Vice-chancellor salaries have been a topic of media interest and scholarly research for decades. In recent years, however, the media's interest and criticism of vice-chancellors' salaries has escalated, as negativity surrounding university performance and administration has led to a significant increase in articles concerning these matters. This…

Community college presidents often get advice about how to land a job or, once hired, how to be more effective leaders, but they do not hear as much about their role in preparing their institutions for life after their service. Three successful community college presidents share how they left a legacy at their respective community colleges by…

Utilising critical theory, we explored the causes of the conflict that arose between academic staff on fixed-term renewable contracts and university administrators at Mzuzu University in Malawi in order to draw lessons. We collected data using semi-structured, in-depth interviews and document analysis. Ten university employees were purposively…

Amy Morrison Goings was 40 years old in 2013 when she began her presidency at Lake Washington Institute of Technology. She didn't consider herself a representative of all Generation X community college presidents, but as a member of this tight-knit group, she does feel a need to share her insight into what's on the minds of that community.…

Successful transitions involving a formal role for the former president, such as chancellor, are rare enough that the authors think theirs is an exceptional experience and is worth sharing, especially given the bulge of presidential retirements anticipated over the next decade. The authors believe that this model of transition can be successful,…

There will be an increase in the number of college and university presidencies becoming vacant due to retirements over the next several years. Since most of the incumbents, including provosts and presidents (the largest source for new presidents), are Baby Boomers, the pool of potential replacements is likely to include more candidates, such as…

This study examined how a group of community college presidents and board of trustee chairpersons from New York and Florida viewed the competencies, characteristics, and professional skills identified by the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) (2005) as important for effective community college leadership. In addition, the presidents…

With the average age of faculty members going up and the number of students expected to go down, many colleges are encouraging professors to retire. That is not a universal urge--in some regions of the country, like the Southwest, colleges anticipate rising enrollments, and in some disciplines, like nursing, skilled faculty members are in short…

This article reports on the University of North Carolina's "phased-retirement" plan, which lets professors formally ease their way into retirement. The challenges of personnel planning in the North Carolina system, made tougher when higher education was stripped of a mandatory retirement age 14 years ago, have lessened because the…

Literature lacks documentation on the leadership characteristics of public community college faculty. As higher education institutions begin to prepare for what appears to be a current leadership retirement wave, it is important for community colleges to begin searching for replacements. The research was conducted to explore self-perceived…

Faculty members and administrators should not assume that their colleges will pick up their medical bills during their retirement. Medicare benefits are not guaranteed that they will remain the same. Experts believe that the Medicare trust fund that pays for retiree hospital care will go bankrupt by 2019. As such, insurance experts are now urging…

In the late 1990s, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation made grants to study people's attitudes toward retirement and to determine what factors influenced their decisions to retire. Although faculty were not talking to college administrators or human-resources departments about health care, the researchers found to their surprise that when they…

Experts and leaders within most fields possess knowledge that is largely tacit and unconscious in nature. The leaders of most organizations do not "know what they know" and cannot share their knowledge with others. The loss of this essential knowledge is of major concern to organizations. This study tested an innovative method of tacit…

Results of a new survey of family-friendly benefits by the Center for the Education of Women at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor show that stopping the tenure clock has become the most common family-friendly benefit in higher education, following paid maternity leave. Other family-friendly policies that top the list in academe allow…

In this article, the author, a former college president, reflects on his career and the challenges of retirement. He shares his experience from career preparation to on-the-job training to succession planning. The author stresses that the decisions college presidents make define the legacies they leave.