Have you ever witnessed a keynote address in which a new university president shared such an inspiring and imaginative future strategy that you wished you were a part of that institution’s implementation team? Innovative thinkers ...
The department chair is a linchpin of a university. It has been estimated that 80 percent of the decisions made in higher education are made at the department level. The chair is a classic hybrid-in-the-middle ...
For the first time in contemporary history, four generations of employees work side by side, bringing to the workplace their own unique set of talents, needs, and expectations (Toossi, 2012). A natural extension of this ...
There are several reasons why every academic leader should have a succession plan. First, although it’s unpleasant to think about, we’re all mortal. If something terrible should happen and we should die suddenly or be ...
The superintendent of schools called me at 9:00 p.m. on August 13. “Can you come and be an interim principal? My principal left on short notice, and I need an experienced K–12 principal starting in ...
With accountability and college costs making the higher education news almost daily, academic leaders at all levels are increasingly feeling the pressure to make their departments, colleges, and institutions run more efficiently and deliver higher ...
So, you’re a new dean, charged with the care and feeding of many faculty and staff (think of all the directors who have become ubiquitous in higher education institutions in recent years!) as well as ...
It is not often that a paper in an academic journal makes headline news, but recently, one in the Journal of Business Ethics has done just that. In their article, “Estimating the Cost of Justice ...
As a recently retired academic leader—a former department chair, division head, dean, vice president, provost, and interim president—I have had time to reflect on the joys and woes of leadership at a small liberal arts ...
Every academic leader invests time in strategic planning groups, presidential cabinets, councils of department chairs, dean’s council meetings, and similar regularly scheduled meetings. Academic leaders occasionally leave the campus for meetings of professional societies or ...