Academic deans in higher education can benefit from various types of mentoring to compensate for limited, formal administrative training. Using a nationally disseminated survey, we examined academic dean engagement with critical friends as one form of mentoring for their leadership development. The national survey included 27 items addressing…

Africans coming to the United States of America to go to school traditionally have the ultimate goal of getting the best education and going back to their respective countries. That was my goal when I left Nigeria many decades ago! However, considering the socio-economic and political upheavals in African nations, one is forced to rethink the…

This is a personal narrative about my transformative journey as an educator through the calamities of the failed perestroika in the Soviet Union and cultural shocks of living in the United States and Canada. I analyze the factors contributing to my academic abilities that allowed me to graduate with a PhD in mathematics from a university in Russia…

This book examines tensions and challenges in the professional lives and identities of contemporary academics. Drawing on extensive interviews conducted over seven years with academics in the United States and the United Kingdom, the authors analyze the experiences of four types of academics as they respond and adjust to the demands of…

To better understand what it means to promote the liberal arts in countries without strong liberal arts traditions, the authors recently asked presidents, chancellors, and provosts of some distinctive universities to reflect on their own leadership practices. In this article, the authors provide a glimpse of the challenges involved in leading…

This paper provides an overview of best practices and challenges for deans and department heads of online programmes in the ever-changing world of higher education. It concentrates on the challenges for small private universities and tertiary education institutions in the United States, Australia, and New Zealand. Department heads must consider…

This essay shares impressions from French and German higher education through a comparative US lens, with a special focus on internationalization and mobility. The author integrates the theoretical lens of Gert Biesta's Pedagogy of Interruption to posit that international experiences facilitate encounters with otherness that spark new ways of…

For this study, we interviewed eight Canadian and American continuing education deans and directors to explore how their personal accounts or "stories" about leadership high-light the dynamic nature of their leadership roles. This article focuses on the potential impact of these stories to better integrate and serve the adult learner…

Declining public finances and ever increasing national and international competition force state-owned German universities to adapt to an increasingly competitive environment. In a first phase the universities have concentrated their efforts on the optimisation of budgeting processes and on the development of strategies and goals to come to a more…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the ways in which universities use the "GRE"® General Test scores to award merit-based fellowships to first-year graduate students in doctoral programs. While GRE use in fellowship award decisions is a common practice, there is very little validity evidence to support its use in this context.…

In a global and increasingly "knowledge-driven" economy where even semi-skilled jobs require qualifications, what may be done with and for young people whose attainment in school is low? This article draws on recent research with head teachers, college principals and administrators in English local authorities, combined with material…

The purpose of this paper is to describe how vignettes can be used during an institution's interview process for an education dean. Education deans are confronted with personnel, programmatic, student, and organisational dilemmas on a daily basis. The fundamental responsibilities of the position require education deans to have a strong sense of…

This study focuses on aspects of the Changing Academic Profession survey of 2007-08 that describe the place of faculty in their institutions. The authors examine the following aspects of institutional life: (1) the faculty role in institutional governance; (2) who evaluates their teaching and research; (3) the locus of their loyalties as between…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine current academic practices of compensation, workload, rewards, and tenure and promotion for nursing faculty who teach graduate and postlicensure programs that are delivered 50% to 100% online. Deans and directors who are members of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) were the…

The purpose of this study was to explore the essential leadership practices, abilities, and experiences of Deans of Career and Technical Education (CTE) and to consider how these Deans of CTE fit into the succession process of the community college. A qualitative case study was conducted with three dyads of career Deans and their supervising…