This work presents a case study of a team of students and faculty working to increase the diversity of their department through cultural change. We focus on the perspective of the two faculty change leaders organizing this team, who received training and continued support by Departmental Action Leadership Institutes (DALIs). DALIs are workshops led by the Effective Practices for Physics Programs (EP3) team that prepare faculty members to lead change efforts in their local departments by forming teams based on the Departmental Action Team (DAT) model. Concurrent to change leaders' participation in DALI, the DAT pursues a change effort to address internal issues relating to undergraduate education.

In this work, we look at how one DAT approaches the practice of "Students as Partners'' (SaP), a pedagogical practice that re-positions the relationship between educators and students in the endeavor of learning. While most efforts of SaP illustrated in the literature center curriculum, assessment, teaching, and research as areas of collaboration, this particular DAT used SaP in their efforts to increase the enrollment and retention of underrepresented students in their department. Through a series of interviews with change leaders and observations of DAT meetings, we document the pre-existing and emerging departmental cultures of partnering with students Additionally, we describe the culture of SaP on the DAT that appears to be operating as the transition between these pre-existing and emerging cultures . Finally, we discuss the elements present that enabled a potentially productive attempt at cultural change through SaP.