It is quite possible that the three largest explosions you can create occur if you drop an atomic bomb, set off a hydrogen bomb, or utter the words “students are customers” in the presence of ...
A recent phenomenon practiced by a number of successful businesses, but almost unknown at colleges and universities, is the creation of a position known as chief listening officer (CLO). The CLO is responsible for monitoring ...
One of the lessons learned by many academic leaders is that all the insight and guidance provided by management books written for the corporate world don’t really work very well in an academic setting. The ...
Beginning a position as an academic leader can be challenging under any circumstances. But those challenges increase exponentially when you’re hired into an institution from the outside. You enter a world where nearly everyone knows ...
An amazing metamorphosis sometimes affects academic leaders between the time they interview for the job and the time they begin their position. As candidates for the position, prospective administrators are usually overwhelmed by the quality ...
If recent responses to the STEM fad by many academic leaders from liberal arts disciplines—i.e., claiming that admissions offices just aren’t working hard enough to recruit students in the arts and humanities or that STEM ...
In the view of legislators, governing boards, and certain administrators, higher education needs to assign a much greater emphasis to the STEM disciplines. That’s where the jobs are, the argument goes, and these are the ...
At a college meeting I once attended, one of the department chairs accused the dean of not being transparent enough in the way she made decisions. The dean answered that it wasn’t that simple. Confidential ...
While all academic leaders face certain administrative challenges, those who work in a multicampus setting have unique opportunities and problems of their own. The sometimes difficult balancing act of preserving a single identity throughout the ...
Effective academic leaders teach us a great deal. They serve as inspiring role models, provide examples of best practices, and demonstrate that leadership at its best can utterly transform a college or university. But despite ...