Academic Leadership

Five Tips for Surviving Accreditation: A Tongue-in-Cheek Reflection

Many academic leaders are involved in regional accreditations, and I am no exception. The six regional accrediting agencies are becoming increasingly stringent in the application and interpretation of their standards, and this can make the accrediting process a difficult one to survive. Our institution was a founding member of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) and has been accredited continuously from the beginning. I have been involved in four of the 10-year “reaffirmation” activities, serving as chair of the college steering committee twice and serving as our institutional liaison with SACS for many years.

Thomas R. McDaniel PhD March 22, 2010

A Productive Way to Harness Parental Involvement

As every academic leader can attest, the current generation of college students has been blessed with parents who remain highly invested in every aspect of their children’s education. It is not uncommon for parents of students to call the dean, provost, or even president to discuss a problem with a course. Occasionally even the parent of a graduate student will attempt to intervene in an academic issue affecting his or her child.

Jeffrey Buller PhD. March 18, 2010

A 10-Point Survival Guide to Being, and Staying, an Academic Leader – Part 2

Editor’s Note: Today we feature part 2 of Dr. Greenstreet’s “10-Point Survival Guide to Being, and Staying, an Academic Leader.” If you missed part 1, please click here for yesterday’s post.

6. Talk straight: Someone once said: “Sincerity is the key to good leadership — if you can fake that, you’re in.”

Robert Greenstreet PhD. March 4, 2010

A 10-Point Survival Guide to Being, and Staying, an Academic Leader

While entering the administrative ranks of academia might seem a formidable task, staying there presents a whole other series of challenges. The average length of stay for a dean, vice chancellor, or chancellor can often be fewer than five years and in some programs, the duration of leadership has been known to be considerably shorter.

Robert Greenstreet PhD. March 3, 2010

Creating a Center for Professional Development and Leadership

Colleges and universities have realized increasingly that effective teaching by instructors and successful learning by students does not occur through serendipity. Even though more and more graduate programs are providing doctoral students with experience and training in how to teach at the college level, many faculty members still reach their positions largely through an education based on how to perform research, not on how to include students in that research or train others in their disciplines.

Jeffrey Buller PhD. January 26, 2010

Hiring, Promotion, and Tenure: Understanding and Avoiding the Pitfalls

Hiring, promotion, and tenure activities are full of risk and potential landmines. Poor hiring decisions are not only costly, but the hiring process itself opens the institution up to litigation if everyone on the hiring committee is not trained properly.

Mary Bart January 20, 2010

Are Senior Faculty Members Still Effective Teachers?

Now that I’m one of those “senior” faculty, I hear a lot of digs about faculty who need to retire … deadwood, still standing but hopefully about to topple. The belief that the teaching effectiveness of most “seniors” declines is strong and persistent. Is it true or yet another one of those academic myths?

Maryellen Weimer, PhD January 15, 2010

Making the Shift from Rhetoric to Performance

Discussion of teaching and learning as an academic, scholarly endeavor has become an acceptable conversation on college campuses. A shift is beginning to take place whereby the scholarship of teaching and learning is now being taken seriously. We are making progress in higher education by making undergraduate education intentional, thus moving toward a learner-centered paradigm.

Michael Harris PhD and Roxanne Cullen PhD December 10, 2009

Stress Management Strategies for Academic Leaders and Faculty

During the past year or so the poor economy has forced everyone to do more with less. Now it’s almost December and we’re in the thick of the end-of-semester crunch … with the pressures of the holiday season closing in fast. Feeling a little stressed?

Mary Bart November 30, 2009

How to Survive the Next Fad in Academic Leadership

If you’ve worked in higher education long enough, you’ve already had this experience. A supervisor or member of your institution’s governing board calls an administrative retreat, and there, following the inevitable icebreakers, brainstorming, and team-building exercises, you are presented with the “bold new paradigm” that is to determine how you are to reorganize your unit, “reconceptualize” your leadership style, or modify every policy and procedure that is already in place. Someone, it seems, has been reading a management book and has bought into a new approach to how you should do your job.

Jeffrey Buller PhD. November 11, 2009

Academic Leadership

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