Academic Leadership

Preparing Students for the College Experience

Thu, 07 May 2009 09:12:34 PST

Preparing students for College life and most importantly for life beyond high school is a key challenge for many educators and secondary education institutions. Above all, today more than ever, educators must prepare students for the unknown and the unpredictable; careers not yet known to us, opportunities that we can not imagine, and for a world so different that we have no idea what it will look like in thirty or forty years. Hence some of the questions that arise are as follows: what shall we teach our students? What skills do we expect them to develop; and which processes shall we help them cultivate? We (Gialamas and Pelonis) believe that the answers deriving from the teachings of the ancient Greeks, are encompassed in the concept of “Morfosis”.

Morphosis Leadership Being visionaries in a changing world

Thu, 07 May 2009 09:11:24 PST

Living in a rapidly evolving society where change occurs continuously and on multiple levels, has created a need, more than ever before, for leadership that reflects this new reality. The changes in demographics, the forming of multicultural families, the diversity on an economic, educational, social and ethnic level, as well as the further rise of multinational corporations are all changes that are challenging traditional values and principles. Thus the quest for Authentic Leadership is rising, and it is an idea which implies that leadership is very personal. Why Authentic leadership? One might ask. Because, “there is evidence of the desire for authenticity all around us in popular culture”. (Goffee & Jones, 2006, p.3)

Peggy Pelonis

Thu, 07 May 2009 09:02:25 PST

y cant they rite?: Integrating Writing Assessment Across the Undergraduate Political Science Major

Tue, 05 May 2009 09:52:16 PST

Historically, student assessment in the Political Science Department at Fort Hays State University was left to the individual faculty member to embed into his or her courses via exams and writing assignments. Our curriculum and learning objectives were based largely on faculty interest in particular courses and on broad perspectives of what substantive knowledge a political science major should demonstrate. Over the years, writing courses such as advanced research methods and upper division theory courses served as unofficial capstone experiences. As such, approaches and expectations varied depending upon who was delivering the course.

Bryan Bennett

Tue, 05 May 2009 09:49:56 PST

Shala Mills

Tue, 05 May 2009 09:45:47 PST

Front_page Vol7 Issue 2

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 10:12:28 PST

E is for Elephant, J is for Jackass: The Role of Politics in Education

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 09:50:41 PST

Under the regime of No Child Left Behind the relationship between K-12 education and politics has drastically changed. Retention issues and funding formulas continue to keep institutions of higher education in a state of flux as well. Teachers and faculty members feel the impact of the pervasive activity of these mandates as well as the overwhelming presence of politics. Politics is playing a vital role in the running and decision-making within the educational arena. Teachers and educational administrators are torn as to their role in education today. This position paper looks at defining the roles inside education in regards to education and politics in hopes of gleaning some definition by which teachers can better know the impact of their role(s) as well as the impact of politics on the institutional organizations and decision-making models.

Michael Miles

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 09:49:25 PST

Online Graduate Study in Education: An Examination of Tuition Costs and Faculty Salaries for Public, Private, and Proprietary Institutions of Higher Learning in Texas

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 09:43:20 PST

Online education continues to be a growing trend in higher education. Changes in student demographics, rising tuition costs, and a national recession are just a few of the factors that have created the need for greater ease and access to academia. The move to offer online programs creates new problems for institutions of higher education including increased faculty salaries and/or incentives for faculty and the potential to create additional fees and higher tuition for distance education. The current study first examined previous research concerning potential problems related to offering online programs and the rationale for doing so. Research questions were developed related to differences that existed in faculty salaries, total tuition costs, and gender distributions between Texas institutions of higher education offering online graduate degrees in education and those who do not. Online graduate degrees are defined as those offering 51% or more of the course work online. Extractions from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) database included only Texas public institutions for the 2006 academic year and provided the number of graduate degrees conferred in the field of education by gender, average 9 month faculty salary, in-state tuition, and in-state fees. Findings indicate no statistical differences in faculty salaries, total tuition costs, and gender distributions. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.

Impaired Faculty: Helping Academics Who Are Suffering from Serious Mental Illness

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 09:37:41 PST

Mental illness affects nearly every family, so it is unsurprising that some university faculty suffer from debilitating mental illnesses. Impaired professionals – whose illnesses prevent them from adequately performing required occupational duties – may behave in a range of highly concerning ways, including inaccurately computing student grades; overlooking important research or administrative deadlines; teaching classes while intoxicated; and many others. To cope, university administrators must confront impaired individuals and discuss solutions. Administrators have ethical and legal obligations to ensure job-related duties are completed competently. Administrators also should take steps to prevent mental illness among their faculty by decreasing work-related stress whenever possible.

David Schwebel

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 09:35:57 PST

Curriculum Reform in American Public High Schools and Its Impact on Minority Students

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 09:32:23 PST

The objective of this study is to outline the problems with the present American high school curriculum, examine its impact on falling graduation rates, increasing achievement gaps and rising number of students that require remediation especially among minority students. The paper adopted Ralph W. Tyler’s principles of curriculum-building as a framework in an attempt to provide recommendations on how a revised curriculum could alter these negative statistics. A review of the literature revealed that making mandatory college and career preparatory curricula could go a long way in revitalizing American high school education especially among minority students.

Jayesh D'Souza

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 09:31:38 PST

Perceptual Chasm Between Industry and Academic Leaders on the Quality of Higher Education

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 09:20:05 PST

Higher Education portals in India are expected to deliver quality outcomes to the stakeholders namely Industry, Public and Higher Educational Institutions. But the expectation of the Leaders of various sectors has a different perspective towards these outcomes. This paper proposes to address the Gap in the quality perceptions of the Leaders of academia and Industry sectors. It will divulge the perceptual divide between the Academia and the Industry leaders with respect to the quality outcomes of the students and the teaching faculty. This in turn will ably support the policymakers (The Govt) and the Higher Educational Leaders to design and implement best practices in Higher Educational Institutions. This will result in quality education which will be in line with the expectations / perceptions of the Industry Leaders. Consequently it will streamline the education process in tune with the demand for quality students in the Globalised environment

B.Rajasekaran

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 09:19:03 PST

S.Rajasingh

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 09:13:37 PST

How do you go from ‘Good’ to ‘Outstanding’?

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 09:10:52 PST

Rima Aboudan

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 09:07:15 PST

The Impact of Leadership on Community College Faculty Job Satisfaction

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 09:04:34 PST

This quantitative study examined full-time faculty currently teaching within the sixteen colleges in the Wisconsin Technical College System. The study involved the Leadership Practices Inventory and the Job Satisfaction Survey, and demographic information about each respondent. The results of the study reflected significant relationships between faculty satisfaction with supervision, job satisfaction, contingent rewards, communication, promotion, operating conditions, coworkers, and nature of the work, and faculty ratings of supervisor leadership practices. This study highlights the importance of the relationship between job satisfaction and evaluations of leadership practices of the supervisor for use in the recruitment, training, and retention of faculty.