How We Wrecked Public Universities and How We Can Fix Them
About 20 years ago, when I first started covering higher education from a journalistic perspective in addition to working in the field, the big discussion was how colleges should function more like businesses. Rather than restricting themselves to an older model that placed the mission of the university in the...
Mercenary U
Undoubtedly, the way in which higher education is funded has changed significantly in recent years. One study done by The Chronicle of Higher Education demonstrated a steady decrease from 1987 to 2014 in how much of a public university’s budget was provided by the state. Although only 25 years ago public funding...
Capacity-building through International Programs
How do universities continue to build their capacity during a time period of decreasing enrollments and demographic change? As enrollment managers struggle to maintain strong student volume and achieve degree attainment goals, it is critical to build broader and deeper channels for both attracting students and aligning new enrollment with...
Spotlight on Campus Speech: Five Things to Consider When Addressing Student Protests
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. In this installment, education attorney Demetrius Peterson offers five considerations for addressing student protests.
The Challenge of Leading Change: Some Remedies for Resistance (Part 2)
Other examples might be a decline in department majors, using instructional technology, adding research expectations, and initiating graduate programming. In each case, there is either a problem to solve or a new venture to consider. All will bring change and all will likely generate resistors. Again, some will be the...
The Challenge of Leading Change: Some Remedies for Resistance (Part 1)
The faculty in our colleges and universities are frequently portrayed as being the focal point of resistance to change within the academy. When one spends many years in the academy, one will realize that resistance to doing things differently is a trait that exists in administrative ranks as well. In...
The Art of Framing in Academic Settings (Part 2)
Viewing the change agenda through a political lens requires significant insight, careful forethought, and planning on the part of the leader. Regardless of the level of the leader, there are immediate clusters of personnel who represent the first wave of those who must be brought into the fold of supporting the initiative....
The Art of Framing in Academic Settings (Part 1)
Have you ever witnessed a keynote address in which a new university president shared such an inspiring and imaginative future strategy that you wished you were a part of that institution’s implementation team? Innovative thinkers who transform their vision into eloquent language can have that effect on their audiences. Assuming...
Seven Strategies to Grow Online Courses and Programs
As students continue to show interest in taking online courses, and faculty continue to be interested in teaching them, colleges and universities are, in many cases, expanding efforts to increase online programming for their students. This article discusses seven strategies to consider for growing online course and program offerings.
Planning Department Staffing to Meet Academic Needs
As changes among traditional faculty lines have taken place, and as new appointment types have emerged and been adopted, little thought seems to have been given to establishing the ideal balance of instructional resources in a given unit, neither has there been much planning for future changes that would result...
