Supporting Physics Departments for Planning and Implementing Transformational Change

As part of the Effective Practices for Physics Programs (EP3) initiative, a joint effort of APS and the American Association of Physics Teachers, we have been running Departmental Action Leadership Institutes (DALIs), which support physics 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 cohort. 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. In total, we have successfully run 4 DALI cohorts to date, with cohort 5 in process and cohort 6 planned to launch in May 2024 (given adequate funding). Taken together, these 6 cohorts included participants from 30 physics programs in the United States and Canada. In this presentation, we will describe the goals and structure of the DALIs, present our findings with respect to DALI's impacts on participants and their departments, and discuss our plans for the future of the DALI model.