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…
By: Monique Baucham, MBA, EdS, and Tanjula Petty, EdD
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…
For many new hires, tenure-track or not, there isn’t a road map for navigating that challenging first year of teaching. A faculty mentor program can help ensure every new hire has a guide, friend, confidante, and role model. The end…
By: Simon J. Rhodes, PhD, and N.Douglas Lees, PhD
In Part 1 of this two-part series on strengthening the relationship between chairs and deans, we discussed prioritizing student success and satisfaction, capitalizing on the institution’s greatest investment—the faculty— and developing a vision that goes beyond departmental considerations. Here we…
By: Simon J. Rhodes, PhD, and N.Douglas Lees, PhD
In viewing the organizational structure of our colleges and universities, there is a common hierarchy of faculty, chairs, deans, and higher administration that includes a president or campus leader and may include a provost or the equivalent. Much has been…
By: Edna B. Chun, DM and Alvin Evans
In an era of rapid demographic change in the U.S. population coupled with declining demand for higher education, many colleges and universities are grappling with the urgent need to attract and retain diverse student, faculty, and staff populations and provide…
As budgets tighten at colleges and universities, academic leaders are repeatedly urged to be more entrepreneurial in their approaches. “It’s time to think outside the box,” we’re told. “Be creative. Be daring. Be innovative.” But what do you do if you’re not a naturally innovative person? Or how can you be creative if the people who work in your area rarely seem to display much creativity? In short, can innovation be taught? And even if it is taught, can it be learned?
By: Rob Kelly
How much time do you waste scrolling through your inbox looking for that certain email that contains essential information you need right away? If you follow Keith Krieger’s advice, the answer is none. Krieger, technical training program director at Johnson…
By: Suzanne Painter
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 vital. You will need to plan a timeline for action to make sure that your institution’s related services are synchronized with the program closure and that others affected by the closure are not caught off guard. More important, you will want to ensure that current students are not left adrift when faculty turn their attention to new programs.
There are probably few tools we can use in academic leadership that seem less interesting than a checklist. But as Atul Gawande argued in The Checklist Manifesto (2010), checklists aren’t an excuse for mindlessness; they’re a recognition of how complex our lives have become. It’s the humble checklist that keeps us safe when a pilot makes a pre-safety inspection, and when a building inspector decides that a house is ready for a family to move in. Checklists don’t mean that our work as academic leaders can be reduced to guidelines in a policy manual. It means that our work is multifaceted and has an impact on the lives of others.