and lighting for portraiture.
Business of Photography
The basic business knowledge needed to enter into the photography business.
Color Printing I
An introduction to color printing.
Color Printing II
Advanced color printing including internegative processes.
The applications of the large-format camera in the studio and architectural photography.
Photojournalism I
Introduction to the principles of news gathering, picture story telling, and publishing of images.
The Portfolio
A culminating course to prepare to enter the photographic job field.
Curriculum, Harrington College of Design, 2005
Fundamentals of Digital Photography
An introduction including digital camera operations, exposure, basic Photoshop, and ink jet printing.
Design Foundations
A basic design course covering the elements of design.
Digital Imaging I
A continuation of Fundamentals of Digital Photography with emphasis on Photoshop and an introduction to color management.
Imaging and Studio Processes
An introduction to the studio environment and basics of lighting.
Location Lighting
The course uses the basics of all lighting environments and their applications.
Digital Illustration
Use of digital tools in photographic illustration.
Lighting People
Posing and lighting for portraiture.
Studio Lighting
Understanding the concepts of light control within the studio.
History of Photography and Imaging
A historical approach to the development of photography to the present.
Commercial Photography
The application of various photographic techniques for commercial applications.
Architectural and Interior Photography
An introduction to techniques used in architectural and interior photography.
Portfolio/Resume
A culminating course to prepare to enter the photographic job field.
Looking at these two curricula we can see that there are some ideas that did not change in an approach to curriculum design. These are the requirements for courses on exposure, design, portfolio, and several areas of applications. At the same time we can see that there is less process in the current Harrington program, with more instruction on lighting. Also, the 1982 Lansing program had a broader view of potentialities for professional activities.
“As educators and artists we seek to understand photography's future in an age of multidisciplinary practice.”
Society for Photographic Education
2006 Conference Announcement