COMPLEXITIES OF HIGHER EDUCATI ON ADMINISTRATION Based on extensive experience in administration, in teaching, and in running workshops for administrators, the authors have assembled a collection of cases focused on topics common to academic administration. This book: offers sixteen generalized cases based on real situations combines higher education administration and communication theory includes indices for selecting cases by institution type, level and constituency, issues and tasks, and communication skills is a valuable resource for practicing administrators is an ideal text for graduate courses in educational administration, organizational communication, and management.
Explores the current context, role, and challenges of post-secondary education and presents options for promising pathways forward. The post-secondary educational system has undergone dramatic changes and experienced immense stress in the past two decades. Once regarded as the logical next step toward career opportunities and financial security, higher education is a subject of growing uncertainty for millions of people across the United States. It is more common than ever to question the return on investment, skyrocketing cost, and student debt burden of going to college. Prospective students, and many employers, increasingly view attending institutions of higher learning as inadequate preparation for entering the 21st century workforce. High-profile scandals—financial impropriety, sexual abuse, restrictions of free speech, among others—have further eroded public trust. In response to these and other challenges, leading voices are demanding strengthened accountability and measurable change. Higher Education's Road to Relevance illustrates why change is needed in post-secondary education and offers practical solutions to pressing concerns. The authors, internationally recognized experts in college-level teaching and learning innovation, draw heavily from contemporary research to provide an integrative approach for post-secondary faculty, staff, and administrators of all levels. This timely book helps readers identify the need for leadership in developing new networks and ecosystems of learning and workforce development. This valuable book will help readers: Understand the forces driving change in higher education Develop multiple pathways to create and credential self-directed learners Promote access to flexible, cost-effective, and relevant learning Adapt structures and pedagogies to address issues and overcome challenges Use an inclusive approach that extends to employers, K-12 educators, post-secondary educators, and policy-makers, among others Higher Education's Road to Relevance is a much-needed resource for college and university administrators, academic researchers, instructors and other faculty, and staff who support and interact with students.
Higher education institutions are, more so than other organizations, deeply complex, and they present a unique challenge to their leaders and administrators. The unique complexities of higher education call for governance founded on thoughtful consideration of leadership practices, theory, and styles that reflect the values of the institution and its mission. Embedded in a rapidly changing society, the future of higher education leadership and administration is necessarily dynamic and demands a strong ethical core to guide research, knowledge production, and organizational behavior. TheHandbook of Research on Ethical Challenges in Higher Education Leadership and Administration is a cutting-edge research publication that examines leadership ethics that higher education institutions must employ to be proactive, visionary, and ethically sound. The publication covers the importance of leadership ethics in higher education as well as the foundation for developing frameworks in which to ground the presence of leadership ethics in higher education. Featuring a wide range of topics such as distance education, free speech, and leadership, this book is ideal for librarians, academicians, administrators, researchers, education professionals, policymakers, and students.
First-generation Professionals in Higher Education: Strategies for the World of Work explores complexities related to the transition from college/professional school to the work world of higher education, as well as the advancement from mid- to senior-level leadership, and how first-generation professionals navigate these transitions. Framing their chapters in the asset-based lens of cultural capital, the authors approach topics of navigating the field of higher education as first-generation professionals through personal experience as well as evidence-based approaches and strategies. Organized in three sections--Professional Identity, Purposeful Interaction, and Career Path--the book examines concepts such as imposter syndrome, politics, financial literacy, resilience, networking, mentoring, career progression, and more. Each chapter includes activities, exercises, and questions for reflection, offering readers an opportunity to discern strategies for their own professional development.
Navigating Complexities in Leadership: Moving Towards Critical Hope emerged in response to the confluence of complexities experienced by leadership educators and practitioners amidst global pandemics. It is a guide for those seeking to learn through critical perspectives, and seek more agile, responsive tools for navigating complexity, change, and disruption. The audience for the book ranges from new and entry-level leadership educators to senior scholars in higher education. This book frames leadership learning and development as a process of adaptive action in complex systems. It brings to light patterns of complexity in current times through the lens of educators and practitioners in higher education. Readers are invited to actively engage with the text from an inquiry stance. Through curiosity, shared exploration, self-reflection we hope readers will discover patterns and insight that resonate and challenge their own experiences, find energy to engage the complexities being faced, and build adaptive capacity to live, work, teach, and lead in critical hope and possibility. The book concludes with questions and considerations that allow educators and practitioners to reflect on their own roles and contexts and move towards critical hope in navigating the complexities we will continue to face.
This book moves forward the agenda significantly. It enables educational leadership and management discourse to be informed by the latest views that are becoming well established in business and organisational literature in practice.
These proceedings from the 2013 symposium on "Chaos, complexity and leadership" reflect current research results from all branches of Chaos, Complex Systems and their applications in Management. Included are the diverse results in the fields of applied nonlinear methods, modeling of data and simulations, as well as theoretical achievements of Chaos and Complex Systems. Also highlighted are Leadership and Management applications of Chaos and Complexity Theory.
This book provides a detailed examination of the processes that lead to unsustainable growth of nonessential personnel in the modern university. It explores administrative bloat, a major contributor to the rising costs of a college education, comprehensively detailing its development through the examination of case studies. After defining bloat and considering many of the factors that contribute to it (and its associated consequences), a number of case studies are used to elaborate and expand on the themes developed in the initial chapter. The first case focuses on the complex infrastructures being developed to promote the strategically ambiguous focus on student success. Universities have developed a number of information dissemination programs in recent years. One such program that is also explicitly targeted at the commercialization of university research is the development of technology transfer offices. Relatedly, the next case focuses on the institutional pressures brought by various stakeholders to emulate the success of the famed Research Triangle in North Carolina by developing technology incubators and research and development parks that promote entrepreneurship. The final case study focuses on the promise of technology, particularly in the form of distance learning. The final chapter summarizes the book and addresses some more general issues, asking questions such as: What is success? What are the ethical concerns raised by bloat? How do they relate to the individual interests? What manifest and latent functions does it serve?
As a field of mathematical study, chaos and complexity theory analyzes the state of dynamical systems by evaluating how they interact, evolve, and adapt. Though this theory impacts a variety of disciplines, it also has significant influence on educational systems and settings. Applied Chaos and Complexity Theory in Education examines the application of the theories of chaos and complexity in relation to educational systems and institutions. Featuring emergent research and perspectives on mathematical patterns in educational settings and instructional practices, this book is a comprehensive reference source for researchers, scholars, mathematicians, and graduate students.
It's not the "dark side" if you approach it with insight, wit, and compassion. Most new college and university administrators, especially if they come directly from the faculty ranks or from outside academia, receive little if any training. Rather, they try to succeed mostly by stumbling through the (semi-)dark with a combination of their own knowledge and experience as well as on-the-job learning. This can lead to costly (for the administrator and the institution) mistakes as well as professional failures and campus-wide miseries. In An Insider's Guide to University Administration, Daniel Grassian helps those currently in faculty positions or outside academia determine whether a career in college and university administration is right for them—and, if so, how to best position themselves for success. Applying theory to real, practical examples of university administration, Grassian provides both prospective and current administrators with an in-depth critical analysis of areas pertinent to college and university administration, including leadership, management, vision, diversity, ethics, and fund-raising. Drawing on his varied, extensive teaching and administrative career, Grassian leaves readers with a better understanding of what those in college and university administration do and the important practical, political, and ethical issues with which they engage.
