Leadership Skills for New Academic Administrators
As new academic administrators begin and advance in their academic careers, they will need new skills and strategies for leading complex initiatives, programs, and tasks. New academic administrators will be expected to guide their higher education institutions through change and ensure continued focus on related vision, mission, and goals. They...
Top Dogs Inspire Leadership Lessons: An Asset-Based Approach to Human Resource Development
As a long-standing department chair, director of a complex school of education, and associate dean of a large college comprised of many differing disciplinary departments, I have learned over time that keen observation plays an important role in many aspects of leadership, including faculty development and personnel management. Ultimately, effective...
New Approach Breathes New Life into Leadership Development Program
About 10 years ago, the academic deans and academic directors that make up the University Council on Teaching and Faculty Development at Tufts University noticed a problem. Academic leaders weren’t given the training and support they needed to excel in their positions. It was not a particularly unique problem—lots of...
Six Questions to Ask to Successfully Establish a Program
Smooth implementation of programs, courses, and curricula of any size is a challenge. Program developers must identify, appraise, and effectively use resources, objectives, and educational methodologies and frameworks, making the process even more difficult and confusing. As Barbara Gross Davis puts it right at the beginning of her book Tools for...
Transitioning from Faculty to Chair
This article first appeared in Academic Leader on November 15, 2018. © Magna Publications. All rights reserved. Many of us either are asked to serve as chair of our department as a cyclical rotating chair or have made the decision to pursue the chair position on our own. Regardless of the path...
Petty Principles for Leaders in Higher Education
Higher education leaders have an opportunity to make an impact on the education and development of a diverse population of students and help them become contributing citizens in society. However, the job comes with a myriad of challenges that can confound both novice and experienced leaders alike. In this post,...
More Tools for the New Dean’s Toolbox
A couple years ago, I wrote an essay for Academic Leader suggesting that new deans should examine the administrative implements in their metaphorical "toolbox" to make sure they were ready for the job at hand: providing leadership to their institution when difficult dilemmas require effective administrative action. Those tools included: (1) a...
Preparing Academic Leaders Through Simulation and Role-Play
When it comes to how we interact with our students, most of us have made the transition from teaching to learning. We understand that, in order for students to master a subject, they can’t be spectators; they have to engage actively and consistently in the learning process. Even when we...
Five Newbie Mistakes Made by Academic Leaders
The first six months (or even year) of a position is often called an academic leader’s “honeymoon period.” People are more likely to overlook an administrator’s mistakes and to cut the person a little bit of slack about taking the institution or program in a new direction. That’s a good...
Bottom-Line Leadership
A friend of mine posed a question that I’ve been grappling with: “Why are so many college and university presidents so … bad?” The question caught me off guard since many of the college presidents I meet are hardworking, creative, dedicated leaders. But I knew exactly what he meant. Increasingly,...
