The Two (Organizational) Cultures of the University
In a now legendary lecture at Cambridge’s Senate House in 1959, C.P. Snow coined the expression “the two cultures” as a way of characterizing what he saw as an increasing rift between science and the humanities in modern academic life. Since Snow’s time, we’ve seen even greater isolation of many...
Locating the (Leadership) Land Mines
Beginning a position as an academic leader can be challenging under any circumstances. But those challenges increase exponentially when you’re hired into an institution from the outside. You enter a world where nearly everyone knows more about most local issues than you do. Alliances have already been formed. Coalitions that...
Strategies for Developing and Maintaining High-performing Teams
Administrative leadership roles are more complex and challenging today. Yet expectations remain high that campus and system leaders will handle both internal and external responsibilities with finesse and success. Twenty-first-century students also expect a quality education that guarantees a job, increased accessibility to resources and professors, and schedule flexibility. As...
Translucent Academic Leadership in 3 Steps
At a college meeting I once attended, one of the department chairs accused the dean of not being transparent enough in the way she made decisions. The dean answered that it wasn’t that simple. Confidential matters were sometimes involved. She couldn’t violate the trust of people who had shared certain...
Planning Priorities for Leaving the Chair Position: Part 2
A second strategy would be to negotiate with the dean for a package of support that would allow the chair time and resources to do some personal “reinvention” immediately following chair service. Included might be released time from partial or full faculty obligations (perhaps an in-house sabbatical) for a semester...
Planning Priorities for Leaving the Chair Position: Part 1
Although not often in mind at the outset of life as an academic department chair, the time will come for all academic department chairs to exit their administrative roles. What prompts the departure’s timing can be as simple as the expiration of the term limit at institutions where there is...
When Academic Leaders Anger Their Stakeholders
Make no mistake about it: any job that requires you to say “No” to people from time to time will cause you to meet resistance. We sometimes end up angering individual stakeholders because we feel obliged to turn them down for a promotion, oppose them on an issue they care...
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...
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...
How an Academic Leader Changes a Lightbulb
The very first house I bought was a condominium, and the purchase price included 10 hours of service by an electrician. The idea was that each owner would want to customize the unit with special lighting fixtures and built-in appliances, and covering the cost of the electrician was intended to...
