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In the 2009 spring semester, campus leaders at the University of Iowa began to envision an institution-wide project to develop technology-enhanced NEW DIRECTIONS FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING, no. 137, Spring 2014

Partnering with Rotary International and residents of Xicotepec, Mexico, the University of Iowa Colleges of Engineering, Pharmacy, and Liberal Arts & Sciences have created a cross‐disciplinary, international service‐learning course whose impact through the years will respond to student‐learning and community‐identified needs.

The objective of this chapter is to describe and analyze the factors that enabled a new strategic vision and rapid change for course delivery at a large, decentralized research university. The authors outline how the university leadership facilitated collaboration among faculty, staff, and technology specialists to design, implement, and assess the value of special technology-rich learning environments. This case focuses on the following factors: the issue of balancing top-down (administrative) and bottom up (faculty-led) approaches that often characterize campus change; the role that external effects had on the ability to move the campus in the direction of a new type of classroom and teaching; an analysis of the University of Iowa’s decision-making structure, which sought a balance between the decentralized structure that characterizes faculty’s control over the curriculum and the centralized structure that characterizes decisions about facilities; the importance of a faculty-development program; and the role of assessment in evaluating the initiative.

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