Literature on leadership and change suggests that leaders help drive and sustain first- and second-order change and that they help to motivate people towards a vision based on common values; therefore, leaders do need to be prepared for significant responsibility. Leaders should ask, what "grand narrative" are today's leaders, this…

Libraries have never been stable or static. They are inevitably designed for one information vessel and have to learn to accommodate a new one. Scrolls became codices, and books were augmented with vinyl records, VHS tapes, and CDs. The only difference in trying to manage technology now, as opposed to then, is that change comes so much more…

Amid the Bologna Process and as a direct effect of it, European higher education institutions have to rethink their core institutional policies in order to effectively deal with the increasing demands and needs of their "customers" and society at large. The higher education management programmes across Europe, with some specific needs…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyze those US campuses that became signatories of the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) during the charter membership period of December 2006 through September 15, 2007. Design/methodology/approach: The paper draws on literature in organizational change,…

Organizational commitment has been explored extensively over the past 40 years because of its benefits to individuals and the organization. Action learning, in turn, has been used by companies worldwide to develop leaders, teams and organizations. No study, however, has been undertaken to determine how action learning might develop organizational…

Reed Elsevier's recently announced plans to spin off its Harcourt educational publishing divisions to the Houghton Mifflin Co. would complete a consolidation of most K-12 publishing in the United States into a new Big Three. If federal regulators allow the deal to go through, school districts that annually buy textbooks from the three…

Job-seekers who can tell stories about their ability to lead, communicate, and handle organizational change have an advantage over others in the workplace. Although it is important to be able to tell stories about other skills, characteristics, and values, individuals who can showcase their "change skills" will be attractive to employers that seek…

College leaders serve important roles as guides for campus understanding during times of change. Within multicollege districts, campus members deal with several levels of leadership, ranging from department chairs, to the college president, to the system chancellor. These leaders may send conflicting messages regarding change, or have competing…

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the experiences and perceptions of principals whose schools were granted innovation status in accordance with the "Colorado Innovation Schools Act of 2008" (CISA). The CISA created a statewide system that allowed individual schools and entire districts to increase autonomy and…

The Academy for Educational Development (AED) sent a research team to Western Kentucky University (WKU) on June 19-20, 2008 to conduct interviews with individuals who play important roles in the university's teacher preparation program (see Appendix A). These interviews, along with additional documentation provided by WKU and identified by the AED…

As external forces demand change in the delivery of postsecondary education and institutions seek to take advantage of new opportunities, the potential for achieving higher levels of student and institutional success is vast. New technologies, communication tools, data use, and organizational constructs present key factors in improving the…

Nearly one thousand colleges and universities in the United States face major challenges--from catastrophic hurricanes to loss of accreditation to sagging enrollment. What can leaders of such at-risk institutions do to improve their situation? "Turnaround" gives college and university leaders the tools they need to put their fragile institutions…

After 30 years of research in mergers and acquisitions and advances in the research of post-merger integration (PMI) processes, the outcome of a merger remains hardly predicable. Traditional leadership and change theories have not succeeded in fully explaining PMI processes and therefore new theories are needed. This article offers new insights…

What are quality vocational teachers? This article analyzes the different factors exerting an influence on the professional knowledge, practices and performance of teaching staff involved in technical and vocational education and training (TVET). The international variety of vocational teacher education patterns, profiles and recruitment practices…

The concept of quality of life (QOL) is increasingly being used in the field of intellectual disabilities as a conceptual and measurement framework for program planning and evaluation. This article describes the development of a QOL conceptual and measurement framework, and summarizes how this framework is currently being used both nationally and…