By: Erin N. Burton, Laura K. Molgaard, and Debra Freedman
Curriculum revitalization is a complex undertaking that requires far more than a simple revision of syllabi. Layer on a complete transition to the American Association of Veterinary Medical Colleges Competency-Based Veterinary Education (CBVE) framework, and it demands a fundamental shift in institutional culture. In North America, veterinary medicine is typically a four-year professional program completed after an undergraduate pre-health sciences degree, culminating in a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM). While structurally similar to human medical education, veterinary medicine allows graduates to transition immediately into licensed, independent practice. Alternatively, graduates can pursue specialized training leading to board certification in a range of specialties. Because the stakes of this professional program are so incredibly high, curriculum change inevitably provokes deep fear and resistance among faculty. At the University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine, we were forced to confront a critical question: How do you create meaningful curriculum change without losing faculty and stakeholder engagement along the way?
Maurer’s 3 Levels of Resistance
We found Rick Maurer’s 3 Levels of Resistance to be incredibly helpful, as it gave us the language to diagnose what we were actually seeing from the faculty. Rather than viewing pushback as a rigid, one-dimensional obstacle, Maurer breaks resistance down into three distinct levels:
- “I Don’t Get It” (Level 1): This level is entirely about clarity. When stakeholders resist here, it’s because they don’t understand the vision, the process, or the data behind why the change is happening. It is an information gap.
- “I Don’t Like It” (Level 2): This level is emotional. People may fully understand what the change is, but they experience anxiety, grief, a sense of loss, or deep concern about what it means for them personally or professionally. It triggers a fear of the unknown or a threat to their current mastery.
- “I Don’t Like You” (Level 3): This deepest level is entirely about trust. Here, people aren’t necessarily resisting the idea itself; they are questioning leadership’s motives. They worry about whether they are truly being included or if the decisions have already been made behind closed doors.
Understanding resistance within this context helped us to recognize that pushback is not necessarily opposition to innovation. When we stopped treating it as an existential roadblock, we realized it was actually a diagnostic tool: a signal that our community simply needed clarity, deeper involvement, or a seat at the table.
Managed Transparency
Navigating resistance through Maurer’s levels led us to develop a strategy we began calling Managed Transparency. We do not mean dumping an overwhelming flood of information or sharing every single draft detail at every single moment. Managed Transparency is about being intentionally transparent in ways that help people meaningfully engage with the process at the right time. For our team, this meant balancing openness with structure, providing the psychological safety necessary for faculty and students to move from a place of anxiety to a place of active, collaborative ownership.
Broadening the Scope: Multi-Channel Stakeholder Engagement
We recognized that a one-size-fits-all approach would fail, so we tailored different pathways for different audiences, including faculty, students, staff, alumni, and practicing veterinarians. We built dedicated websites, sent targeted surveys, facilitated discussions, held open feedback sessions, and maintained iterative revision cycles.
One of the most profound lessons from this extensive outreach was that the act of participation itself serves as a powerful antidote to resistance. Even in moments of disagreement, the opportunity for stakeholders to ask questions, provide feedback, and visibly witness subsequent revisions to the curriculum built immense trust. Ultimately, people are far more willing to tolerate the inevitable uncertainty of a major institutional transition when they have tangible evidence that their voices genuinely matter.
Cultivating a Community of Practice
It also became apparent fairly early in the process that a curriculum redesign cannot happen in isolation. To support this cultural evolution, the college intentionally created dedicated spaces where educators could talk, interact, collaborate, and share ideas. This effort incorporated regular course and rotation coordinator meetings, informal gatherings focused on curriculum and pedagogy called Teaching Innovation Incubators, and countless one-on-one conversations. Some of the most impactful work occurred within those informal, individual conversations.
Through sustained dialogue, faculty began shifting their perspective away from a protective focus on “my course” or “my content” toward a shared investment in the developmental progression of the learner across the entire curriculum. This cultural shift from siloed teaching to collective curriculum ownership proved to be just as vital to the success of the CBVE transition as any individual curricular decision.
Quantifying the Impact: Key Outcomes and Institutional Alignment
As the process evolved, this commitment to collaboration and community building yielded several critical institutional outcomes:
- Sustained Engagement: Faculty involvement steadily increased over time.
- Shared Language: The community developed a robust, common vocabulary around competencies and student progression.
- Cross-Department Collaboration: Traditional academic silos broke down, substantially increasing cooperative planning.
Perhaps most importantly, the college witnessed a permanent shift away from isolated course revisions toward a model of collective design. Faculty increasingly viewed the curriculum as a shared institutional responsibility rather than a mere collection of independent courses. The true measure of this cultural transformation was reflected in the most recent faculty vote regarding the future of the program: an overwhelming 90% of faculty expressed agreement that the curriculum is headed in the right direction.
Strategic Takeaways for Institutional Change
Reflecting on this multi-year transformation reveals several enduring lessons for managing large-scale academic change. First, transparency must be intentional rather than overwhelming, and communication must be continuous rather than episodic. Furthermore, active participation is the primary vehicle that builds genuine stakeholder ownership, and keeping the redesign process strictly faculty-led is vital for maintaining long-term credibility.
Ultimately, the process proved that resistance is both predictable and manageable. One of the most significant mistakes institutions can make during a major transition is treating resistance as an obstacle to be eliminated or overridden. In reality, pushback provides invaluable diagnostic data, serving as a clear indicator of exactly where communication, trust, or inclusion still requires deliberate attention.
Conclusion: The Process is the Curriculum
This entire journey reinforces one central idea: the process of change matters just as much as the curriculum itself. Sustainable educational transformation cannot be mandated; it must be cultivated. To achieve lasting success, an institution must deliberately create the conditions where people feel a deep sense of ownership, trust, and shared purpose. For the University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine, that meant moving past the simple revision of syllabi to build a shared vision through structured engagement, active trust-building, and a completely faculty-driven competency-based redesign.
About the Author:
Erin Burton, DVM, MS, DACVP, is Senior Associate Dean for Academic and Student Affairs at the University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine. She is a clinical pathologist and veterinary parasitologist whose scholarly interests include competency-based education, outcomes assessment, and workplace-based assessment.
Laura Molgaard, DVM, became Dean of the University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine in 2021. A faculty member and long-time Associate Dean at UMN prior to this role, she is a national leader in competency-based education, serving on the ICBHPE executive committee and co-authoring the AAVMC’s landmark CBVE framework, milestones, and EPAs.
Debra Freedman, PhD, serves as the Assistant Dean of Pre-Clinical Sciences in the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Minnesota. Her educational research focuses on Competency-Based Veterinary Education as well as curriculum theory and practice.sion and shift the landscape of WBA literature to success stories that highlight trainee engagement that drives trainee growth and ensures high quality, equitable patient care.
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