We know little about the amount of career preparation offered to students in political science departments. This lack of information is particularly troubling given the state of the current job market and the growth of applied degree programs on university campuses. To address this issue, this article presents the results of a December 2010 survey…

There is an adage common among deans and provosts: The board is concerned with the care and feeding of the president; the faculty is concerned with the care and feeding of the faculty. The implication--and why it brings a knowing smile to any chief academic officer's face--is that no one seems concerned with the care and feeding of the CAO. Small…

Do academic administrators make decisions about resource allocation differently depending on the discipline receiving the funding? Does an administrator's academic identity influence these decisions? This study explored those questions with a sample of 1,690 academic administrators at doctoral-research universities. Participants used fictional…

The role and responsibilities of the chair of an academic department in higher education is considered from the perspective of both actor and agent, within the context of the institution being served and the department being represented. The intent of this article is to further research on the role of department chair by analyzing it in the…

Students with complaints about faculty members--baseless or otherwise--take up a great deal of a typical department head's day. This author, a department chairman for seven years, supervised close to 200 full-time and part-time faculty members, and received complaints about every single one. At least 70 percent of those complaints were of the "my…

In this article, the author addresses classroom teachers, department heads, and supervisors who have direct contact with students and what they learn. They need to tell students, parents, policymakers, and everyone else that social studies is critical and that the NCSS mission statement is not just a nice set of words, but absolutely crucial to…

Mid-career faculty comprise the largest component of the academic workforce. But what do people really know about them? What do they experience? What are their needs? In contrast to the large and growing body of empirical research on their early-career colleagues, the research on them is far from robust, offering relatively few suggestions for how…

Research has long accorded heads of subject departments a key middle leadership role in secondary schools. Unfortunately, researchers have found that the exact nature of this leadership is "blurred" in that it is difficult to isolate its distinctive qualities. In addition, there are also debates concerning whether professional and emotional…

The purpose of this study was to explore the factors affecting ICT adoption process and the implications for faculty training and technology leadership. Respondents represented a wide range of academic and professional positions. They identified themselves as Assistant, Associate, and Professor as well as Instructional Designer, Director of…

This study explores middle-level administrators' perceptions of the implementation of English as a foreign language curriculum policies in the Chinese tertiary context. Drawing on data collected from interviews with the department heads of six universities in a north-western city in China, the article examines their perspectives on the national…

Human resources is in an excellent position in many institutions to initiate collaboration and cooperation with other campus departments. In this article, the leaders of the departments of HR and academic resources at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, share their insights on the importance of partnership-building on campus and describe how a…

A discussion of conflict in academic departments describes current philosophies in conflict resolution, including a principled approach emphasizing positive benefits. Structures within organizations that inherently create conflict are identified, and various strategies for dealing with conflict are outlined based on one theory of response modes.…

A discussion of college faculty renewal looks at the word's etymology and at concrete ways for departments and their administrators to promote quality faculty research. It also describes four archetypal examples of faculty in need of research renewal, each related to literary history and the workings of a research committee. (Author/MSE)

Inaugurates a new column addressed to those in language arts leadership positions, particularly the English department chair and the district and state supervisor or consultant, but also other English education administrators. Describes scope of the column and solicits suggestions for articles. Discusses the role of chairs and consultants in…

In this study, the transformation of a Kenyan public university through marketisation and privatisation was investigated qualitatively. By focusing on senior university administrators, deans, department heads, union leaders, student leaders and senior scholars at Kenyatta University the study identified the reasons for, and strategies used to…