Academic Leader

In the forthcoming AAC&U publication Leadership for Interdisciplinary Learning: A Practical Guide to Mobilizing, Implementing, and Sustaining Campus Efforts, Mary Roth and Susan Elrod offer advice on making institutions more supportive and conducive to interdisciplinarity. This study considered a range of interdisciplinary models at 28 institutions, and while this research focused on the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, Roth notes that the findings are applicable to all fields.

As an academic leader, you have likely found that the amount of information crossing your desk each day can quickly become overwhelming. Email, voice mail, documents, spreadsheets, news articles, and more create an ongoing barrage. It is critical that you organize, remember, and act on these items. Thankfully, there are several readily available tools to help manage this constant stream of data.

In October 2010, the U.S. Department of Education introduced regulations requiring higher education institutions that offer online programs to be licensed in any state where they do business. In an interview with Academic Leader, Russell Kitchner, vice president for regulatory and governmental relations for the American Public University System, talked about the implications of these regulations.

Mona Walters, dean of institutional planning and effectiveness at Edison State Community College in Ohio, has created two Excel-based tools that measure the fiscal viability of individual courses and academic programs to help academic leaders at her institution make informed decisions on course scheduling, staffing, planning, and recruiting.

Involving faculty in recruitment and retention efforts can be critical to an institution’s success. According to Jennifer Layton McCluskey, associate vice president and director of the Center for Academic Success and First-Year Experience at Maryville University, savvy students and families want to meet the faculty who will be guiding their classroom experience.