Filling an Empty Toolbox
The convention in many video games is for the players to begin with only a few rudimentary tools or weapons and then increase their arsenal as they complete more complex challenges. Administrative positions are amazingly similar. Most of us start out with few, if any, tools in our leadership toolboxes...
How to Lead Assessment in Your Unit
Being in charge of assessment within one’s unit involves more than measuring student learning outcomes. It’s about leading cultural change, a process that is best undertaken in collaboration with those who know the discipline, program, and students best—the faculty and staff. In an interview with Academic Leader, Linda Neavel Dickens,...
Vision Statements as Empowerment Tools
Do the words “vision statement” make you wince? Us too! They make all of us wince when they are developed “on high” and “checked off” the to-do list without another thought. But . . . and it seems that in higher education there is always a “but” . . .
5 Qualities of Successful Change Efforts
Because circumstances vary among disciplines, departments, and institutions, there is no formula for bringing about change, says Jill Perry, program director of the Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate at Duquesne University School of Education. However, she has observed that successful change efforts share the following characteristics: Collaborative decision making. Decide...
“Spider-Man Principle” and the “Categorical Imperative”: How to Address the Problem of “Managing Through”
"Managing through" is the administrative practice of passing difficult decisions on to a higher level of the organization in order to avoid the consequences of having made an unpopular choice. For instance, a department chair may receive a request from a faculty member that the institutional cap on travel funding...
Responding to the Market
Market forces such as student and parent concerns about employability, students’ need for flexibility, and decreasing traditional-age enrollments in New England are causing Colby-Sawyer College to rethink its approach to liberal arts education.
Should You Expand Your Online Initiative? Key Considerations for Institutions
A number of institutions of higher education, recognizing the potential for reaching new student markets and the opportunities to meet a number of institutional goals, invested significant resources to build strategic online learning initiatives.
Why All Evaluations Are Not Alike
Imagine that one day you come into the office and a fellow administrator asks you to review the following language from the draft of an evaluation that he or she is writing about a faculty member.
Weight Management for Universities: Evaluating Academic Bloat
Historically, new academic programs have often been introduced by several mechanisms. An energetic faculty member is inspired to create a new major, a donor bequest stipulates the development of an interdisciplinary institute, a president mandates a “visionary” curriculum, or a dean or provost responds to a sudden market opportunity.
Can a Capstone Course Try to Accomplish Too Much?
Kristi Upson-Saia thinks it can, and she has data from one field that supports her belief. When her religious studies department (at Occidental College) decided to reassess its capstone course, Upson-Saia looked for relevant publications in her field. Finding few, she began collecting data from other religious studies departments. She...
