Mainstreaming an innovative 31-credit curriculum for first-year engineering majors

In September of 1998, the College of Engineering at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth piloted an innovative, integrated, first-year curriculum that dramatically changed 31 credits across two semesters. Preliminary assessment data was very encouraging after the first semester of operation and the team started an effort to adopt it. A storm of intense resistance and controversy erupted, however, catching nearly everyone by surprise. Argument, rational and seemingly irrational, threatened to eclipse the benefits of the new program and could have easily led to its termination. In retrospect the nature of the controversy and opposition was predictable. With earlier understanding of responses, adoption would still have been resisted and people would have disagreed but the team would have been better able to respond productively. This paper will present the story of the adoption of the IMPULSE program so that others can learn from our experiences. It will focus on the process that led to rapid adoption of the new curriculum and will point out important steps and pitfalls. The paper will include discussion of the important, and predictable, human reactions that were seen. We could not make progress until these were appreciated. Human reactions had to be understood and worked with. We hope that our experiences will encourage and help others to become more aware of the human factors that often dominate change processes.