December, 2007

Academic Leader - December, 2007 - Full Issue PDF
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The Rewards of Our Work
By Roxanne Cullen, PhD
Part of the problem in identifying the most satisfying facet of an administrative position lies in the difficulty administrators have trying to explain what their jobs entail. Job descriptions for administrative posts include impressive-sounding requirements such as “outstanding scholar/teacher with administrative experience;” “creative visionary with proven record of academic leadership;” “must be collegial, respectful, promote collaboration and cooperation;” “must have ability to procure outside funding and assure successful accreditation;” “ability to walk on water preferred but not required.” Yet somehow the day-to-day work never feels as lofty.

Simple Commitment but Long-Term Challenge: P&T and SoTL
By David Sill
For well over 20 years we have heard that higher education does not reward teaching. We have also heard that research accomplishments come first in determining tenure and promotion decisions, and teaching second. At the same time, the imperative to increase our valuing of teaching continues. What if higher education actually responded to these calls to increase the value of teaching? What if colleges and universities demanded higher levels of teaching performance for tenure, for example? Would that make a difference? Perhaps and perhaps not—making a commitment to higher levels of performance is one thing, but determining achieve higher levels of performance is another.

A Case Study of a University Leadership Seminar
By Paul M. Arsenault, Ph.D.
West Chester University offers a leadership seminar based on the central principles of distributed leadership, which emphasizes a shared purpose, teamwork, and respect. Key to seminar success is the appropriate recruitment of participants. Given the university’s finite resources, deans and administrators should invite to the seminar participants whom they think would provide the greatest benefit to the university.

Creating and Sustaining Institution-wide Pedagogical Change
Despite increased external pressure on teaching and learning innovation, top-down, centralized strategic initiatives usually fail to produce large-scale transformational change. And the problem with smaller-scale pedagogical innovation is that the impact is rarely felt beyond those directly involved, says Johanna Duponte, acting dean of health sciences at Bristol Community College in Massachusetts.

College Faculty and the ‘Choice of Achilles’
By Jeffrey L. Buller, PhD
In the ninth book of Homer’s Iliad, the Greek hero Achilles tells the embassy that wants him to return to the battle against the Trojans that he has been given an important choice in his life: fame or long life. In order to secure one benefit, Achilles had to forego something else. And that is precisely the situation in which many of our faculty members find themselves. For the college faculty, however, the choice of Achilles can be described in these terms: Would I prefer to be great at just one thing, even if it represents a very narrow realm of achievement, or to be good at many things, even if many others in my field end up surpassing me at any one of these achievements?