Post (a) joseph I work with the Commission for University Education, the regulator of universities in Kenya. Until 2012 the Commission only regulated private universities. However in December 2012 the law was changed to bring the public universities under the authority of the Commission. The intention of the law was to have a level playing ground for all universities. During the discussions that proposed these changes, the public universities were very resistant to this idea. For a long time they had enjoyed autonomy and the prospect of being regulated was not welcome. Resistance was observed through their initial campaigns not to be brought under the Commission. When that did not work, the universities tried to lobby legislators so that the law enacted did not give the Commission too much power over them. At individual level, Vice chancellors and Board members opposed the changes for this had a bearing on their term of office. Generally the resistance was due to minimal stakeholder consultation and this could have been minimized if there consultations involved all stakeholders. Strategies against resistance to change One of the ways of leading through resistance to change is by explaining change in words that do not elicit resistance. The word change, to many people, is synonymous with the replacement view of change Buller, (2013) and this elicits resistance in many quarters especially in higher education. To counter resistance, a leader would coach the change narrative in words that are not threatening, assure people that the change is just an improvement of what they have and that the result will be better than what they have. Another strategy of leading through resistance to change is by making sure that one understands the culture of the organization. This is to make sure that the suggested changes do not go against the culture of the organization and if they do mitigate against any conflict post (B) tracie: Working in the School of Education and having just completed our NCATE accreditation visit with flying colors, we are now changing over to the CAEP accreditation process. When changing accreditation process, resistance has been high. This has been due to the process continuing to be developed by CAEP. CAEP has now completed the guidelines for accreditation. Now the leadership team in the School of Education is beginning to read and understand the standards. Resistance was strong among many higher education teacher preparation programs in the state. However in the process of learning more about the standards, there is only one standard that continues to raise alarm. The leadership team continues to have to use the green hat method to think creatively on how to access data to support the standard (Buller, 2015, p. 49). Strategies used through this process have included the accreditation coordinator to continue to study the standards and attend webinars to break down the new CAEP standards. This has allowed the coordinator to share information with the leadership team to deepen understanding. Another strategy utilized was meeting with another university in the state who recently completed their CAEP accreditation visit. Learning from our peers is helping to understand the new process of accreditation. Buller, J. L. (2015). Change leadership in higher education: A practical guide to academic transformation. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
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