Gaining Cred: Why Universities Should Embrace Micro-Credentialing
I’ll confess, when I first heard about digital badges in the early 2000s, I thought they were kind of silly. I was just starting my career as an instructional systems designer (ISD)—the original title for learning designers. While I had fond memories of my Girl Scout sash, peppered with badges,...
Designing Meaningful Institutional Assessment Plans: Putting It All Together
Institutions with regional accreditation now have access to a great deal of information about developing assessment plans and many fine examples of general education assessments, academic department assessment plans, and a plethora of student affairs and student support assessment plans. But many institutions are lacking in the overall institutional level...
Combat Declining Enrollment with In-Demand Niche Programs
Declining enrollment is a problem in higher education, and it’s only going to get worse. As Nathan Grawe explains in his book “Demographics and the Demand for Higher Education,” when the economy slowed in 2008, many families postponed having children—which means that, starting in 2026, there will be several years...
How to Lead Successful Strategic Initiatives
In late 2015 I sent my provost a short email (one evening after a couple glasses of wine, to be honest) expressing frustration with our byzantine general education program and asking why we couldn’t have a radically simpler, more streamlined, comprehensible design. A few short months later I found myself...
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...
The Value of Cross-Discipline Networking
For more articles like this, check out an Academic Leader subscription or a free three-week trial! New teachers often teach the way they were taught. Give or take a few workshops or online training courses about writing learning objectives or understanding the LMS, many of us have found our way by observing, trying,...
Campus Civility Project: Emotionally Intelligent Conversations
For more articles like this, check out an Academic Leader subscription or a free three-week trial! Because divisive national political rhetoric has spilled over into higher education, Wake Technical Community College launched the Campus Civility Project: Emotionally Intelligent Conversations in 2017. This project was part of a Campus Compact Fund for Positive...
Emotional, Physical, Financial, and Mental Health Effects of Noncollegial Colleagues
Tracy Ford has just completed her PhD and is searching for a full-time position in a university. She is a much sought-after young academic as she has published six articles and presented at a national conference. Also, she has experience in teaching in an adjunct position, and her evaluations were...
Seven Key Questions for Improving Communication with Your Dean
Being a department head is one of the hardest jobs on campus. Representing both the unit and the administration can be a real balancing act, and your most vital partner in this complex role is likely to be your dean. New department heads may never have worked closely with the...
Collective Terms Perpetuate Stereotypes and Biases: Change Begins with Leadership
It was a sweltering July morning when an email from one of my librarians arrived in my inbox, its subject line proclaiming, “THE LIBRARIANS ARE HOT!” I had recently taken over management of library faculty and staff, and this was my first crisis. The library’s air conditioning unit had failed,...
