Search Results for: conflict

Creating a Pipeline for Innovation Within Your College or University

Creating a Pipeline for Innovation within Your College or University offers a unique, tested roadmap that will prepare higher-ed leaders to provide systemic and sustained support for real innovation at every level within their institution. Creating a Pipeline for Innovation Within Your College or University: Order 10+ copies and receive a $25 discount on every copy you purchase.

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50 Conversations to Have with Sophia

Posted on by Sarah Adams

50 Conversations to Have with Sophia — Preview Your AI Leadership Coach for Higher Education Sophia is designed to meet you where you are and support you through the complexity of leading in higher education, where all of us have more responsibility than authority. She works best when you’re specific. The more honest you are with Sophia, the better she’ll be. Sophia does not store your responses. Nothing you share is logged, tracked, or traceable back to you. This is a completely confidential space. You can bring the real situation, not the polished version. To access Sophia, log into your Academic Impressions membership, and go to My Path. Chat with Sophia Feel free to modify these prompts to suit your context. Tap Copy on any prompt below, then paste it into Sophia to get started. Navigating Difficult People & Relationships Team Dynamics & Culture Leading Change Communication & Influence Career Development & Self-Awareness Managing Up & Sideways Faculty Relations & Shared Governance Personal Leadership & Well-Being Strategy & Organizational Effectiveness Navigating Difficult People & Relationships I have a tenured faculty member who openly undermines me in meetings — eye rolls, sighing, challenging my credibility in front of others. I’ve avoided […]

Strategies to Promote Student Resiliency: What to Do When Students Blame Faculty for their Lack of Success

Posted on by Kenneth Soldink

This article is an excerpt from Sue Ohrablo’s acclaimed book High-Impact Advising: A Guide for Academic Advisors, which you can find here. When working with students, advisors are likely to encounter students who blame others for the academic challenges they experience. It is the responsibility of the advisor to provide a sympathetic ear and refrain from judgment while creating a non-threatening environment.  The advising session should be a safe place for students to express their concerns without fear of retribution or rejection. In such an environment, students are apt to be more candid in their assessments about faculty and peers. Scenario: The Hard Professor Advisors know the reputations of many faculty members, especially those who are considered “hard” or “demanding” by students. Although, in the back of our minds, it might be tempting to think, “Yeah, he’s a real hard-nose,” buying into that characterization of the faculty member does not provide the student any assistance. Instead, the advisor can add value by providing strategies to the student. For instance, a faculty member may be known to criticize students’ academic abilities by using what is interpreted to be a condescending tone when communicating with students. The faculty member may point out deficiencies […]

4 Strategies for Closing the Coaching Gap for Mid-Level Academic Leaders

Posted on by Daniel Fusch

While executive and administrative leaders have had a longer history of working with coaches, there is growing awareness of the benefit to middle managers in higher education, as well. Mid-level academic leaders are often promoted to leadership positions with limited management experience and without the benefit of training and professional leadership development. Yet mid-level leaders face significant barriers to the use of coaching. To build leadership capacity at the mid level, it’s critical that senior leaders take action to address this coaching gap. To learn more, we turned to David Kiel, who worked for 15 years as a faculty leadership developer at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is now a consultant to leadership development programs in higher education. Dr. Kiel has conducted extensive research on coaching in higher education, and the article that follows adapts and reworks material from an article the author published in the Journal of Excellence in College Teaching’s special issue “Coaching and Leadership in Academia,” James Sibley and Susan Robison, Editors, that came out in February 2018. The title of the original article is “In Search of Good Coaching for Mid-Level Faculty Leaders” (The full citation can be found in the reference section at the end of […]

Responding to Microaggressions in Online Learning Environments During a Pandemic

Posted on by Daniel Fusch

With faculty and students both stressed during the pandemic, microaggressions may become more frequent in our online learning environment. Here are some practical strategies for mitigating the impact of microaggressions in online and remote classes. by Dr. Tasha Souza, Associate Director for Inclusive Excellence for the Center for Teaching and Learning, Professor of Communication, Boise State University Students are especially anxious right now given that their daily routine and expectations of college life have likely been completely derailed. Many have had to move, some to less safe and/or hospitable living environments, and all who were taking face-to-face classes have had to learn how to navigate a different learning and teaching space led by many instructors doing the same. When cortisol levels are high, we are less likely to self-monitor well and more likely to behave in ways that reveal and act upon our implicit biases. These biases can show up as written or oral microaggressions in online and remote spaces and can have a negative effect on the communication climate. Are you equipped to deal with them? When microaggressions occur in our learning environments, it is important that we respond in ways that maintain a supportive communication climate (Souza, 2017) […]

The 21st Century Library: An Inside Look at Auraria Library

Posted on by Kenneth Soldink

with Sommer Browning, Marical Farner, Cynthia Hashert, and Jenny Filipetti (Auraria Library) We recently had the opportunity to visit the newly renovated Auraria Library. This unique tri-institution academic library is shared by the University of Colorado Denver, Metropolitan State University of Denver, and the Community College of Denver, and located in the heart of downtown Denver. The recent revitalization of the Auraria Library is impressive for several reasons. First, the library remained open – for all three institutions – during the multiple years of the renovation. Second, the library integrates a lot of the features discussed in The Library of the 21st Century. Notably, the library’s new learning space includes multimedia walls for collaborative learning. To learn more about the uniqueness of this library project – and what may be replicable at other institutions – we interviewed the panel of stakeholders responsible for this newly-renovated learning space. This article highlights the key takeaways from that interview. Participants at our 2017 Academic Planning and Revitalization Institute, an annual workshop that has highlighted innovative library design since 2007, will also get to discuss the project further with the library planning team, and will get to tour the facility. The Institute’s post-conference workshop on March 8 will also provide […]

Critical Advice for College and University Chiefs of Staff

Posted on by Daniel Fusch

The role of college or university chief of staff looks very different at each institution and requires a unique skill set for continued success. Here is critical advice from current and past chiefs of staff and (one university president). Welcome to this new series of articles, where experienced chiefs of staff offer critical advice on managing the chief of staff role. We will share their answers to questions such as these: Contributors to this series include: We hope you will enjoy the series and share each article with your peers. If you find these articles useful, please consider attending and learning from these and other experts at these virtual trainings: Now, let’s start! Here is our first installment in this series: 1. Liaison vs Gatekeeper: Finding Balance as a Chief of Staff Academic Impressions. You’re charged with being the president’s voice and implementing their initiatives, yet you are also the liaison with faculty. The faculty will come to you with disagreements and objections. How do you make yourself available without appearing as a gatekeeper for the president? Josh Jacobs, Marietta College. Whether you intend to be are or not, it is likely that you will be perceived as a gatekeeper. One strategy […]

As a Leader You Need Honest, Direct Feedback – Here’s How to Get It

Posted on by Daniel Fusch

“If you’re not getting information or feedback on a regular basis that is uncomfortable for you, go seek it out.” One of the traps a higher-ed leader can fall into is in believing that they are receiving accurate feedback when in fact their colleagues and team members are holding back. Here’s a way to break through that trap: an anonymous 360° feedback process. This article is adapted from an excerpt of Pat Sanaghan’s book How Higher-Ed Leaders Derail: A Survival Guide for Leaders. For leaders in higher ed, I cannot stress enough that you have to be proactive in encouraging (and rewarding behavior that fosters) a climate of candor and transparency. If others around you are not pushing back on your ideas, sharing different perspectives, and asking the tough questions, you may not realize how your leadership is actually being received. It’s very likely that you have an inaccurate and incomplete picture. In How Higher-Ed Leaders Derail: A Survival Guide for Leaders, I refer to this situation as “the seduction of the leader,” a common dynamic in which leaders are “seduced” into believing they have all the facts when in fact, they don’t. It is a dynamic that, if allowed […]

Responding to a Bad Employee Engagement Survey: A Call to Action for Higher Education Leaders 

Posted on by Sarah Adams

Employee engagement surveys, if thoughtfully designed, are a powerful tool for understanding the lived experiences of faculty and staff. They can illuminate areas of strength and expose systemic issues that hinder inclusivity, belonging, and engagement. However, too often, leaders in higher education conduct these surveys infrequently, and when the results are less than favorable, they either bury the data or delegate the issue to a committee that produces little meaningful action. This approach not only wastes time and resources but also erodes trust and credibility. If your institution has received poor results from a climate survey, it’s time to take decisive action. But here’s the key: this isn’t a problem for senior leadership to solve alone. The best outcomes come from a dual approach—from transparent leadership from the top down, and from active engagement from the bottom up. Faculty and staff don’t just want to hear the results; they also want a role in shaping the response. When leaders both own the results publicly and empower their teams to develop solutions, they create a stronger, more engaged institution.   Own the Results The first step in responding to a bad climate survey is for leadership to create transparency by owning […]

Tailoring the RCM Model to What Works For You

Posted on by Kenneth Soldink

In an era of public scrutiny and requests for increased financial accountability, higher-ed leaders are looking for ways to show the public that they are addressing the issue of rising college costs. Many have turned to responsibility-centered management (RCM) as a way to reduce costs and encourage financial responsibility within individual academic departments. While many institutional leaders see RCM as a way of decentralizing financial decision-making, allowing vice presidents and deans to take responsibility for their own budgets, they may not realize that certain principles of this financial structure can be tailored to fit the distinct culture of their campus, even without wholesale adoption of an RCM model. The University of Notre Dame recognized how they could adopt some principles from RCM to meet their institutional needs and goals. Here is what they did, and what you can learn from it. Adopting Elements of RCM – Not the Whole Model Linda Kroll, associate vice president for finance at the University of Notre Dame, states that when their institution looked at some of the fundamental elements of the RCM model, university leaders liked that the model allowed for: Distribution of responsibility to unit leaders Creation of a culture that rewards lowering […]

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