July, 2008

Academic Leader - July, 2008 - Full Issue PDF
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Collaborative Leadership through Strengths Development Part I: Self-Awareness through Strengths Development
By Anita Henck, PhD, and Eileen Hulme, PhD
Today’s university leaders have the opportunity to enhance the work of staff and faculty—both in quality and satisfaction—through intentional efforts at building a collaborative team leadership approach. Unlike past attempts at team building, collaborative leadership is not just off-site sessions with ropes courses and “getting to know you exercises.” Nor is it a top-down approach requiring interdepartmental projects while providing rewards for required collaboration. Rather, it requires a rich and informed understanding of one’s innate characteristics, traits, and passions; an ability to manage those abilities through a heightened sense of emotional intelligence; and a driving desire to understand and value the other’s perspective. Without these essential elements of team building, it becomes difficult to establish the trust necessary for team productivity; strengths identification and development provide tools for these essential elements of team building.

Discipline-Based Education Research
By Rob Kelly
In 1999 the American Physical Society championed the recognition of education research as a subdiscipline in physics. This, along with support from funding agencies and recent legislation that—in spirit, if not funding—calls for improved science education, has spurred the growth of education research in the field. Physics is at the forefront of this trend and is setting a precedent that other disciplines will likely follow.

Small Group Behavior
By Harry L. Peterson, PhD
We are pleased to present this excerpt from the book Leading a Small College or University: A Conversation That Never Ends (forthcoming from Atwood Publishing, www.atwoodpublishing.com) by Harry L. Peterson. This excerpt is from a chapter titled “How Organizations Shape Our Behavior: Why Do People Do The Things They Do?” Within your college are countless small groups. Students form friendships with their roommates or with others of similar academic or social interests. Faculty and staff work in departments or other work units, typically performing tasks similar to one another. Even the president works within a smaller context much of the time with the staff and administrators who directly report to him or her. Within each small group, people socialize with one another, learn from, consult with and gossip with one another. In this interaction, they learn to assign meaning to what is happening around them. So it is important that you not only understand the saga of your college in general, but also understand how people in smaller units behave and think.

Creating a Center for Professional Development and Leadership
By Jeffrey L. Buller, PhD
College professors serve on committees, eventually are asked to chair these bodies, act collectively in faculty assemblies and senates, initiate course proposals and curricular reforms, and challenge policies that are no longer useful or productive. They may go on to become department chairs, division coordinators, program heads, deans, provosts, or even presidents. They are expected to demonstrate leadership in their courses and in their service responsibilities, manage resources responsibly, and supervise student workers or members of the staff. If many faculty members still receive little formal training in how to teach, most still have almost no access to formal programs in how to lead, even though shared governance requires many members of the faculty to assume leadership roles. For this reason, the time has come for colleges and universities to consider a corollary to their centers for excellence in teaching and learning, the Center for Professional Development and Leadership.