Reflections on “Becoming” a Department Chair
This article first appeared in Academic Leader on November 2, 2020. © Magna Publications. All rights reserved. Michelle Obama’s best-selling book, Becoming, offers a glimpse into her life becoming not only the first lady of the United States but also, and more importantly, a strong African American woman. The former first lady...
Interim Administrative Appointments in Higher Education: Considerations for Potential Applicants
In a recent article, we delineated several institutional motivations for and benefits of interim administrative appointments. Initially, the appointing administrator elects to immediately launch a full search or to make an internal (or even external) interim appointment. Relevant considerations might include the costs of a search, including adding a new...
Well-Being and Well-Thinking: How to Stay Healthy in Academia
This article first appeared in Academic Leader on March 16, 2020. © Magna Publications. All rights reserved. Resilience is about growing both personally and professionally when we face difficult situations. It is about coming out the other side as a stronger or more prepared person rather than bouncing back to...
Leading Your Academic Department Toward Inclusion: How to Ensure Faculty are LGBTQ+ Competent
During my six years at the University of Connecticut, I had the opportunity to interact with many different faculty members across our campus community. This was particularly true during my final two years, when I coordinated our Rainbow Center’s Out to Lunch (OTL) Lecture Series. The OTL Lecture Series—our center’s...
Four Strategies to Improve Faculty Buy-In for Online Education
As an online administrator, I can tell you that it feels like we have been talking about ways to improve faculty buy-in for online education for the past 10 to 15 years. And we have. While online courses and degree programs are becoming more accepted and mainstream at many institutions,...
Follow-up Budget Questions for New Chairs: Flexibility, Carry Over, and Incentives, Part II
Incentives in the Budgeting System After the first two questions posed in a previous article on budgeting and finance, namely identifying the sources of academic income and how the department’s budget is established, have been answered, the new chair should quickly align the answers to see if the department’s budget...
Follow-up Budget Questions for New Chairs: Flexibility, Carry Over, and Incentives
To provide some basic budgeting and finance information to new chairs with little or no experience in this area, in my June article I recommended some questions for them to ask their dean prior to or at the outset of their terms as chairs. The questions on the sources of...
Creating Dialogue in the Interest of Social Justice on Campus
In a polarized national climate, free speech and First Amendment protections have drawn increasing attention on college campuses. With the advent of open white nationalism, expressions of white supremacy, and the potential for hate speech, campuses have sought to protect student safety and guard against the harassment of minoritized students....
Academic Administrative Teams: Forming, Sustaining, and Changing
Most academic leaders will serve more than one institution across their careers. In fact, it will be rare that many do not work for at least four or five institutions. If one must create and then recreate an academic team in different institutional circumstances and under differing scenarios of succeeding...
Stepping Out of Silos: Building Best Practices for Academic Affairs and Institutional Effectiveness
Academic Affairs and Institutional Effectiveness are two of the most important units within any higher education entity and are necessary to ensure an institution is focused on accomplishing the mission. Academic Affairs is familiar to those who have functioned in the college environment. Traditionally, Academic Affairs is the division known...
