It’s Time to Ditch “Best Practices”

We’ve all been there. You are sitting in a meeting with a committee or your supervisor, considering a potential new program, curriculum, or policy to meet a perceived need on campus, when someone says something like, “Let’s start by examining best practices. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel.” Everyone else nods with either enthusiasm or resignation: the next two weeks are going to be spent trying to learn how your institution’s peers, aspirational peers, and competitors have addressed a similar need.