Ellinger, Watkins, and Bostrom report a study of 12 managers who described critical incidents in which they facilitated employee learning. Behaviors defining facilitation were identified. Dirkx's response criticizes the research for its individualistic and decontextualized focus. (SK)

Summarizes a study that gathered information from 375 teachers regarding the most harmful mistakes they believed their school principals made. The most significant mistakes included ineffective human relations, poor interpersonal communications, insufficient educational priorities, avoidance of conflict, failure to lead, lack of knowledge about…

To maintain the highest degree of ethical conduct, superintendents must avoid illegal practices, favoritism, questionable affiliations, and abuses of power. They must be transparent in business dealings, follow board policies and bylaws carefully, encourage participative decision making, treat everyone equally, and be highly visible and…

Discusses the value for administrators of guidance offered by (1) the tenets of poststructuralism; (2) the book "An Uncertain Glory: Letters of Cautious but Sound Advice to Stanley, a Dean-in-Waiting"; and (3) Machiavelli's "Il Principe." (NH)

This national study of academic deans examined the social and cognitive dimensions underlying disciplinary variations in respondents' self reports of their administrative behavior. Discriminant analyses identified significant linear functions that distinguished behaviors of deans from hard/pure, hard/applied, soft/pure, and soft/applied discipline…

The purpose of this study was to assess administrators' professionally and personally inviting behaviors and examine whether administrators' reported behaviors were correlated with school rankings, job satisfaction, school climate, or time spent on instructional leadership. Overall, both principals and assistant principals reported engaging in…

This article utilizes an acceptance of an evolutionary pattern in how humans have understood the nature of leadership in order to extend this pattern into the 21st century. Based on the works of numerous writers, such as Gebser, Sorokin, Bellah, Habermas, Foucault, Berger, and Wilber, it is possible to outline the origins of predominant worldviews…

As the Society of Research Administrators International enters its 40th anniversary, it will become necessary to critically evaluate the state of the research administration profession to chart new directions and new ideas, and to solidify our educational, professional and scholarly agendas for the future. What follows is a critical synthesis and…

While the interview remains the most relevant process by which information about an applicant can be obtained, the effective school administrator must recognize that the interview process is much more than exploring an applicant's qualifications, skills, and experiences. The interview must also be utilized as a means of leading. In other words,…

There is a plethora of information about the qualities and skills needed to be a good educational leader. The focus, however, is usually on what educational leaders "should do" rather than on what they "should not do." This paper presents findings of a study that identified the mistakes that school administrators, educational leaders, or…

Most research supports the teaching of language arts in an integrated program. This topical bibliography and commentary addresses: how integrated language arts is carried out by school administrations; how integrated language arts is carried out by the teacher; whether integrated instruction helps improve learning performance in reading and…

Reflects on what schools must do to become genuine learning organizations. Traditional organizational culture was typically inward looking, centralized, and insular. Bureaucratic systems make schools structurally ineffective. Mintzberg's varied government and normative-control models are less suitable for education than Alfred C. Crane's…

The presidents of the University of California Berkeley, Central Connecticut State University, Colorado College, and the University of North Carolina explain their actions to support academic freedom in controversies concerning Middle Eastern studies at their respective institutions. (EV)

Notes that the principal's role in instructional development of schools has been the focus of educational research for 20 years. Suggests that the principal must model such actions to teachers, parents, and other staff members, as well as to students. Notes that principals should take note of the workings of the classroom and interact with…

Explored how a select group of retired community college presidents constructed their concepts of themselves as leaders. Through in-depth interviews these former presidents mapped the course of their leadership through seven approaches: empowering, energizing, healing, inspiring, revealing, cultivating, and humanizing the organization and its…