Every successful collaboration depends upon opportunities for participants to develop mutual respect and explore shared priorities and interests. Individuals continue to evolve and change in response to new opportunities and demands, so do institutions, departments, disciplines and curricular and pedagogical innovations. We are at a crossroads in the reform of undergraduate science and mathematics education. The idea that science and math faculty might initially spend their time rethinking and reconstructing what and how they teach has been embraced by students, parents, alumni, administrators, the public at large, and the faculty themselves. The idea that science matters to everyone has achieved widespread approval.
Collaboration is required for real educational reform.
But an innovation that works well in one context cannot merely be transplanted into a different context. As innovations move out from their original settings, they must be adapted to the dynamics and needs of each new environment. Equally important as collaborations between institutions are collaborations within. Imagine a series of collaborative opportunities that spiral outward from the faculty member as a series of concentric circles. In the innermost circle are colleagues in the faculty member's own department, in the next circle are colleagues in intellectually adjacent departments, in the next circle are deans, provosts, and presidents, in the next are colleagues in other institutions.