A principle responsibility of a board member is to understand the environment in which his or her institution operates. Today, that environment includes a host of legal risks that every institution of higher education must be prepared to assess and proactively address. Colleges and universities work to contain and manage those risks through such…

Many boards will find themselves hiring a new president in the near future, as higher education faces unprecedented turnover in its top leaders. Not only must they manage the transition of a new president into the institution, but they must also manage the transition of the current president out. Best practices for the transition are discussed in…

State policymakers and the public at large have a vested interest in the successful governance of their higher education system. The citizens who are appointed or elected to serve as trustees and regents of the state's colleges and universities oversee valuable public assets that they hold in trust for the state and current and future…

Jane Knight is most often credited with establishing the term "internationalization" as a process in higher education. Her seminal works in the 1990s established internationalization not as a state to be achieved, but as an ongoing process by which colleges could strive to increase the global learning of students (Knight, 1993, 1994). Many…

Performance-based funding (PBF) models intend to increase efficiency and productivity of the institution, thereby influencing organizational change. This change may be structural, programmatic, or procedural, and it may affect institutional practice and/or policy. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to understand the organizational…

This year, as every year, was a period of change, innovation and great progress for the Smithsonian. Among many accomplishments, the Smithsonian marked an extraordinary milestone: the opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. This breathtaking museum gives proper place, now and forever, to a vital part of America's…

Appropriate course enrollment maximums are an essential aspect of guaranteeing the quality of instructional programs. Colleges must consider many factors in establishing these enrollment limits, including legal codes, student and instructor safety, instructor workload, and the fiscal viability of the institution. However, the primary basis of any…

It is easy to see why a college might want a big board. It is simpler to add trustees than to remove members who are no longer pulling their weight, and growth can be justified as an effort to broaden the diversity of opinions in a group. It is also true that there may be no better way to cultivate donors than to give them active policy-making…

Many layers of education governance press upon U.S. schools, so we separated state actors into those internal to and those external to the system. In the process, we unpacked the traditional state-local dichotomy. Using interview data (n = 45) from six case-study states, we analyzed local leaders', state-internal actors', and state-external…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide a systematic review of the literature on school leadership and management in South Africa, linked to the 20th anniversary of democratic government and integrated education. Design/Methodology/Approach: The authors conducted a systematic review of all published work since 2007 with a more selective…

In April, the "New England Journal of Higher Education ("NEJHE") launched its "New Directions for Higher Education" series to examine emerging issues, trends and ideas that have an impact on higher education policies, programs and practices. In this installment, Philip DiSalvio interviews Richard Legon, president of the…

A college and university board of trustees typically comprises people possessing great experience, wisdom, records of achievement, and a strong desire to meaningfully contribute to the institution. Such an asset is enormously valuable. Yet too often institutional leaders feel they are unable to tap all its benefits. For their part, board members…

This article reports the findings of a research study exploring what motivates governing bodies to consider joining or creating a federation, their experiences of the process and the barriers faced. The research methodology involved semi-structured telephone interviews, face-to-face interviews and analysis of relevant documentation. The varied…

There is no doubt that most people in the world want to continue their education either undergraduate level or graduate level in the United States. To do that, application is the first and most important request. After applying for getting acceptance, the applicants must be patient and wait till hearing from university. This process takes some…

While it is argued in the paper that the New Public Management theory and practice has been applied much more in education than in any other area in the public sector, literature on education leadership and management still reveals a startling degree of confusion among education authorities, managers and leaders over what strategies to apply in…