Feniosky Pena-Mora may be the epitome of the new college dean. No longer middle managers with an inward-facing focus on academics, deans such as Mr. Pena-Mora, who leads Columbia University's School of Engineering and Applied Science, are stepping off their campuses to fill the roles of college ambassador, chief visionary, and major fund raiser.…

When students or recent graduates come to talk with Anthony M. Sozzo, an associate dean for student affairs at New York Medical College, about repaying their federal loans, he sometimes struggles with what to tell them. He states that the answers are increasingly being complicated by an ever-expanding federal loan-servicing system. The number of…

The author started in the Ph.D. program in comparative literature at Princeton in 1992, a year after she graduated from college. She fell in love with mythology and the classical traditions and find herself teaching literature. In the remainder of her time at Princeton, she precepted for four or five more classes, got the chance to join the…

In the author's role as an academic dean, she frequently meets with students on probation who have not yet learned how to fail and are consequently paralyzed academically. One of the most pivotal skills for a student who wishes to succeed in the academic arena is the ability to fail well. "Good failing" requires the strength to make use of a…

A friend and fellow academic recently told the author that her dean, who directs a professional school at a state university, spends most of his time at conferences hanging out with professors from his institution, as well as with their graduate students and his co-authors on research papers. She said, and the author agreed, that such habits…

This article reports that with a weak economy and a record number of applications at many campuses, admissions deans have deliberately undershot their targets and lengthened their waiting lists. For months a four-digit number has hovered over Douglas L. Christiansen. It's there when he falls asleep and there when he wakes up. The number is 1,550,…

Admissions deans everywhere shared concerns about recruiting students during a recession as they tried to discern how, or if, the economy would affect demand for their institutions. Amid this uncertainty, colleges used many different strategies. Some recruited more here and less there. Some offered more merit aid, while others scaled back. Some…

Bob Greenstreet is the dean of the architecture school at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. He is the longest-serving dean of any architecture school in the country, starting in 1990, and, since 2004, he has also been the leading planner for the city of Milwaukee. Greenstreet's position is a culmination of a relationship between the city…

When people gathered last May for the commencement ceremony at the University of California at Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law, they were greeted by chanting activists from the National Lawyers Guild and other left-wing groups. The university, protesters shouted, should fire John C. Yoo, a tenured professor who has taught at the law school…

Last year the National Association for College Admission Counseling (Nacac) asked William R. Fitzsimmons, dean of admissions and financial aid at Harvard University, to lead a panel that would examine testing issues and recommend how colleges might better use entrance exams. The dean and his fellow panelists were to present their findings this…

An airport interview is an initial interview for a senior administrative position conducted at an airport hotel not too far from the campus in question. Meeting at an airport enables a search committee to interview a large number of candidates in a short period of time with a degree of confidentiality. At the conclusion of the airport interviews,…

Jeff Rickey is a numbers guy. But three years ago, a colleague asked him about something he'd never counted: applicants who came out of nowhere. The question intrigued Mr. Rickey, dean of admissions and financial aid at Earlham College in Indiana. He found that 17 percent of the college's applicants that year had not called, taken a tour, or…

In this article, the author shares his realizations as he changed careers from a former publisher to a dean of the faculty of humanities and social sciences at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. He describes that his work as a dean in academe is not so much different from his job as a longtime editor. He also relates that…

Colleges and universities increasingly view engineering as an important part of a liberal-arts education. Rather than segregate engineering from the arts and humanities, they are integrating the disciplines, in hopes of educating students to perform more effectively in an increasingly complex and technological world. Several college presidents,…

Public colleges and universities are girding themselves to win the war for tenured talent. Some are succeeding. State budget woes and a rocky economy have shaken public colleges and universities. One of the most noticeable shudders has been a pervasive "brain drain," as many state institutions face competition for their best faculty members from…