ACADEMIC LEADERSHIP AND GOVERNANCE OF HIGHER EDUCATION A Guide for Trustees, Leaders, and Aspiring Leaders of Two- and Four-Year Institutions

Abstract

his book has been a labor of love. All four authors contributed equally to the formulation and writing of this book. Each of us, as a scholar and an education leader, has had a long-standing interest in understanding and improving the administration, management, and lead ership of academic organizations. Collectively we have worked for numerous private and public colleges and universities, serving as faculty members, directors, deans, vice presidents, and presidents. In addition, we have served on and staffed boards of trustees and worked for a state-level department of higher education. Through all these experiences, we recognized that very limited resources exist to help academic leaders, external stakeholders, and lay board members understand the complexities of the academic organiza tion and how it interacts with various aspects of society. The initial idea for this book came from Robert M. Hendrickson, who for three decades has taught a graduate course titled Administration in Higher Education. The outline of this book resembles the outline of that course. Since each of the areas covered in this book has a vast literature, it is impossible for busy administrators to delve into this literature while meeting their administrative responsibilities and keeping current in their area of expertise. What was needed was a book that pulled together this knowledge and made it accessible and understandable to busy academic leaders, external stakeholders, and lay board members. Three colleagues—Jason E. Lane, associate professor of educational administration and policy and director of education studies at the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, State University of New York at Albany; James T. Harris, president of Widener University; and Richard H. Dorman, president of Westminster College in Pennsylvania—were intrigued by the idea of creating a book for academic administrators and joined Bob Hendrickson in developing the concept for this book. This book is the culmination of dozens of years of practice and study. In conceiving and writing this volume, we spent countless hours debating various issues. While we underestimated the amount of work involved in this project, the discussions and debates that occurred during all-day meet ings and many conference calls have greatly enriched our own understanding