To accelerate scientific progress by advancing the spread of open access and free and open source software and hardware in academia, this study surveyed university professors in Canada to determine their willingness accept "open source (OS) endowed chair professorships." To obtain such an "open source endowed chair," in…

Interdisciplinary research provides new insight beyond a singular epistemological and methodological framework. Such collaboration can help increase readership outside a narrow disciplinary angle. Likewise, working with scholars outside one's field can help address new questions using a multidimensional approach. However, working within an…

The purpose of this research was to investigate whether a mid-sized public university could create a more coherent and efficient undergraduate curriculum over a short period of time with minimal resources. We pursued this question using an action research design. Using a curriculum model, we developed that focused on foundational, breadth, and…

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, universities around the globe have taken numerous extraordinary measures and implemented many changes to their strategic, operational, and academic activities. Currently, there is a transformation taking place from the emergency decision-making in the early stages of the pandemic towards reflection and…

This study aims to determine the needs, expectations, problems and experiences of international students in the process of distance education. To this end, phenomenology design was used, and university students representing different departments and countries were selected through a purposive sampling method. A total of 11 international students…

The private return to postsecondary investment varies widely by field, but the resources required by different fields are not well known. This paper establishes five new facts about college costs using novel department-level data. First, costs vary widely across field, ranging from electrical engineering (109 percent higher costs than English) to…

The Czech higher educational system has transformed over the past three decades from a state-centred model evolving via strong academic autonomy to the current system, which is characterised by academic freedom but also heightened pressure to produce measurable research output. The purpose of this study was to explore how Czech academic middle…

Leadership of academic units, in the guise of headship of departments, is crucial for the ongoing well-being of academic life and yet it remains a contested role. This paper argues for the role of heads of department (HODs) as academic leaders, with the managerial side of the role occupying an important but subsidiary place in its overall focus.…

The Southern Education Foundation (SEF) engaged a group of 13 Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in a study of institutional effectiveness. The purpose of this study was to: (1) identify the issues related to capacity and institutional practice that contribute to overall campus effectiveness; and (2) to understand what, and how,…

Objective: The authors analyze the change, growth, and healing process of the Department of Psychiatry and Health Behavior at the Medical College of Georgia School of Medicine, which came close to its demise when the department Chair and a senior faculty member were arrested and charged with criminal misconduct related to financial transactions in…

Against the background of vast changes in doctoral education and the emergence of non-traditional doctoral programmes, this paper investigates the habitus of non-traditional PhD students at a South African university. Bourdieu's conceptual tool of habitus informed the study. In-depth and open-ended interviews were conducted with 10 non-traditional…

The author reports on the reigning economic calculus that helps to drive constant expansion and poor utilization of space on many campuses. The author states that colleges could charge for utilities, which might encourage departments to save energy. Most American colleges do not charge for space--in part because doing so would raise the hackles of…

Dwindling resources, the challenges of providing postsecondary remedial education, and an environment that emphasizes outcomes assessment are realities that confront the community college department chair. The role of the department chair is particularly challenging in the community college context due to accountability pressures, fiscal…

This paper will revisit French theorists, Gilles Deleuze and Jacques Derrida, on the notion of the future of philosophy. Although their approaches to the future ("devenir" [to become] for Deleuze and "a venir" [to come] for Derrida) of philosophy may differ, I will argue that their differences allow for a space of congruence and continuity in the…

Purpose: The purpose of this research is to analyze traditional duties of academic administrators in light of fundamental changes in the ways universities operate, increasing demands in teaching, research and costs management, and a looming shortage of qualified faculty, to determine need and opportunity for a better administrative design.…