University Studies Leadership: Vision and Challenge

2012

The purpose of this study was to examine university presidents' perceptions of their academic doctoral preparation program as it related to their preparation for the university presidency. Using a mixed methods approach, thirteen presidents shared what knowledge and competencies they perceived as having learned while in their doctoral program. The areas of knowledge they believed they developed were foundational knowledge, knowledge acquisition of context, and complex cognitive knowledge. The four competencies areas they believed they refined in their programs were interpersonal development, personal attributes, management, and communications. They identified fund-raising as an area they were not well prepared for.

TEACHING THEOLOGY AND RELIGION

In American higher education, change is continuous but occurs most often at the margins, generally taking the form of piecemeal or isolated efforts and programs. Only rarely are change projects comprehensive in their scope and transformative in their effects. In this chapter we describe the context for comprehensive curricular change at Portland State University and offer a more general theoretical construct about institutional change in higher education.

Journal of Urban Affairs, 1996

In response to calls for accountability and effectiveness, public universities are reviewing their missions and are adopting measurable mission-specific goals. An emerging distinctive institutional type is the urban university, an institution characterized by the nature and extent of its responsiveness to the research and educational needs of complex metropolitan regions. This paper concerns the national environment for organizational change, a model for change, and a case study of one urban university that has pursued comprehensive and systemic change in its academic and administrative environment to direct resources to the support of its distinctive urban mission. Colleges and universities are under a number of pressures, both internal and external, that call for major changes in educational traditions. These pressures include long-term financial constraints, demands for accountability and enhanced productivity, concerns about student learning outcomes and values, and demands from policymakers for higher education to provide solutions to social and economic problems in an increasingly urbanized world. To build capacity, demonstrate accountability, and enhance programs without additional resources, public universities and colleges must have specific and institution-specific missions and goals.

1995

Efforts at Portland State University (PSU) in Oregon illustrate how an institution can clarify its own purposes, evaluate how the environment supports its academic mission, and effectively institute changes that will bring faculty activities and institutional purposes into a more harmonious alignment. In 1990 PSU began a strategic planning process that produced a two sentence mission statement and a set of institutional characteristics to deV'elop and promote. With these in place a process to examine whether faculty roles and rewards matched the mission and role of the institution began. Faculty attitudes toward redefined roles and responsibilities were found to fall into four categories-either committed, cautious, skeptical, or or strongly opposed. Even though initial projects focused on faculty change were chosen with care, change took longer than expected. Overall the PSU efforts focused on: (1) creating an environment that supports change; (2) expanding the scope of change; (3) making connections and creating conditions that will sustain change; and (4) re-balancing the campus in the wale of the ripple effect that the change efforts created. Finally, the experience seemed to support a broad conclusion that institutions and individuals must be prepared for continuous change. (JB)

This paper examines the financial and institutional challenges confronting American higher education and proposes strategic reforms for chief academic officers. Higher education faces declining public confidence, financial instability, and a disconnect between academic offerings and workforce demands. Analysis reveals that 40% of employers believe graduates lack essential workplace skills, while over half experience underemployment. Academic officers must initiate organizational restructuring, including departmental consolidations, capitalizing on systemness, administrative streamlining, and modernizing inclusion frameworks to address these challenges. The paper advocates transforming colleges into learning organizations by dismantling departmental silos, fostering cross-disciplinary collaboration, and prioritizing employee engagement. It recommends curricular reforms emphasizing adaptability, ethical leadership, and integrating critical thinking with practical skills. Institutions that fail to embrace these transformative changes risk obsolescence in a competitive educational landscape characterized by alternative credentialing pathways and skills-based hiring practices.

Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 2016

Journal of Higher Education, 2011

At current rates, almost all U.S. public universities could reach a point of zero state subsidy within the next fifty years. What is a public university without public funding? In this essay, Kathleen Knight Abowitz considers the future of public universities, drawing upon the analysis provided in John Dewey's Democracy and Education. Knight Abowitz conducts an initial institutional analysis through two broad prisms: that of the political landscape that authorizes universities as public institutions, and that of the present political–economic context of public education in general and public universities in particular. Dewey's conception of democratic education is then explored; his arguments regarding aims, experience, thinking, and social intelligence provide important tools for imagining the democratic futures of public universities today. At current rates, almost all U.S. public universities could reach a point of zero state subsidy within the next fifty years. 1 What is a public university without public funding? This essay is about the future of public universities, drawing upon the analysis of democracy and education provided in John Dewey's masterwork of the same name. I first conduct an initial institutional analysis through two broad prisms: that of the political landscape that authorizes universities as public institutions , and that of the present political–economic context of public education in general and public universities in particular. I then turn to Dewey's conception of democratic education; his arguments regarding aims, experience, thinking, and social intelligence provide important tools for imagining the democratic futures of public universities today. While Dewey wrote little that spoke directly to university purpose or governance, Democracy and Education provides foundational ideas useful to university educators today. From Dewey's democratic education concept comes the claim defended here that public higher education's possible democratic futures must be powerfully shaped by the voices and perspectives of educators and students, not higher education managers or political governing boards. Higher edu-cation's public mission, absent flourishing state support, must be invented and fought for using the kinds of democratic virtues and social intelligence that can be in short supply in university and public life. I defend that thesis and, in the conclusion , describe Dewey's contributions as well as limitations in helping us face the present crisis. Throughout the essay I take a bifocal approach to the analysis: I shift from the broader, national and transnational conditions shaping public universities