Introduction As a higher education leader for almost 20 years and a former department chair for ten, I have witnessed time and time again how the right department leader can animate an academic program. As John C. Maxwell once said, “The reality is that 99 percent of all leadership occurs not from the top, but from the middle of an organization.” Sitting at the nexus of the student body, the faculty, and the administration, department chairs are poised to provide crucial leadership in the effort to help students progress toward graduation and their institutions toward transformation. Despite their important positioning, department chairs are rarely taught how to lead nor are they typically rewarded for good leadership. Nearly 50,000 currently serve as department chairs in the United States with about a quarter of them being replaced each year (Gmlech and Buller, 2015). And yet only 3.3 percent of department chairs came to their positions with formal coursework in the administrative skills they need (Cipiano and Riccardi, 2012). While challenges facing higher education grow in intensity and become more complex, many department chairs enter the role woefully unprepared for the challenges that await them. The convergence of interconnected crises in recent years—including […]
A small but growing number of colleges and universities have been adopting restorative justice (RJ) processes as an alternative (in some cases) to traditional, sanctions-focused student conduct proceedings. Taking an RJ approach requires a philosophical shift for the student conduct office – it entails new sets of questions for student conduct hearings and an alert ear for cases in which there is the possibility to restore harm that’s been done, rather than simply (or only) penalize. If a hearing indicates that restorative justice may be possible and desirable, RJ processes usually proceed to individual pre-conference meetings held with the offender and those harmed in the incident. Ultimately, if all parties are willing, the issue is dealt with through a group conference with trained facilitators. The goal of the conference is to arrive at a mutual understanding of the harm caused and a mutual agreement for how the harm will be repaired. To learn more about how to make a restorative justice program most successful, we interviewed two officials from Colorado State University, which has frequently been recognized for its restorative justice and other student conduct programs. The two officials are Paul Osincup and Melissa Emerson, the associate and assistant directors […]
Empowering leaders and executives to successfully navigate change by turning challenges into opportunities, and to ascend the leadership ladder by providing unique perspectives to problem solving and personal branding. Christie Chung, PhD, is an Executive Director (aka CEO or Dean) of a multidisciplinary institute at an R1 University. Apart from this executive role, she has also served as Associate Provost, Associate Dean, and many other key Chair and leadership positions at both R1 and liberals arts college settings. Christie has over 1.5 decades of experience as a cognitive psychology faculty and researcher, is a TEDx speaker, and an accomplished author in cognitive aging and cross-cultural cognition. Christie also has extensive experience in navigating complex institutional changes, especially ones involving institutional restructuring and mergers. In her coaching practice, Christie empowers leaders and executives to turn challenges into opportunities for growth and advancement. Christie is skilled in personal branding principles, which are critical as leaders position themselves for job opportunities and promotions. Christie inspires academics to impact the world through their leadership while championing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion/Antiracism/Belonging (DEIAB) principles. Christie has experience in supervising programs and grant-funded initiatives, fundraising, mediating conflict, and has been a key leader in supporting the campus community […]
Drawing on current research on high-performing leadership teams both within and outside of higher education, Pat Sanaghan, president of The Sanaghan Group and author of Collaborative Leadership in Action (2011) and the forthcoming book, How to Actually Build an Exceptional Team (2013), has identified 10 differentiators of exceptional teams, 10 qualities that enable teams to rise to and perform at high levels consistently. Of the 10, Sanaghan points to trust as the most important quality that differentiates high-performing teams in higher education. “In a high-trust environment,” Sanaghan remarked in an interview with Academic Impressions, “you can do many things even with limited resources. But if you have low trust, even with high resources you can’t get much done. To build trust, you need transparency with information — especially around financial realities, decision-making roles, and process.” Higher education is by its nature a collaborative and people-driven enterprise — yet often, too little investment is made to improve the professionals within the institution work together. As the speed of change accelerates and higher-ed’s operating environment grows more complex, those institutions that will remain competitive and thrive will be those characterized by high-performing teams across all parts and levels of the organization. The High-Trust Environment […]
Why You Need a Stellar Team To build a high performing team is a daunting and noble task, and such teams are as rare as blue diamonds. The silo mentality that often exists on our campuses often limits our collective actions, and creates redundancy and replication. Given shrinking resources and the rapid pace of change, the siloed approach to team building and decision making is neither strategic nor feasible. We must work collaboratively to utilize the collective talents of our campus stakeholders. And learning to build high performing teams is one of the most effective ways we can meet the many challenges that confront us. If a senior leader can build a stellar team, the organizational leverage that can be achieved is powerful and can be a game changer for a campus. In this scenario: We have had the opportunity to work with scores of senior teams in higher education. Almost always, these teams were comprised of highly intelligent, dedicated, honest, and mission-driven individuals. But few of them ever became a first class team. When you witness a high performing senior team being transparent with each other, asking for help, dealing with conflict effectively, and listening carefully to each other, […]
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Series: Changing How We Understand the MarketIn this series, we analyze current enrollment and demographics data, uncovering stories that challenge how institutions often understand their marketplace—or that shed new light on emerging trends. We want to encourage a deeper look at the implications of today’s marketplace data. We hope that you will share these stories across your institution and use them to start critical conversations to drive not only enrollment strategy but discussions of curricular offerings, student support, and course design. While we’ll highlight findings and stories worthy of closer attention, each article includes an easy-to-use Tableau dashboard that you and your colleagues can use to drill deep in the data yourself.Also in this series:Yield Rates are Declining – Why?Is the International Enrollment Boom a Rising Tide that Lifts All Ships?How Simpson’s Index Can Offer Universities a Different Look at DiversityWhy Measuring Diversity Matters The rise in undergraduate enrollment in the United States has been well documented and much discussed: Between 1980 and 2010, for instance, undergraduate enrollment rose almost 74%, far outstripping the growth (about 2%) in traditional-age college students in the US. There are likely several factors contributing to this surge, including economic growth; population growth; the belief […]
I engage and empower leaders at all stages with wisdom and tools that instill confidence and focus in order for them to achieve quantifiable success throughout the evolving circumstances of their careers, their organizations, and those they lead. Dr. Marie Hansen is a dean, executive coach, leadership consultant and attorney with over 24 years’ experience in higher education. Her career has included work with higher educational faculty, staff and leaders at all levels. She currently supervises over 100 full and part time faculty and professional staff. She has created leadership training for external and internal constituents (corporate training), worked on several grants, and led strategic planning, corporate partner and mentoring programs. She has taught in the disciplines of business, criminal justice, law and organizational behavior. As a coach, she enjoys helping guide individuals aspiring to leadership roles and those with many years of experience as leaders set career goals and achieve quantifiable success in the higher education environment through application of social and emotional intelligence and leadership principles. As a PCC certified coach who focuses on social and emotional intelligence, Marie helps faculty, staff and leaders broaden their self-awareness to augment their own development. As a coach, she listens, supports and encourages growth in all […]
