TRAINING MANUAL

FOR

AN ECOSYSTEM MODEL

Stage I

The Planning Team

The ecosystem model requires that a planning team be formed to conduct its processes. There are a number of important reasons for this. Obviously, environments are perceived in different ways by different people. Therefore, a team approach provides a sampling of these perspectives by virtue of its membership. Equally important to ecosystem design is the idea that it constitutes a collaborative effort to improve environmental conditions by those who are in the environment and those responsible for its maintenance. It is also important to note that research designed and implemented by one individual, often someone from outside the environment, usually lacks credibility with the members and decision makers in that environment. Even quite valid data may be ignored and appropriate redesigns never initiated. Thus, a team approach helps to establish a collaborative effort and credibility for the project. Another reason for using a team approach is that few environments exist alone. A team can afford representation from major, interrelating environments. And finally, ecosystem design is a complex procedure requiring a number of tasks. A team approach allows the workload to be distributed among team members.

Because a team approach is essential to ecosystem design, the first task presented in Stage I is obtaining a high-level commitment for the project. Obtaining this commitment can be helpful in the recruitment of team members and is essential to the team's future functioning. The second task presented in Stage I is selecting team members. Once a team has been assembled, its methods of operation become important. The final task presented in Stage I focuses on team operation and presents methods a team might use to conduct its business smoothly and productively.

Project Commitment

Discussion

Using an ecosystem approach to design optimum campus environments is relatively new. More often than not, the ecosystem concepts and how these would be applied to the proposed project must be carefully explained. Because the model is new and still in a developmental stage, the explanation is not always simple. There are not many examples or results yet. However, any school that undertakes an ecosystem design project may find reward in developing new processes for the model and thus become a leader for others. This has already happened to those colleges that have accepted the stimulating challenge of innovation.

Often, securing commitment for a project is compounded by ideas and notions that the model is designed to manipulate people through environmental means. The model's use of a team approach, however, ensures its intended goal as a tool people can use to better manage and improve their environments by determining which components in an environment are detrimental, which are facilitative, and what new components might be designed that would improve the environment.

Even though explaining an ecosystem project is difficult and elusive, obtaining commitment for the process is vital. The model presumes environmental design will take place. Its assessment procedure is not just another survey or questionnaire that produces data destined for file cabinets or bookshelves. Instead, ecosystem data are intended to produce descriptive information for planning and implementing environmental change. This means those in a position to effect change on campus must sanction the undertaking in order for the model's results to be enacted.

Commitment for the project should be sought from the highest level possible. In some instances, commitment from the school's top-level administrators cannot be fully procured until after a team has been formulated and can bring its collective voice to bear upon these decision makers. It is necessary, however, to have the active commitment of the top administrator of the environment for which the model is to be used. This is important because team members need sanction to include work on the model as part of their regular schedule, and because resources such as secretarial help and money for instruments and computer time will almost certainly need to be obtained from the administrators and the offices under their authority. An administrator's initial commitment in providing time and resources can also lead to more careful consideration of the data and subsequent support for design projects.

As the person who wants to launch an ecosystem design begins to develop interest in and commitment for the project, he/she will recognize important campus constituencies that should ultimately be represented on the team and spot potential candidates for team membership. Likewise, obtaining commitment for the project can facilitate the recruitment process. At one campus where the ecosystem model has been applied, the president and faculty senate agreed to credit membership on the planning team as equivalent to publishing when considering promotion and tenure. On other campuses, support for an ecosystem design was obtained from the chancellor and vice-presidential levels, which lent importance to serving on the planning team and later opened the doors to needed resources.

Process

Important guidelines to use in obtaining interest in and commitment for an ecosystem project include:

1. Become acquainted with some of the ecosystem and environmental assessment literature. A suggested reference source is Designing Campus Environments: A Review of Selected Literature by Leland R. Kaiser and Lynn Sherretz (Boulder, CO: WICHE, 1976). Some key principles to keep in mind about the model discussed in this manual are that:

• The team approach, which employs a collaborative effort to use the best ideas from different viewpoints, experiences, and disciplines to conduct a study, will yield productive recommendations for planning and implementing.
• Data from the ecosystem assessment techniques enlightens more common perceptual data sources with concrete and specific information. For example, everyone knows people are dissatisfied with the cafeteria because it is a popular topic of complaint and records show a decline in usage, but no one knows just which factors--such as prices, food, hours, service, and decor--are the greatest source of dissatisfaction. An ecosystem assessment would gather information on just which factors were most bothersome, as well as suggestions for changing them. The cafeteria environment could then undergo an informed redesign.
• The model views environments as any limited part of campus. The magnitude of the environment can vary. It might be a residence hall, student service, or class; or it can be the residence hall system, the student services system, or a college/academic department.
• Whatever the environment's boundaries, the model then views the environment from the standpoint of all the stimuli at work within it. A list of important stimuli would include physical and social conditions in the environment, policies and regulations applied to the environment, characteristics or demographic variables of the people using the environment, and the values and goals transmitted by the environment.
• The model assesses the various types of interactions that occur between these environmental stimuli and people using the environment in order to modify, change, or otherwise improve the environment.

2. Prepare a list of reasons why the proposed environment should be studied. Example: It seems advantageous to study the residence hall environment because:

• At recent meetings, the regents have questioned the educational value of the residence hall system.
• Toward the end of last semester, records showed a marked increase in the number of students evidencing problems associated with residence hall life.
• An article in the college paper noted administrative concern over the number of broken residence hall contracts.

3. Prepare a list of reasons why the ecosystem model could best accomplish the project.

Example: If the ecosystem model were used to study the residence hall environment, it could give, through its use of environmental referents (the details the respondents cite in a brief written description on why they have a certain perception about the environment), specific data and examples concerning:

• Whether students consider residence hall life as pertinent to their education and why. How the residence hall system meets or does not meet students educational/study needs.
• What things happen in the residence hall that cause students particular problems and what things happen that specially help them.
• How policies and regulations might be better conveyed and/or changed to accommodate the needs of both hall residents and administrators.

4. Determine which campus departments, units, or services have most control over and most direct relationship with the environment

5. Contact appropriate people in these departments, etc., to determine their interest in the proposed project and to get suggestions of others who would be interested. Example: Contact authorities to discuss residence hall project and determine interest in the following offices:

• Student Housing Office
• Dean of Students Office
  Subsequent suggestions for contact:
  Counseling Center
  Student Health Service Mental Health Clinic

6. When sufficient interest has been evidenced, revise the previous list concerning why the ecosystem project should be undertaken to include the ideas gathered from appropriate people in other departments who are interested in working on the project. Example: The above list would be revised to include:

Housing Office interest in assessing residence hall facilities and administrative procedures.

Dean of Students Office interest in assessing programs and student government in the residence halls.

Counseling Center and Mental Health Clinic interest in programs and environmental design in residence halls.

7. Using all the above information, seek a commitment for the project from the highest possible level.

Example: Discuss the project, its needs, and advantages to secure the endorsement and/or commitment for its undertaking with the President and the Vice-President for Student Affairs.

8. Make appropriate application or notification to the office or committee that governs institutional research, if such is present and required on campus.

Example: University Human Subjects Committee notified and approval given.

* * *

Selecting Team Members

Discussion

Assembling a planning team for an ecosystem project takes thought and preparation. There are several important considerations that should govern team composition. First among these is team size. Teams with a membership of twelve or more can easily become unwieldy. It takes longer for the team to pull together and substantive deliberations are more time consuming. If, however, after other factors are given due consideration and it seems necessary to include a fairly large number of people on the team, this can be managed through administrative procedures. A steering committee might be used to facilitate teamwork, or subcommittees can be set up to handle specific tasks between periodic meetings of the team as a whole.

Experience has shown the optimum team size to be eight members. The best goal to aim for is a team membership of between six and ten persons; this allows a very energetic and cohesive group to form while maintaining sufficient diversity, and tasks can be conducted in pairs. When special knowledge or skill is needed, the team can always call upon consultative assistance from colleagues.

Other critical factors to be considered in assembling a planning team are proper representation from those in the environment, those managing the environment, those with political influence over the environment, and those with technical skills required for implementing the model. During the lifetime of an ecosystem project, there will be need for communication between planning team members and the special constituents they represent. Therefore, another consideration in choosing prospective planning team members is their ability to be an articulate channel of communication to and from their constituency.

On campus, proper representation from those in the environment usually means students; however, this obviously depends on the environment to be studied. Therefore, representation could include staff members and/or people from the community. Regarding student representation, at least two students should be selected because they can reinforce each other on a team whose membership appears to comprise the authorities. It is also helpful to have at least two levels represented, i.e., an undergraduate and a graduate student or a freshman and a junior. One might represent students in general and another might be a known student leader.

Representation from the managers of an environment serves several purposes. There are fiscal and physical limits to designing environments. Any assessment must be honest and avoid issues upon which no action could be taken. The managers of an environment best know these limits. Also, they are in the most advantageous position to begin enacting the project's subsequent environmental designs. Thus their knowledge and support is necessary. Managers also deal with the policies and regulations that govern an environment. While there is usually a great deal of latitude in this area for subsequent adjustment, modification, or change, it will be necessary for the team to have informed discussion regarding these issues in order to assess properly the interactions that take place between an environment's regulations and the people it serves. This type of informed discussion can occur only when both the environment's managers and consumers are represented on the team.

Determining representation from among branches of the university that have important interfaces with the environment most often is dependent upon two factors: (1) provision of a major service or support to the environment; and (2) interest in the environment--this usually surfaces while commitment for the project is being sought and secured. Unless these factors are involved it is best to await results of the assessment before involving other constituencies in the project. The ecosystem data will indicate which units should be represented to effect environmental designs. For example, an assessment of a residence hall system might indicate need for more recreational activities, and representatives from the athletic department and the student or local community recreation center would be useful in designing this. Or the assessment might indicate residents studying a particular discipline would like a more learning-centered atmosphere. It would then be helpful to involve representation from the appropriate departmental faculty to design this type of environment.

Whenever possible, it is extremely useful to have, among the planning team's members, a person who represents the political forces that have influence over the environment. Often, high-level administrators can appoint a staff member to serve on the planning team. This translates high-level commitment into representation. As a practical matter, however, this cannot always be achieved. Usually, political influence for and over an environment relies most heavily upon the managers represented on the team, which is reinforced by close liaison and feedback to campus administrators.

Knowledge of assessment instruments and computer technology are highly desirable qualities to be represented on the planning team. Skill in developing instruments is equally valuable. These skills are needed for both the design of assessment procedures and the analysis of assessment data. If they are not represented among team members, then the team will undoubtedly have to seek consultative assistance. In those situations in which a university research or computer center is present, it is strongly recommended that a member of its staff be recruited to serve on the planning team.

In thinking about members for a planning team, it is always helpful to give some consideration as to how service on the team can fit in with regular campus reward systems and/or with the professional goals of team members. Service could count toward promotion and tenure for faculty and could be written into the job description for a student services staff member in lieu of another responsibility. Students could earn credit or be paid from Work-Study or other funds. Some members of the team could use the model as the basis for their own graduate theses. Such individual motivations often facilitate both immediate and long-term commitment to the team's work.

Even though there are many factors to be considered and many qualities desired in choosing a team, it is possible to select a limited number of people who satisfy the essential requirements. Obviously, this is accomplished by locating candidates for team membership who possess more than one needed characteristic, quality, or skill.

Process

Principal factors to apply when selecting and recruiting members for a planning team are to:

1. Try and keep team membership between six and ten people.
2. Look for candidates among those who live in the environment, manage the environment, have an important interface with the environment, possess political influence over the environment, and have knowledge and skill in assessment and computer technologies.
3. Determine how the ecosystem project might serve important goals and needs of the candidates.
4. Explore with the candidates their interests in order to establish benefits that they could expect by participating and what skills and talents they might bring to the team.
5. Select and recruit among the candidates those who fulfill several of the major team needs and considerations and are willing to commit time, interest, and talent to the project.

Example: Eight-member planning team for residence hall project:

One member from the Dean of Students Office represents overall student programming, knowledge in research design and assessment techniques, and political influence including the Dean and the Vice-President for Student Affairs.

Director of Student Housing represents management of residence hall plant facilities, staff, regulations, residence hall program, knowledge of research design and assessment instruments, and political influence including the Vice-President for Student Affairs.

Three students--one represents graduate student and head resident perspectives, staff management, and knowledge of assessment techniques and instruments. Second student represents upper division student and resident assistant perspectives. Third student represents lower division student and hall resident perspectives.

Director of the Counseling Center represents major interfacing service to the residence hall system, interest in outreach programs for residence halls, and knowledge in computer technology and assessment techniques.

Director of Mental Health Service represents major interfacing service to the residence hall system and interest in environmental design and residence hall programs.

Staff member from Institutional Research represents knowledge 4 research technology and access to computer.

Team Operation

Discussion

While the planning team concept is not new, it is more commonly applied within the confines of one organization, department, or service. Team members usually know each other, have some understanding of each other's jobs, hold many goals in common, and are quite familiar with the intended purpose of their planning effort. This situation seldom applies to ecosystem system planning teams. A high ratio of members may know each other only by name, have little or no understanding of each other's work, come onto the team with separate goals for the project, and often feel vague about the intended purpose of their planning effort.

Therefore, it becomes very important during the team's initial meetings to review the project's general purposes, to allow members time to become better acquainted with each other, and to gain an appreciation of each other's role on campus, as well as what each hopes to accomplish by the project. As this occurs, members will find things in common, establish mutual support for each other, and begin to develop ideas in common about the intended purpose of their planning effort.

As the team pulls together, attention should turn to establishing some basic operating procedures. There are many tasks to be accomplished and setting up some routines will help the team work these through. The team should agree upon a regular meeting time and place. This helps members avoid scheduling conflicts and lends precedence to team meetings. Because each member is representing different constituencies, another important routine will be keeping these groups informed of the team's work. There may also be occasions when the team will want to poll these groups for further information, so keeping the lines of communication operating is important.

Maintaining a sense of direction and progress is always useful when undertaking a complex project such as an ecosystem design. The team should explore methods of processing and evaluating its work and adopt those which best serve its needs. It is also helpful to get the team accustomed to subdividing the workload and completing assignments or undertaking tasks between meetings. In the early phases of the project, team members often will be working on the same tasks. Later, assignment of tasks should be done according to members' abilities and interests.

The time it takes to form team identity and cohesiveness and to set up basic operating procedures will be rewarded with increased team productivity in the long run. Efforts to achieve these goals can move ahead simultaneously during the team's initial meetings. There are many exercises and techniques that may be applied, and each team should find those that are most helpful to it. The ones suggested below have been used successfully by past ecosystem planning teams. Experience indicates it takes three or four meetings to get team relationships and procedures to a point where further development happens more automatically than consciously.

Process/Project Review

Members come to the planning team with some idea of the project and why they have decided to participate. However, it is helpful to give a brief review of the project as a means to stimulating further discussion so that the team can begin to form ideas in common about the project. Suggestions and guidelines for preparing and conducting this review are given in Technical Appendix A, p. 83.

Process/Team Building

1. Introducing Members

Often, membership on the ecosystem planning team is the first time people with diverse responsibilities and positions on campus have met or talked with each other. At the minimum, members should be asked to introduce themselves and describe what they do. It is often more appropriate, more fun, and more informative to try an introductory exercise. One such exercise that some planning teams have found useful is given in Technical Appendix B, p. 85.

2. Brainstorming Ideas

As the team begins to work, there are several types of exercises that it can use to facilitate its efforts and to help coalesce its membership. The brainstorming of ideas gets everyone working in a businesslike manner, develops better understanding and appreciation of the perspectives represented on the team, and generates much useful information in a short time that produces feelings of productivity among the members. By adhering to the rules of brainstorming, the team can get to the substance of its topic and avoid rambling conversations from which the substance then must be distilled. A recommended brainstorming process is given in Technical Appendix B, p. 85.

The brainstorming process can be readily applied during the initial team building stage. If the team likes the process, it will have experience in a technique useful at many points throughout the project. Some early applications of brainstorming might be used to elicit team members' knowledge about the environment or to determine the array of interests for studying the environment the team represents. Either application develops corporate information for the team while providing all members with an opportunity to gain a better insight into the concerns and needs of their colleagues.

3. Developing Team Consensus

The ability to develop consensus among its members will also be useful to the team. Using a field force analysis (Technical Appendix B, p. 87) is one technique for establishing consensus and making decisions. Such things as rank-ordering ideas, information, suggestions, and concerns generated by a brainstorming session also help develop consensus and clarify team priorities. While the occasion to apply these techniques may not arise during the team's first few meetings, they will become valuable team-building aids in the model's later processes. Their use can keep the team together and moving productively.

1. Meetings

One of the first procedures to be established for the team is a regular meeting time and place. It is very advisable for the team to begin meeting once every week. As the project gets further along, this can be adjusted to accommodate the team's work flow. Being able to meet in the same place each week is also advisable, for it can save members both confusion and phone calls. The team should:

a. Determine the most mutually agreeable time for everyone to meet weekly and make this the team's regular meeting time.

b. Determine a mutually agreeable length of time for the team to meet. It is suggested that two hours allows enough time for a productive session.

c. Locate a meeting room that can comfortably accommodate team membership and has a large table, preferably round, so that writing and talking are facilitated.

d. Equip the room with a blackboard and/or newsprint to aid the team's work.

e. Procure ongoing secretarial assistance in order that the minutes can be taken at each meeting and prepared for distribution before or at the next meeting. The minutes are useful as a vehicle for organizing the team's work and should function to:

• Document team decisions.
• Organize the team's ideas into working papers or lists.
• Note assignments of tasks and expected completion dates.
• Distribute project schedules as these are generated.
• Distribute meeting agendas.

Secretarial assistance is also essential to later processes in the model when the team is devising or revising assessment instruments, reporting progress, contacting prospective respondents, and producing project reports.

2. Tracking Team Process and Progress

Certainly in the beginning and often at later points in the model, the team members can become frustrated with the feeling that they are "spinning their wheels." A regular procedure for processing and evaluating teamwork can be instrumental in formulating team cohesiveness and in ameliorating this problem. Processing and evaluating team efforts can also be used to overcome other problems common to teamwork such as overbearing or too reticent personality characteristics among team members and nonproductive methods of team operation. Therefore, it is strongly recommended that the team try out various process and evaluation procedures and modify these to their needs to maintain a sense of direction and progress. Various methods useful in processing teamwork can be reviewed in Technical Appendix C, p. 890

3. Sharing Information

Another important procedure the planning team would be advised to establish is how it will keep its constituencies informed. This is not only helpful when it comes time to ask constituents for specific resources such as manpower, computer time, or money, but the team may also want to use its communication lines to constituents for checking or obtaining information. Certainly, those in the environment should begin to learn about the study so they will be willing to answer the team's assessment instruments. There are no set feedback procedures to follow. It is up to the ingenuity of the team and its individual members to keep its constituents informed. Some methods used by other teams include:

• Periodic reports of team activities by individual team member to their constituencies at staff meetings, student government meetings, residence hall meetings, etc.

• Reporting of news items, project reports, and team activities in the student newspaper.
• Having a special meeting or convocation of constituents to hear an address by someone knowledgeable in the model's theory and use.

• Periodic newsletters or memos to constituents informing them about the project and the team's activities.
• Designation of specific team members to keep key administrators informed about the project's progress.

4. Subdividing the Workload

The subdivision of the workload and the assumption of tasks to be conducted and completed outside of meeting times will become an essential procedure for the team. The earlier this procedure can be established, the better. Whenever possible, assignments should tap the member's special talents and interests. This will be more readily accomplished as team members get to know each other better. However, it is good to get this procedure underway and general tasks can be assigned to every

member early in the team's operation. Ideas for these early assignments are usually generated by the team as the result of their discussions and questions. A rule of thumb is to be watchful for ways that the team's expressed needs or interests might be fulfilled or advanced by an interim meeting assignment. Examples of such tasks might include:

• Collecting and sharing ecosystem literature.
• Interviewing three or four constituents concerning their ideas, needs, or reactions to the environment under study.
• Preparing a list of things that the member (or member's constituents) would like to know as a result of the study.
• Bringing to the next meeting a copy of a survey, questionnaire, or other assessment instrument that the members have found to be particularly useful.
• Making a list of resources that members might be able to tap for the team (such as students to whom credit could be given for work on the project; secretaries for whom time could be released for team secretarial needs; and record-keeping sources from which useful data about the environment could be collected).

Process/Team Leader

The team's leader is a vital force in the development and functioning of the team. While it is often true that the project's originator becomes the team's leader and is certainly the one looked to for leadership at the initial meetings, it does not necessarily follow that he/she must be or should be the team's permanent leader. It is possible that, during the team's initial meetings, someone else could emerge as the team's natural leader. It is just as possible that the project's originator prefers that someone else assume leadership. Whatever the situation, it is suggested that, after team members have become better acquainted with each other and the project, the issue of team leadership be an agenda item for discussion so that a permanent leader (or steering committee, if the team is large) can be selected.

During the lifetime of a planning team, various members will assume the leadership role by virtue of their specific knowledge or technical skill in the area under discussion. Thus the qualities needed for the team's permanent leader should center more on the ability to:

• Coordinate and direct team activities.
• Conduct facilitative procedures such as brainstorming, field force analysis, and consensus making.
• Give systematic, positive feedback and reinforcement to team members.
• Confront team members who are not doing their contracted work.
• Deal openly with conflicts and disagreements as these occur.
• Lead resolution of conflict between team members or team factions.
• Prepare meeting agendas if necessary.

Subject content of the team's initial meetings will be dependent upon the environment chosen for study and the interests and needs of those chosen to serve on the planning team. Thus Stage I has concentrated more on the processes that determine a successful start for the project and the team. Generally, subject content will progress from the broad project review and team understanding of the model to the team members' individual interests in and their objectives for the project. Then discussion usually centers on the commonalities among these objectives that might be adopted as project objectives. Once some common project objectives are accepted, discussion turns to the subject that initiates Stage II processes, namely, What to Assess?