“Make yourself big when you enter a room, when you meet a bear in the woods. Make yourself big. Meet the eyes.” Roger Epp’s poetic meditations about the best, the hardest, the loneliest times of leading a small university campus through significant change are depicted in a series of elegant yet understated prose pieces, alongside images by his life partner, Rhonda Harder Epp. Taking a candid look at the many challenges such a position brings, Roger Epp humanizes, scrutinizes, and upholds t...

In 2015, the New Democratic Party won an unprecedented victory in Alberta. Unseating the Progressive Conservatives-who had won every provincial election since 1971-they formed an NDP government for the first time in the history of the province. Orange Chinook is the first scholarly analysis of this election. It examines the legacy of the Progressive Conservative dynasty, the PC and NDP campaigns, polling, and online politics, providing context and setting the stage. It highlights the impor...

For more than a century academics have had unique rights -- to speak, teach, and write freely. Central to the case for academic freedom is that scholars must be able to voice their views free of fear in order for society to gain a better understanding of ourselves and our world and to be effective teachers.Academic freedom has always faced challenges. Professors have been pressed to alter their work because it offends powerful interests -- both inside and outside the university. So...

Higher Education Assessments: Leadership Matters reflects the work of a select group of researchers, scholars, and practitioners in higher education assessment with the goal of identifying strategies that assist senior campus leaders as they respond to the challenges of a changing economic landscape and political climate. The contributors, experts in the field, bring to the forefront key issues relevant to advancing assessments in higher education-principles that culminate in impr...

This book has two things going for it that are rarely combined—it is fundamentally purposeful and it is useful. As the authors point out, there is a trilogy of needs confronting any business leader with a change agenda and/or transitioning into a new top role: influence, coalition building, and performance consulting. Of the three, performance consulting has received the least amount of attention in both the public and private-sector businesses. Because the focus on performance consulting ...

Covering a timely topic, which is more and more frequently in the news, this book offers vignettes that will sharpen the reader's ability to recognize and respond to difficult situations sparked by identity differences among faculty, staff, and students in college and university settings. The authors provide a systematic guide to addressing interpersonal conflicts that arise out of issues of identity difference, both for individuals and for campus work teams who provide direct service to s...

The American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) reports over 900 presidential transitions in the last five years. It also estimated that nearly 50% of presidents will retire in the next 5 years. The flood of imminent retirements of sitting presidents and other senior leaders from community colleges is widely known. As community colleges are facing unprecedented challenges with the exodus of successful presidents, Generation X leaders are stepping in to fulfill the vacant leadership p...

Leadership is an activity that not only manifests itself in formal positions, but also bubbles up in various places within an organization. Perhaps given the importance of leadership to any endeavor, the literature on this topic has burgeoned. Yet among these titles, Learning to Lead stands out as one of the best texts available on leadership for college and university administrators. Critical skills such as managing people, resolving conflict, and making rational (and legal) decisions are...

Why a strong mission and inspired leadership are vital to the success of America’s colleges and universitiesIn 1998, soon after assuming the presidency of Tulane University, Scott Cowen was confronted with a setback. Despite an undefeated football season and putting the best financial deal on the table, Cowen was unable to retain the school's football coach. The coach wanted something the president didn't have--a football program so popular, as the coach put it, th...

Co-published by Routledge for the American Educational Research Association (AERA)Educational policy continues to be of major concern. Policy debates about economic growth and national competitiveness, for example, commonly focus on the importance of human capital and a highly educated workforce. Defining the theoretical boundaries and methodological approaches of education policy research are the two primary themes of this comprehensive, AERA-sponsored Handboo...

Engaging Risk: A Guide for College Leaders offers presidents, provosts, deans, senior administrators, and faculty leaders a road map for establishing a first-rate program of risk management at their institution. Presenting risk governance as an important component of leadership, Engaging Risk adapts the central concepts of Enterprise Risk Management to a new world very different from the corporations for which ERM was designed. Of special interest to the leaders of small to mid-size libera...

There is an abundance of research saying that not only is leadership in higher education ineffective but also that it actually undermines the essential work that should be happening in universities. Christopher M. Branson, Maureen Marra, Margaret Franken and Dawn Penney provide a new insight into leadership that has proven to be far more effective for all involved – the transrelational approach to leadership. This new way of leading places an emphasis on the importance of the relationships...