This paper provides an overview of research on higher education leadership and management from the 20th and into the 21st century. It highlights the development of specific research in higher education contexts as well as the relationship between research in the management sciences in general on which higher education researchers, practitioners and policy makers have drawn, not always with beneficial consequences. The paper draws particularly on the work of Bensimon et al (1989) and Kezar et al (2006) in the US as well as research in the UK over the last quarter century, including recent research commissioned by the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education in the UK.
I am writing to apply for your posted position as an assistant professor of philosophy. I believe that my specific qualifications — my postgraduate teaching experience, publications, and professional activities — constitute a very good fit for this position. One might even say a really rad fit.
But I wonder if we might go a tad off script for a moment and speak plainly? Then you can take a crack at my sparkling dossier.
First, it is important to say that I already am a philosopher. And yes, as you may surmise, I’m looking to move from one relatively junior-ish post to a slightly less junior-ish post. In so doing, I'm trying to follow the usual professional arc that will allow me to nurse my love of philosophy and teaching in a manner that jives with the capitalist paradigm of contemporary higher education. We’re all doing well enough following that arc. But it has come at a cost, no?
"I had a career," she told me, her eyes welling with tears. "I took care of my kids and myself, and I didn’t need anyone’s help … and now, I’m here," she said, referring to Oregon State University’s Human Services Resource Center, a facility for low-income students which I directed until last year. As she spoke, the floodgates opened, and I handed her a box of tissues. She told me she had not eaten and was worried about being evicted. She said she could not get a job to support her family without a degree.
This commentari is contextualized in America's gilded age of corporate education caharacterized by millionaire CEO university presidents and a growing chasm of wealth inequality in our educational system. America's deepening educational stratification mirrors and magnifies wider social, economic, racial, and political inequality and injustice.
13 lessons I wish someone had taught me before I became an academic administrator
Not at all, according to Dave Zwieback, the Head of Engineering at music analytics company Next Big Sound (acquired by Pandora) and author of Beyond Blame: Learning From Failure and Success. Zwieback has spent decades leading engineers in companies operating in high-stakes, pressure-cooker industries, such as technology, financial services and pharma, where it’s commonplace for someone to take the fall when critical systems fails.
A string of recent stranger sexual assaults at Vancouver's University of British Columbia can be an opportunity for the university to educate students and address the larger issue of campus rape culture, say experts and alumni.
This exploratory comparative study examines the meaning-making experiences of six sexual minority males attending college or university in Canada or the United States. All of the participants identified as sexual minority males who were cisgender, out to family and/or friends, and between 20 and 24 years of age. In particular, the participants spoke about the intersections
between their race, gender, and sexual orientation as salient aspects of their multiple identities. Using a blend of qualitative methods, including case study, phenomenology, and grounded theory, I identified four themes that emerged from the data: (1) engagement in a social justice curriculum; (2) involvement in LGBT student organizations or resource centres; (3) experiences
of discrimination and dissonance; and (4) engagement in reflective dialogue. I discuss the implications of these themes for professional practice and future research.
La présente étude comparative exploratoire examine les expériences de recherche de signification de six hommes de minorité sexuelle fréquentant des collèges ou des universités au Canada et aux États-Unis. Tous les participants se sont définis comme des hommes cisgenres âgés entre 20 et 24 ans et ayant dévoilé leur homosexualité soit aux membres de leurs familles respectives, soit à des amis. Les participants ont entre autres identifié le recoupement de race, de genre et d’orientation sexuelle comme étant les principaux aspects de leurs multiples identités. À l’aide d’une variété de méthodes qualitatives
dont la phénoménologie, la théorie ancrée et des études de cas, j’ai relevé quatre thèmes récurrents parmi les données recueillies : (1) la participation à des programmes d’études en justice sociale; (2) l’implication dans des organisations estudiantines ou des centres de ressources pour LGBT; (3) l’expérience de discrimination et de dissonance; et (4) l’engagement
dans un dialogue réfléchi. Je discute des conséquences de ces thèmes en milieu professionnel et en prévision de futurs projets de recherche.
“But why do I have to go? School is not fun!” That quote is from a first-grade child, asking his mom why he has to go every single day to this place that he was told was going to be a lot of fun, but has not lived up to the hype. If he could articulate further, he might say, "I am only six. I like to have fun, but school is not fun and from what I can tell, it's going to get worse every year, not better."
“Any time a student learns, at least in part, at a supervised brick-and-mortar location away from home and, at least in part, through online delivery with some element of student control over time, place, path, and/or pace. The modalities along each student’s learning path within a course or subject are connected to provide an integrated learning experience.”
The most significant piece of the definition is the “element of student control” highlighting the flowing instructional models to enable improved student-centered learning, giving students greater than before control over the time, place, path, and/or the step of their learning tracks.
We live in a stressful world, and the stress is heightened for students and educators when it’s time to prepare for high-stakes tests. When test scores are tied to school funding, teacher evaluations, and students’ future placement, the consequences of these stressors can be far-reaching.
From a neurological perspective, high stress disrupts the brain’s learning circuits and diminishes memory construction, storage, and retrieval. Neuroimaging research shows us that, when stresses are high, brains do not work optimally, resulting in decreased understanding and memory. In addition, stress reduces efficient retrieval of knowledge from the memory storage networks, so when under pressure students find it harder to access information previously studied and learned.
Messy breakups between colleges and universities and their presidents made headlines again this summer. Trustees have accused presidents of poor judgment, unapproved and unauthorized spending, lack of professionalism, and inadequate goals and objectives. The separations played out in public, and many of them required a legal resolution.
But litigation costs are only a fraction of the harm done to both the college and the president in these kinds of terminations.
The reputations of both the college and the president are damaged by the controversies. Stories that portray a board as not supporting its president will probably cause future candidates for leadership positions at the college to think twice about applying. Community supporters and donors may withdraw support from the institution in response to the negative press that often accompanies the termination of employment of top leadership. For their part, presidents who are fired often have trouble overcoming the damage to their careers and successfully securing a leadership position at a different college or university.
There are no easy answers for California's two-year college system as it faces an unprecedented decision to move to a new accreditor, while also debating how to change the current one.
PHILADELPHIA -- Professors identify limited English proficiency and different academic preparation or expectations as the two biggest academic challenges international students face, according to results of a survey of DePaul University faculty presented Tuesday at the NAFSA: Association of International Educators conference.
The Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA) represents over 17,000 professors and academic librarians at 28 faculty associations at every university in Ontario. OCUFA represents full-time tenure-stream faculty, and at many universities also represents contract faculty members who work either on a limited-term contract or on a per- course basis.
OCUFA estimates that the number of courses taught by contract faculty at Ontario universities has doubled since 2000.
TORONTO — Ontario's minister of post-secondary education says he's concerned that two publiclyfunded Ontario colleges have opened campuses in Saudi Arabia that don't allow women.
On Wednesday, Colleges and Universities Minister Reza Moridi said decisions on the operation of a campus, including student composition, are up to each college's board of governors.
But late Thursday, after a lot of criticism on social media about the male-only campuses, the minister had a change of heart about Ontario colleges teaching courses that deliberately exclude women.
"I understand and appreciate the concern that has been raised in recent weeks around some of these international activities, particularly around two Ontario colleges running male-only campuses in Saudi Arabia," Moridi said in a statement to The Canadian Press. "I share those concerns."
As Canadian universities and colleges face increasing pressure to provide better mental-health services on campus, students are looking to give schools fresh ideas on how to tackle the issue.
It’s no breaking news that technology is here to stay. Among other things, this means that all schoolkids today, including your child, grandchild, niece and nephew, rely on their tech skills to excel at school. By the time they finish school, they will be required to implement a variety of tech skills on a daily basis at work.
As a parent, grandparent, aunt or uncle you now have to teach your child a new skill: tech intelligence. And the worst part is that by their teens, your kids are likely to surpass your tech-savviness, so you have to do it as early as you can
Abstract
At one of Ontario’s largest universities, the University of Ottawa, course evaluations involve about 6,000 course sections and over 43,000 students every year. This paper-based format requires over 1,000,000 sheets of paper, 20,000 envelopes, and the support of dozens of administrative staff members. To examine the impact of a shift to an online system for the evaluation of courses, the following study sought to compare participation rates and evaluation scores of an online and paper-based course evaluation system. Results from a pilot group of 10,417 students registered in 318 courses suggest an average decrease in participation rate of 12–15% when using an online system. No significant differences in evaluation scores were observed. Instructors and students alike shared positive reviews about the online system; however, they suggested that an inclass period be maintained for the electronic completion of course evaluations.
This paper examines whether intermediary bodies are useful in advancing government goals for quality and sustainability in higher education systems. It explores the evidence about intermediary bodies through case studies of England, Israel, New Zealand and the United States. It also treats the case of Ontario, whose best-known intermediary bodies have been the Ontario Council on University Affairs and the colleges’ Council of Regents.
The theoretical literature on intermediary bodies in higher education suggests that intermediary bodies are potentially useful actors in policy and administration. Many intermediary bodies were established to manage growth but in recent years have been reoriented to managing fixed or declining resources and flat or declining enrolments.