Supporting Departmental Change Efforts with Departmental Action Leadership Institutes (DALIs)

As part of the Effective Practices for Physics Programs (EP3) initiative, a joint effort of APS and the American Association of Physics Teachers, we are piloting Departmental Action Leadership Institutes (DALIs), which support faculty members and their departments in implementing changes to their undergraduate programs. Starting in January 2021, two faculty members from each of five departments joined the first DALI. They were charged with leading cross-constituency teams in their departments to engage in a change effort, following the Departmental Action Team (DAT) model. This DALI started with a virtual kickoff workshop followed by twice monthly meetings and the opportunity for individual consultations with the DALI facilitators. These activities were designed to to help the DALI participants engage in a change effort, support a high-functioning team, interface with external stakeholders, and develop change agency. The first cohort wrapped up after a year, the second is ongoing, and two more are scheduled to launch this fall. In this presentation, we will describe the goals and structure of the pilot DALI, present some initial feedback from our participants, and describe our plans to document the impacts on participants and their departments.