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Blog Posts
Being a Young Chair: Advice I Wish I’d Received
Whoever said, “Age ain’t nothing but a number” certainly never served as a division chair. I am equally certain that few division chairs have ever thought, “When I grow up, I plan on being the youngest chair in my division.” Yet after moving up the ranks from adjunct instructor to...
Effective Strategies for Increasing Undergraduate Student Enrollment
In a recent Academic Leader article, we outlined the need for colleges and universities to increase their efforts in undergraduate student recruiting in order to remain fiscally secure in an environment where the student pool is shrinking. The top public and private universities and colleges will continue to prosper on account of...
Invest in Your Strategic Meetings by Engaging an Outside Facilitator
Meetings are not foreign to academic leaders, but strategic planning meetings and meetings aimed at complex problem-solving with partners are weightier than others. In these situations, choosing to use an experienced facilitator who is outside your department or college can result in these benefits: Clearly defined outcomes with measurable progress...
Pure Heart Leadership
Pure Heart Leadership™ is a leadership approach that recognizes the individuality and strengths of leaders. This model that draws on my more than 20 years of professional experience within higher education and blends the ideas of Maslow, Rogers, and Bandura with a mindfulness approach to developing talent. We all have a...
Leveraging the Library as a Strategic Academic Partner
Academic libraries play an important role in supporting teaching, learning, and scholarship. But at many colleges and universities, library and academic staff tend to operate in silos. How can academic departments and libraries work together more effectively—and how can campus leaders encourage this collaboration? At colleges and universities where libraries...
Managing Conflict: Please Don’t Leave
Spoiler alert: there will be no strategy on how to solve this dilemma . . . yet. Research suggests that 80 percent of decisions made in institutions of higher education in the United States are made at the department level. Of the approximately 80,000 department chairs, a full 20 percent...
Getting Organized
Although academic leaders have looked to the promise of a “paperless office” for many years, that future vision never seems to materialize. While it’s true that many forms of communication that appeared in hard copy now reach us in electronic versions, we still seem to be inundated by a never-ending...
Establishing Effective Relationships Between Faculty and Instructional Designers
Faculty routinely engage the assistance of instructional designers when designing and developing courses. To build trust and respect between faculty and instructional designers, each has to realize that they are working toward a common goal—providing students with active learning experiences that facilitate deep learning. This relationship is important as each brings...
