University Innovation and Innovators: A Response-able Conceptual Model

​The authors introduce a theoretically-motivated and empirically supported conceptual model for understanding and integrating three key actors – students, faculty, and University administrators – in the context of institutional innovation toward the development of innovators.  The model is motivated by what the authors consider to be a rhetoric of responsibility, which is predicated on a response-ability toward each other and the planet we live on and includes but exceeds an interpretation of innovation based exclusively on profit-making motives. Based on Berger and Milem’s (2000) original model, this model has five key, recursive components: student and faculty entry characteristics; organizational characteristics; student and faculty peer group characteristics; student and faculty experiences; and student and faculty outcomes. The authors introduce two unique features: ecological recursivity among the components, and explicit inclusion of faculty. These additions, we argue, support a more expansive understanding of innovation in higher education than current models currently allow.