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RESOURCES
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EDUCATION
Newsletters:
In This Issue Current Issue Archives
December 2004
Administrator December 2004 full issue PDF
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Robert Birnbaum & The Quotable Administrator
Robert Birnbaum has been writing and teaching for more than 40 years, with a special interest in the governance and administration of the American academy over its centuries- long span. He has been involved on both sides of the educational enterprise, in the classroom and behind the administrator’s desk. And he has authored, coauthored, and edited numerous books becoming a respected voice in American higher education.
Election 2004: Youth Vote Reverses Decline
As the dust settles after Election 2004, supporters on both sides of the aisle are breathing a sigh of relief that the electoral process seemed to go off without major problems across the nation. Now that George W. Bush has successfully defended his office, observers are looking back at the record voter turnout, and ahead to what a second Bush term may mean for higher education.
A Decade of Student Financial Aid
Between the 1989-90 and 1999-2000 academic years, postsecondary institutions saw a growth in both tuition and in student financial aid, particularly student loans. Federal financial aid programs and policies were partially shaped by the 1992 reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, while increases in non-federal grant aid and increased availability of federal student loans drove the changes in student financing during the decade.
Assessment from Below for Academic Leaders
Although they are rarely given the opportunity to formally evaluate their deans, directors and vice-presidents, faculty and staff can provide valuable insights that can make for more effective leaders. Implementing such a process is full of challenges: How do you define leadership effectiveness? How do you ensure that vindictive faculty or staff will not skew assessment results? How do you ensure faculty and staff anonymity?
Birnbaum’s Quotes
“To the disinterested observer, the America educational system looks like a gigantic playroom, designed to keep the young out of worse placers until they can go to work.”
Robert Maynard Hutchins,
president, University of
Chicago
“{I} had left the presidency of the university as I had entered it: ‘Fired with enthusiasm;’ my own on the way in, that of certain others on the way out.” …
CU-Boulder’s Administrator Appraisal Program
In 1992, the University of Colorado-Boulder implemented its Administrator Appraisal Program to give faculty a chance to weigh in on individual administrator’s performance during regular performance reviews.
Resources
Achieving Accountability in Higher Education: Balancing Public, Academic, and Market Demands; College of the Overwhelmed: The Campus Mental Health Crisis and What to Do About It; Serving the Millennial Generation: New Directions for Student Services, No. 106
Making Decisions on Purpose
By Lynn Little, PhD
Richard Leider is a founding partner of The Inventure Group, a Minneapolis-based training firm that helps leaders to discover the art of making decisions based on purpose. He says that leaders are faced with the need to make so many decisions — at work, at home, and in other aspects of their lives — that they lose sight of how their decisions affect the various parts of their lives. He encourages leaders to step back and ask themselves two essential questions: What do I want? How will I know when I get it?
