This embedded-single case study aims to evaluate the efficacy of the 8th-grade music curriculum through the lens of Eisner's Educational Connoisseurship and Criticism Model. An initial survey involving 146 music teachers was conducted to determine the middle school grade-level music curriculum for evaluation. Subsequently, 15 music teachers, six…

Strong collaborative partnerships are critical to the ongoing success of any urban or metropolitan university in its efforts to build the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) career pathways so critical to our nation. At the University of Nebraska at Omaha, we have established a faculty leadership structure of "community…

With strong connection to schoolwide policy and vision and to the realities of the daily life of teachers and students, the department chair is uniquely positioned to play an important role in advancing instructional effectiveness (Printy, 2008; Weller, 2001). This article provides an in-depth look at the efforts of three urban comprehensive high…

Research leadership in Australian universities takes place against a backdrop of policy reforms concerned with measurement and comparison of institutional research performance. In particular, the Excellence in Research in Australian initiative undertaken by the Australian Research Council sets out to evaluate research quality in Australian…

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…

Contemporary secondary schools in Canada and the United States are complex institutions whose organizational structures, program delivery mechanisms, and institutional community members combine to produce distinctive mini-societies within their walls. Replete with complex arrays of rituals, ceremonies, as well as traditions and founded on a…

Describes the authors' experience co-chairing a writing department. Identifies seven key areas where the sharing of writing program administrator duties has resulted in personal, departmental, or institutional benefits. Discusses workload and professional identity, the politics of writing programs, co-directing as post-bureaucratic practice, and…

Two consistent paradigms of the position of a departmental chairman: (1) administrative head, appointed by and accountable to the administration, and (2) representative chairman, elected by colleagues to preside over their collective decision making. (Author/RY)

Reveals how a business model--based on the work of W. Edwards Deming--helped a foreign language department chair become a better leader. Outlines seven principles for department chairs: create constancy of purpose; change and improvement are ongoing; drive out fear; work with suppliers to continually improve the quality of incoming people,…

Intended to draw attention to the need for department chair training, this article uses Michigan State University as a model of faculty development. It illustrates various types of chair training, including general faculty development programs and workshops designed for administrators and chairs. (Contains three references.) (LB)

A project was conducted to develop and evaluate a reality-based simulation model of the role of a Special Education administrator in a state education agency, for use in the training of administrators of Special Education in state education agencies. Three specific objectives of the study were to develop a set of reality-based items based on…

In this article, Black studies is described as both searching for and responding to meaning in the human experience through the Black experience. Based upon Thompson's distinction of ideational and operational roles in any healthy group, a model for administering Black studies programs at the university level is proposed. (GC)

Based on studies comparing leadership in two rural community colleges undergoing change and examining the management of change at Maryland's Allegany College, this paper presents a conceptual framework and model for managing organizational change. First, a framework for understanding the community college chair's role in organizational change is…

This booklet describes a research program that developed eight Educational Leadership Appraisal (ELA) exercises specifically relevant to the roles of middle-management personnel in state education agencies (SEAs). ELA is a performance-based procedure for the observation, assessment, and training of leadership behavior in educational managers and…

Offers four perspectives on dynamic changes in the architecture of power and leadership in one university's large Freshman English writing program as it implemented a more collaborative approach in its administration, reforming a top-down administrative structure into a more egalitarian one. (SR)