Academic Leader Newsletter - Magna Publications

Checking Out? You Need an Exit Strategy

Tue, 07 May 2013 10:18:24 -0500

It has been said that “old deans never die; they just lose their faculties.” A clever saying, that—and it reminds those of us who have been stomping around in the academic vineyards for many years that we ought to have a well-considered plan for that time when all signs point to our need to hang it up. I have been in higher education for nearly 50 years as a faculty member and administrator and have been thinking that it is time to let the youth movement take over. After all, any college or university that expects to survive in these challenging times will need fresh ideas and dynamic new leadership to keep the academic ship afloat. With massive open online courses, demands for online academic options, high-tech innovations, accreditation interventions, government regulation at all levels, and ever-greater customer service expectations from students and their helicopter parents, a new generation of academic leaders must be cultivated and counted on to show the way.

Efficient Meetings, Effective Decisions

Tue, 07 May 2013 10:19:20 -0500

According to John Tropman, professor of social work at the University of Michigan and author of Making Meetings Work: Achieving High Quality Group Decisions, well-run meetings consist of three elements: announcements, decisions, and brainstorming. This straightforward structure belies the lived experience of many who endure long, seemingly pointless meetings that accomplish little.

Faculty Development for Student Success

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 11:13:37 -0500

About eight years ago, California State University, Long Beach started work on a faculty development program to increase student success in courses with low completion rates. Many of these courses were “bottleneck” courses that slowed students’ progress toward their degrees. Completion rates in some of these courses have increased from 50 percent to 80 percent since the program began.

Meeting Demand, Maintaining Quality: Developing an Online Degree Program

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 11:14:53 -0500

Through market research, the director of the University of Tennessee at Martin’s online interdisciplinary studies program—a former business faculty member—determined there was a need for more educational opportunities in the state for students with associate degrees to complete their bachelor’s degrees in management. When asked if he’d help create such an online program to serve these students, John Overby, chair of management, marketing, and political science, replied, “Give me the resources to do this and I’ll be glad to help.”

Wasting a Perfectly Fine Electrician

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 11:16:25 -0500

The very first house I bought was a condominium, and the purchase price included 10 hours of service by an electrician. The idea was that each owner would want to customize the unit with special lighting fixtures and built-in appliances, and covering the cost of the electrician was intended to be a selling point. I was just starting out as a college professor and far too strapped for cash to afford luxuries like special fixtures and appliances, so my 10 hours of included service lasted me for several years. Each time one of my unit’s floodlights would burn out, rather than climbing up on a ladder myself, I’d call the manager’s office and have the electrician come do it for me. After having done so four or five times, I heard the manager sigh and say, “You know, an electrician is certainly capable of changing lightbulbs; it just seems to me that you’re wasting a perfectly fine electrician by having him do so.” I’ve thought of that statement many times over the years as I’ve seen well-paid and highly trained administrators assigned duties at colleges and universities that are not the best uses of their talents.