Long-term Strategic Incrementalism: An Approach and a Model for Bringing About Change in Higher Education

Innovation and reform are crucial to progress, but higher education institutions are by nature highly resistant to change. This article describes long-term strategic incrementalism, an approach to change advocated by L. Cuban, How scholars trumped teachers: Change without reform in university curriculum, teaching, and research, 1890–1990, Teachers College Press, New York, NY, 1999, and proposes a model based on this approach as a proven way of successfully carrying out change within higher education. The approach and model are illustrated through two cases involving reforms—one at the department level and another at the institutional level. Norman Evans  (Ed.D., University of Southern California) is a member of the Linguistics and English Language Department at Brigham Young University. He is the former chair of the English Language Teaching and Learning Department at Brigham Young University Hawaii. Lynn Henrichsen  (Ed.D., University of Hawaii) is a member of the Linguistics and English Language Department at Brigham Young University. He is the former chair of that department.