If you’re anything like me, you’re a big fan of residential curriculum. You love writing facilitation guides, assessing intentional interactions, and learning about creative strategies to engage with your students. But if you are like me, you might also feel like the only person who feels so strongly about curriculum at your institution. To many of your coworkers, curriculum may be seen as extra work that evolves too frequently and involves competency areas like assessment that some folks may not have engaged with since their graduate school days.
Getting buy-in from your coworkers is essential to the success of your curriculum, but the nuances between our institutions, curricula, and even team social dynamics mean that the answer to building better buy-in for your team will also be nuanced. As such, this post isn’t meant to be a step-by-step guide for building buy-in. Instead, I’m hoping you will find some new strategies (yes, this is a curriculum pun) and talking points that may inspire your coworkers to have more openness and curiosity towards the curricular approach.
Seek Individual Allies
When I first started my current position, I made a point to talk to as many people in my department as possible on an individual basis to learn about their experiences and thoughts on curriculum. When we only discuss curriculum in group settings, herd mentality may prevent people from sharing their true thoughts. Connecting on an individual basis also helps you learn about the specific hurdles a coworker needs to overcome before they are ready to engage fully with residential curriculum.
Bring in Outside Help
As well-intentioned as we may be, there comes a point when you may have to consider that you are part of the problem. Perhaps your zeal for curriculum is too intense for others, or maybe there’s an uncomfortable power dynamic or personal issue preventing coworkers from engaging with you authentically. In an ideal world we would be able to have clear and open communication about these issues, but that’s easier said than done. Involving a 3rd party can be a good way to offer your coworkers a fresh perspective on curriculum.
Redefine Learning
How do your coworkers define learning? One might think of Bloom’s Taxonomy or reflect on their own classroom experiences. Where residential curriculum is concerned, our learning goals often lean into the metacognitive more than a traditional classroom environment would. We’re not teaching residents about historical events or the laws of physics, we’re teaching them to introspect and explore their self-crafted role in a community. Likewise, residential learning can (and should) look very different from a traditional academic setting. Fun activities like a spa night can provide a wonderful learning environment for students to practice and reflect on self care habits, as long as they are planned with intention.
Curriculum isn’t “Extra Work”
I often encounter coworkers who attribute their aversion to curriculum to the amount of work it puts on their plate. If you took away the residential curriculum, what would you be left with? While I can’t answer that for every housing department, it’s likely that programming and other strategies would still occur. RAs would still host social programs and want to make care packages for their residents during exams. As professionals, we would still be observing trends in the halls and implementing strategies to address those trends. Residential curriculum serves to provide a clear and logical structure to the work we already do while making sure our work remains relevant through timely assessment efforts. While designing curriculum and working through the review process certainly can be a huge lift, the end result is an effective, efficient system that reduces the guesswork of figuring out how best to serve our students.
Rome Wasn’t Built in a Day
Sometimes we forget that residential curriculum is an experiment! Every institution has a unique history, student body, and culture that all influence what an effective curriculum could and should be. It can take years of trying, failing, and assessing to finally find what works. Rapid change can create feelings of frustration and instability, but choosing to stick with something that is ineffective and doesn’t make sense is arguably worse.
Skill Up
Another common roadblock for curriculum buy-in is simply the knowledge level of your coworkers. We immerse ourselves every day in strategies, assessment, learning outcomes and facilitation guides, but the same may not be true for our coworkers. It’s nearly impossible to generate buy-in for your curriculum if your coworkers don’t have a fundamental understanding of what the curriculum even is, and these gaps in knowledge can also create frustration for those coworkers who are responsible for implementing parts of the curriculum. Doing a yearly curriculum professional development session, sending coworkers to the Institute on the Curricular Approach (ICA), or even integrating a residential curriculum 101 session into your staff onboarding process will help support your coworkers’ knowledge surrounding curriculum.
Our Energy Trickles Down to Student Staff
Now this is one trickle down theory that I do believe in. While they may not be content experts in the curricular approach, student staff are heavily involved in its implementation. During student staff training, they learn all about the different strategies expected of them and how to have high-quality intentional conversations. However, after training ends and the semester begins, student staff members look to the professional staff as role models for their job. If we are overtly pessimistic about the curriculum around students, we aren’t exactly giving them a reason to be excited about their own job. While you don’t need to live and breathe the curriculum, having a sense of curiosity and optimism around your student staff can rub off on them and may also help avoid other performance-related issues down the line.
Buy-In is about Agency
At its core, buy-in for anything is about creating a sense of agency. The products we choose to buy reflect our values and make us feel seen. The same must be true for the curricular approach. If you are asking for buy-in to a curriculum, you have to also provide a seat at the table for coworkers to feel that their professional values and desires are being seriously considered as your curriculum evolves. If there is no seat for them at the table and you can’t make that change, advocate for it! When someone’s idea cannot be accommodated, provide clear and thorough rationale. Whether or not your coworkers can or want to get involved at the design level of your curriculum, keeping them engaged through committee reports, transparent decisionmaking and opportunities for feedback is essential.
Generating and maintaining buy-in will take time, but each of the tips I’ve provided have worked for me to some degree. Regardless of which strategy or strategies you use, consistency is the key! Keep the door open so your coworkers can learn and engage at their own pace without feeling like your interest in their buy-in is a limited time offer.
