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...
Providing Leadership and Support to Professionally Develop Adjunct Faculty
Adjunct faculty may be the most overused and under-resourced groups of individuals in higher education. Many departments and courses would not function, or at least not function well, without adjunct faculty. Yet despite being in many cases essential members of a department, adjuncts receive modest pay, typically by the course...
Rejuvenating Experiences
The end of a long academic year is probably the time when we are most open to the idea of a rejuvenating instructional experience. In a recent workshop, I heard two teachers describe just such an experience. They team-taught an introductory English lit course with content that explored veteran experiences....
Educating Students: The Moral Judgment Challenge for Higher Education
In Our Underachieving Colleges (2006), Derek Bok, former president of Harvard University, challenged higher education institutions to do more in providing an education more supportive of building character in undergraduates. While the number of ethics courses offered has increased, both in professional schools and in undergraduate institutions, many of these courses...
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...
Dear Reluctant Administrator: You’ve Got This
Colleges and universities differ from most other organizations in that not everyone longs to be in charge. At corporations, government agencies, and even non-profits, staff members all seem intent on clawing their way up the ladder, while the intrigue within a typical homeowner’s association or youth sports league might shock...
The Department Chair as the Engine of Diversity Transformation
The academic department chair is positioned to be the engine of change in diversity progress in higher education today. Serving at the core of the academic enterprise, chairs work collaboratively with faculty to empower students with the needed skills, knowledge, and competencies to participate as leaders and citizens in a...
