The paper discusses the leadership and management challenges of a public university in Saudi Arabia from the perspective of academic managers. Based on a series of interviews at one of the regional universities established in the mid-2000s, the paper sheds light on one of those rarely investigated contexts where models of public management are…

This article uses a case study approach to reimagine risk management in education abroad programming. It brings together a group of program partners to explore pre-COVID risk management decision-making during political unrest in Ecuador in 2019. Through continued dialogue and self-directed creative reflection techniques, the partners (a Dean of…

When the H1N1 virus ascended to national attention in April 2009, colleges and universities in the United States were thrust into the role of managing an unforeseen health crisis. While other institutions were scrambling to coordinate the appropriate crisis response to the H1N1 virus, Babson College was using the lessons it had learned during its…

Describes some experiences of a female associate dean in a university faculty within the framework of a typology of power to reveal its changing nature. The typology contains five components of power: power over others; structural factors; power through others (facilitative power); power with others (empowerment); and personal power. (Author/MSE)

The work experiences of college presidents, deans, and midlevel administrators are examined, with attention to job characteristics, degree of participation in college decision making, loyalty and commitment to the school, and job satisfaction. Extrinsic variables of the work environment include workload, rewards, supervision, and opportunities,…

Universities are "organized anarchies," with individual colleges and even departments pursuing independent objectives. The institutions themselves contribute to this organizational anarchy and to their own disintegration in how they organize themselves with regard to budget, in the incentives they give to colleges to raise their own funds, and in…

In this article, Jonathan Jansen describes his experiences as a Black dean in the formerly all-White University of Pretoria in South Africa. The article shows how race, gender, history, and institutional culture constitute emotional terrain in which decanal leadership plays itself out in the volatile postapartheid era. In the context of South…

Evolution of the relationship between academic and administrative functions in Swedish universities is traced over 30 years. Attention is given to a shift toward administrative power during a period of university democratization, and partial restoration of academic leadership in the 1990s. Two distinct patterns of administrative structure are…

The changing role relationships that occurred between the faculty and administrators of a university that implemented a decentralized management process over a 5-year period are discussed. The university changed from being highly centralized toward a shared and layered administrative approach. Five changes were instituted: an extensive committee…

In this article the author discusses the communicative encounters--oral and written--between members of two discourse communities--human resources (HR) and faculty--housed within an urban university in the Northeast. The author focuses on one individual's attempts to articulate and impose a component of her community's implicit rules for behavior…

A 1985-1986 case study of governance conducted at Rikkyo University, a private university in Tokyo, is considered, along with weaknesses in the organizational framework of governance and how these organizational weaknesses are linked to problems in reforming Japanese higher education. The governance structure provides that each college of a…

A case study of the Colleges of the State University of New York at Buffalo is presented to analyze the problem of change in higher education and the role played by a theory of change. A brief sketch of the history of the Colleges from the beginning to the end of the 1970s is presented to provide a context for a discussion of strategy of change.…

This recounting of the author's journey through a career as a faculty member and in various administrative positions offers lessons learned along the way.