Lessons from an Interim K–12 Principal
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 September.” “Are you crazy?” I said. “The fall semester starts August 24th!” As we talked...
4 Tips for Partnering with Student Affairs Professionals
Although student affairs and academic affairs share the same goal of educating students and preparing them for success after college, the two divisions don’t always collaborate as effectively or as frequently as they might. With changing expectations from students, parents, and society in general, perhaps it’s time to be more...
7 Ways a Chair Can Promote Collegiality
Department chairs can play a significant role in promoting collaboration and cooperation for the benefit of individual faculty members and the unit. In an interview with Academic Leader, Patrick Lawrence, chair of the department of geography and planning at the University of Toledo, outlined several practical steps that can help chairs...
Community College Recruiting: Expecting More with Less
Student enrollment stands as a high priority for almost all higher education institutions. Practitioners who work directly in enrollment management are far too familiar with the broken-record-like repeating the question, “What are you doing to increase enrollment?” According to the Ruffalo Noel Levitz 2016 Report: Cost of recruiting an undergraduate...
Creating ‘Big Data’ Teams
Ten years ago, I was a new director of admissions at the University of Michigan- Flint with an enormous goal: to grow enrollment at a school that had many competitors in the state. I was encouraged because we had strong leadership, a good product, great staff, and a strong infrastructure....
5 Tips on Closing Programs
There comes a time in the life of an academic program when it is no longer viable due to dropping enrollments, lack of faculty resources, budget cuts, changing external contexts, or other factors. When the decision is made to close a program, the department chair’s attention to planning will be...
The Cost of Leadership
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 college. What successes did I have? What failures? What could I have done differently that...
Fostering Strategic Autonomy
In geopolitical terms, the phrase strategic autonomy is often used to describe the desire of countries such as India and Turkey to negotiate treaties and engage in military activities without regard for the dictates of a stronger ally or superpower. In corporate or academic terms, strategic autonomy (along with its less mellifluous...
Combating Student Debt with Financial Education
While budgets are always getting tighter, educators must remember one significant cause of belt tightening is student dropout. In a recent survey, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation discovered that money management problems are the No. 1 reason for college dropout. If schools can stem the money-motivated exodus, there will...
Attracting Environmentally Conscious Students
Edgewood College’s beautiful wooded campus is situated on Lake Wingra in Madison, Wisconsin, in a mixed-use neighborhood not far from the western edge of the University of Wisconsin engineering campus. The college’s neighbors include middle-income homeowners, university students and other renters, and small businesses and restaurants. “Madison is a more...
