This qualitative study explored administrative responses to local and sociopolitical events challenging campus climates at public research universities. Using critical discourse analysis, we examined the use of language as a form of power in publicly available documents addressing campus climate for diversity and inclusion at 31 U.S. institutions.…

Provides a feminist critique of the prevailing conceptual frameworks and methods used to examine leadership in colleges and universities, focusing on four organizational frames (bureaucratic, collegial, political, and symbolic), and a feminist reinterpretation of definitions of leadership given by one male and one female college president. (SM)

One way universities have served society since the Middle Ages is by providing an environment giving students and faculty freedom to explore new ideas without fear of retribution. Properly used, conflict can be the catalyst for advancing wisdom. However, the university is at risk when rational discourse is replaced by conflict as the means of…

At a time when collaborative leadership is much heralded in American institutional life as the antidote to discontent with power structures, colleges and universities have illustrated that shared governance is not inherently collaborative. The sense of common cause on campus should come from a shared knowledge base, concern with external…

Suggestions are made for creating healthy working relationships within a college administration and for improving the administrator's ability to cope with college politics. After introductory material examining the difficulty some educators, especially women, experience in utilizing power and politics to achieve desired goals, the report discusses…

Organizational systematics were applied to a classification scheme for postsecondary institutions using a combined phyletic-phenetic approach. Nine characteristics of organizational structure were operationalized for the college setting: institutional autonomy, centralized decision making, functional specialization, effective participation,…

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)

A case study illustrates the concept of the neurotic organization by describing the development of "Central Control College" over a period of 11 years. In this period of time, the college moved from a small, informal organization to a highly developed compulsive institution. The image of neurosis has been applied in the organizational…

Longitudinal survey research permits examination of the influence profiles of free-standing faculty senates and coexisting senates and faculty unions on U.S. college campuses. The forces prompting flow of power away from faculty deliberative bodies are discussed and the future of senates in hard times is examined. (MSE)

A fundamental assumption that bureaucratic, collegial, and political models of administration are independent and distinct is challenged, and process and structure within higher education institutions are differentiated as they describe role and power relationships and lines of authority. Survey results are cited as evidence and implications are…

The relationship between the congruence, strength, and type of organizational culture and organizational effectiveness was studied, based on questionnaire responses by 3,406 administrators, faculty department heads, and trustees from 334 colleges and universities. Respondents rated the extent to which certain characteristics were present at their…

This discussion of costs of college administration offers explanations of escalating costs in different branches and levels of administration and looks at the analytical value of two sets of constructs: (1) internal position (organizational distance) and budgetary authority of administrators, and (2) relationship between internal administrative…

Argues that with the increasing complexity of American college and university governance, the presidency should be strengthened, and the president's goal should be to use the powers of the office in serious, not cosmetic, collaboration with others who have responsibility and interests in the institution, and to bring partial views together in a…

The body of rhetorical writing and research studies about the interrelationship of faculty bargaining and campus governance are compared and synthesized. The research is emphasized so that the findings can inform and advance the ongoing debate and operational decision about this issue. Qualified, but not complete, support is found for the belief…