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...
Establishing a Quality Faculty Mentoring Program
Teaching at the collegiate level is a wonderful yet complex career. We hire people and expect them to teach effectively, publish frequently, serve as effective committee members, and maybe even serve as successful administrators. How many new hires on your campus arrive fully prepared and competent to fill that job...
Closing the Skills Expectations–Performance Gap
A Google search for “college graduate employment readiness” produces over 2.5 million hits. Unfortunately, the top results have titles such as, “Study Finds Big Gap between Student and Employer Perceptions” (Inside Higher Ed); “Why Are So Many College Students Failing to Gain Job Skills before Graduation?” (Washington Post); and “2015...
Spotlight on Campus Speech: Q&A with Tom McDaniel
The last few years has seen a rise in both controversial campus speakers and vociferous student protests (the latter often in direct response to the former). The college campus, which has long been a bastion of the free exchange of ideas, has become the nexus of this clash of ideals,...
UW–Madison Campus Climate Survey: 5 Key Results Charted
Officials from the University of Wisconsin-Madison released results from a campus-wide climate survey. The survey of nearly 200 questions was conducted in the fall of 2016. All undergraduate, graduate, professional and non-degree-seeking students were invited to participate. Overall, 8,652 students, or 21% of those who were eligible, completed the survey....
Spotlight on Campus Speech: Q&A with Michelle N. Deutchman of the ADL (Part 2)
In our Q&A series Spotlight On: Campus Speech, Academic Leader Today brings campus administrators expert perspectives to help understand the current challenges of campus speech issues. For this installment, I interviewed Michelle N. Deutchman, National Campus Counsel for the Anti-Defamation League, via email. This is part two of a two-part...
Spotlight on Campus Speech: Q&A with Michelle N. Deutchman of the ADL (Part 1)
The last few years has seen a rise in both controversial campus speakers and vociferous student protests (the latter often in direct response to the former). Both phenomena seem symptomatic of the growing political polarization of the country as a whole—groups and individuals with hateful and offensive beliefs feel legitimized...
Informal Faculty Leadership: Spreading Innovative Teaching
There’s a long-standing tradition of informal sharing of pedagogical innovation among K-12 teachers and a whole line of research on this phenomenon, which is known as teacher leadership. The same type of informal faculty leadership exists in higher education as well, but there is very little research on this topic....
Moving from Courses to a Curriculum
What does it mean to offer students a curriculum as opposed to a series of related courses? How does a program, major, or minor encourage students to make meaningful connections between courses so that they develop strong professional identities? I’ve been thinking a lot about these questions. I used to...
Clery’s October 1 Deadline Has Passed. What Now?
Pursuant to the Clery Act, institutions of higher education participating in Title IV programs are required to publish and distribute an Annual Security Report (and an Annual Fire Safety Report if the institution has on-campus student housing) by Oct. 1 each year. The report must include 50+ statements of policy,...
