Mindful Academic Leadership
This article first appeared in Academic Leader on May 1, 2014© Magna Publications. All rights reserved. Mindfulness, which we can define as giving nonjudgmental attentiveness to each experience as it occurs, has begun to receive a great deal of attention in academic circles. The health benefits of mindfulness are well established. Studies...
Three Strategies to Improve Your Health in the New Year
This article first appeared in Academic Leader on January 2, 2019 © Magna Publications. All rights reserved. I’ve had the pleasure of working with hundreds of higher education administrators and leaders over the past 20 years or so. The health habits of those administrators in many ways mimic those of the general...
Work-Life Balance: Managing Your Koyaanisqatsi
This article first appeared in Academic Leader on June 2, 2018 © Magna Publications. All rights reserved. A recent search prospectus for a provost position at a mid-sized institution listed a number of qualities and qualifications desired in potential candidates. The categories were typical for this type of cabinet-level post: “leadership,” “relationship...
Listening to (and Appreciating) the Voices on the Front Lines
This article first appeared in Academic Leader on April 1, 2018 © Magna Publications. All rights reserved. In 1979, the Women Employed Institute released a national study of clerical workers in the United States titled “The Women of the Office: The Economic Status of Clerical Workers.” The research noted that clerical workers,...
Lesson Learned—Lesson Shared: Give It a Dignified 24 Hours
This article first appeared in Academic Leader on June 22, 2017© Magna Publications. All rights reserved. Recently, I was in an informal conversation with a group of faculty members and chairpersons. We were discussing challenges frequently encountered in our daily work. One faculty member noted that he is often unsure of how...
Making Diversity, Equity and Inclusion a Mission, Not Just an Initiative
This article first appeared in Academic Leader on February 3, 2020 © Magna Publications. All rights reserved. When I was appointed Central Michigan University’s (CMU’s) first chief diversity officer in April 2018, I was charged with making the campus a more inclusive environment for students, faculty, and staff. At CMU, diversity, equity,...
Building Alliances and Networks of Support in Higher Education: A New Era in Higher Education
This article first appeared in Academic Leader on April 15, 2019. © Magna Publications. All rights reserved. An irony of higher education is that as college degree attainment has become more common and necessary for employment and economic growth, governmental investment has declined. Many state legislatures have reduced their support for higher...
Fundraising: Lead with Gift Officers in Mind
This article first appeared in Academic Leader on October 1, 2019. © Magna Publications. All rights reserved. In higher education fundraising, the people who identify, cultivate, and solicit charitable contributions are critical assets. These gift officers strengthen the bonds between alumni and their alma maters by facilitating the donation of major...
On Mixed Marriages: Building Community Between Academic Affairs and Student Affairs
This article first appeared in Academic Leader on November 1, 2018. © Magna Publications. All rights reserved. My partner and I often joke that we have a mixed marriage. Our joking is not exclusively because one of us is Black and the other is White. It is not because one...
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,...
