A former department head of mine closed many of their emails with “Thanks for all you do.” It was nice the first time I read it. The second and third time, not so much. I ...
In academic leadership, we periodically find ourselves returning to a basic orienting question: What is my role as a leader? The daily grind easily fills in answers that involve the managerial tasks of keeping an ...
Although students, faculty, and administrators are now back on campus at most higher education institutions, the effects of the pandemic loom. Research confirms what many have suspected to be the case: the social isolation caused ...
When Harry Potter’s Aunt Petunia recalls the arrival of her sister’s Hogwarts letter, she remembers her parents’ response and her own reaction: “‘We have a witch in the family. Isn’t it wonderful?’ I was the ...
This article appears in The Best of the 2022 Leadership in Higher Education Conference (Magna Publications, 2023). Headlines in the media regarding staffing have been bleak. Phrases like “The Great Resignation” and “quiet quitting” point to ...
One refrain I hear repeatedly from the faculty and leaders I work with via coaching, workshops, and virtual retreats is that there is simply too much work for one person to ever realistically complete. Junior ...
When the New York Times ran a story in 2021 about our skateboarding research, it highlighted skateboarding as a site of safety, community, and agency for youth from racially minoritized backgrounds. A faculty member at ...
“Stop thinking,” the petite Vietnamese nun instructed the small group of retreatants. We sat cross-legged in a circle on the floor in the enormous meditation hall at Magnolia Grove Monastery in Batesville, Mississippi. Our minds ...
Your department has just hired a new tenure-track professor, and for them, it’s the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. Now what? New faculty joining a department may feel an array of emotions—excitement, anxiety, curiosity, and ...
In higher education, the expectation that faculty maintain a teaching philosophy is customary. As faculty transition into academic leadership roles, sometimes unexpectedly, the same narrative description is needed to describe an individual’s leadership methods (Beatty, ...