This July I joined Wilbur Wright College as its president. Never having been a college president before, I did what all academics do when starting a new task: head to a library for resources to study the literature. Scores of books are published every year on college leadership and presidencies, and an increasing number focus…
Tag: leadership
University Presidents – Padilla’s Portraits in Leadership
Recently the Ohio State University’s president, Gordon Gee, announced his retirement in the face of criticism over some embarrassing statements he made. Rutgers University’s president, Robert Barchi, is facing a barrage of criticism over a number of issues, most saliently his handling of problems with Rutgers’ athletics programs. Gee and Barchi are both smart and…
Why Can’t Higher Education Be Ahead Of The Curve?
The flagship organization of higher education, AAC&U, publishes several themed periodicals. Key among them is Liberal Education. Focused on undergraduate education and liberal learning, the quarterly provides a national forum about teaching, learning, undergraduate issues and leadership. The Winter 2012 issues of Liberal Education focuses on the “completion agenda.” Carol Geary Schneider, president of the AAC&U,…
On Leadership and the Utility of Precepts
For several weeks have toted Michael Fullan’s Change Leader: Learning To Do What Matters Most, wondering what to make of it and what to do with it. It neither inspired nor engaged me. It is well-meaning and well-organized, written, one must surmise, from the best of intentions by an informed and intelligent man. It shares…
Organizational Culture and Higher Education
Edgar H. Schein’s Organizational Culture and Leadership (Jossey-Bass, 2010), now its fourth edition, is one of the most important works in explaining organizational culture as well as defining the field. The title is today much more than a course in an MBA; it rates a wikipedia site and can be its own degree program at…
Change and Trust in Higher Education
In recent years the need for change in higher education has become a recurrent refrain. Institutions need to change, faculty need to change, curricula need to change – and recognition of this is widely shared within and outside of the academy. The world and our students are changing at a rapid pace. Higher education, to…