ELAF 786 Academic Leadership in H.E.
Summary 1 – Curriculum Quality
By: Ronald M. Oler, Ph.D. – First Published on September 13, 2006

The quality of the curriculum will have an effect on the overall quality of the academy. Poorly planned courses with poor connections to overall program objectives will lead to a reduced quality experience for the students and faculty. Therefore, curriculum quality is a key concern among all stakeholders of higher education – from policymakers to administrators and faculty to students and their parents. Some contemporary measures of curriculum quality include the following:
 Faculty Salaries
 Student to Faculty Ratios
 Class Sizes
 Student Preparedness, i.e. SAT/ACT and/or Entrance Exam Scores
 Faculty Credentials
 Faculty Loading
 Faculty Teaching Experience
 Course Connectedness to Program Objectives
 Relevance and Applicability of a Given Degree Program
 Employability of Graduates
 Facilities and Equipment
This is neither an exhaustive list, nor a hierarchical one. However, this list would provide a good foundation to use to develop metrics for comparing different program areas of study and different institutions. It should also be noted that this list applies to contemporary higher education. In the early days of America’s history, its colleges taught mostly Latin, Greek, and Hebrew as their young male students were there to study for either the clergy or law. It is because of the varied program areas of studies in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century that society has sought to measure quality using the above listed rubrics.
However, my inquiry would be how to effectively weight each item of interest. For example, is it more crucial for quality that class size be small, which could increase the total number of courses being taught, or would it be better to increase class size and reduce the total number of courses being taught by each full-time faculty member. In other words, if faculty loading calls for a full-time professor to teach 4 courses with an average class size of 15 students, would quality improve if the same professor taught only 2 courses with 30 students in each? Which would be of higher quality? Sixty students, paying the same amount of tuition, would be taught by the same professor using either example.
I believe that overall quality would improve if the professor had only two preps per week instead of four. However, in order for this to work, students would have to be academically prepared, which is another quality issue. I suppose that a complete system would need to be developed in order to improve the overall quality of the curriculum.
Another concern is to always keep the abilities of the student in the forefront when designing curriculum. Students should be admitted to program areas of study only after they have met all prerequisites, including remedial coursework as needed. Serving the students should be the key determinant in measuring curriculum quality. The curriculum should meet the student where they are, then propel them to where they want to be.

ELAF 786 Academic Leadership in H.E.
Summary 2 – Faculty Productivity
By: Ronald M. Oler, Ph.D. – First Published on October 4, 2006.

Measuring Faculty Productivity is a sensitive topic in academe and it seems to have shifted over recent decades from the individual’s to the institution’s perspective. Every institution will have its own rubrics for measuring faculty productivity. Some larger institutions, especially research universities, will be divided into colleges and schools which may have a different set of rubrics. Furthermore, these colleges and schools may be sub-divided into departments and programs. Therefore, no one simple tool exists with which all faculty can be measured. Productivity must be calculated in light of the individuals, programs, departments, schools, colleges, and university’s mission, vision, and goals.
Working toward agreed-upon and well-defined short- and long-term goals, that lead to fulfillment of a group’s goals should be the first rubric in measuring faculty productivity. Because goals lead to mission fulfillment and mission fulfillment lead to the success of the institution, which should be the end game. The following are some areas that should be considered when creating a formula to measure faculty productivity:
 Evidence of working toward and meeting or exceeding the faculty member’s individual goals and objectives
 Evidence of working toward and meeting or exceeding the group’s goals and objectives including:
o Teaching load
 Quantity of courses taught
 Quality of instruction (measured by students, peers, and supervisors)
o Research load
 Number of publications
o Service load (both internal and external to the institution)
 Quantity of student advising
 Quality of student advising
 Departmental meetings attended and level of participation on committees (also ties into service load)
 Office hours posted and kept
o Continuing education
o Conferences attended and presentations delivered

Further development of a rubric for measuring faculty productivity would include weighting or factoring the items listed above by rank of importance to the faculty member and their working group – program, department, school, college, etc. Also, any rubric developed to measure faculty productivity must also consider quality in the mix. Some evaluative measure of the quality of teaching, research, and service must also be considered.
Also, some stakeholders have recommended that student learning, persistence, graduation rates, and employment after graduation statistics should also be factors when measuring faculty productivity. But, student persistence, graduation rates, and employability will include factors outside of the faculty’s control including: socio-economic status, cognitive abilities, personal preferences, and other choices and activities pursued by the students. In closing, faculty should only be held accountable for those factors they can control.

ELAF 786 Academic Leadership in H.E.
Summary 3 – Issues Facing Academic Leaders
By: Ronald M. Oler, Ph.D. – First Published on October 25, 2006

Academic Leaders face challenges from inside and outside the academy.

Forces within include:
 Financial Management – Budgeting
o Increased Costs
o Declining Revenues
o Finding More Funding Sources to fill-in the Gap
 Just to Maintain Quality, Access, and Efficiency
 Quality of Instruction
o Credentialed Faculty
o Equipped Labs and Classrooms
o Transfer Agreements
 Staffing Issues
o Employee Turnover
o Consistency

Forces from outside include:
 Increased Expectations by Stakeholders
o More and Better Courses
o More and Better Faculty
o More and Better Students
o More and Better Facilities
o Smaller Class Sizes
 Accrediting Bodies
 Peer Pressure among Similar Institutions
 Governments
o Federal Regulations
o State Regulations
o Local Regulations

These are just a few of the internal and external pressures academic leaders are feeling in twenty-first century America. Balancing these forces seems to be a never ending job that serves to reduce their tenure. Someone observed that the average term of an Academic Dean is only six years. It seems that leading an academic group may not be as rewarding as some would expect.
Variations in all aspects of academic leadership are endemic to their perspective institution. At Ivy Tech Community College we cannot afford to hire another full-time faculty member for academic areas of greatest recent growth, because state appropriations are tied to four-year rolling FTE averages. By the time we have funding to hire a new faculty member that particular area may have stabilized or even lost enrollment. By contrast, Harvard University’s endowment is so large that if they received a paltry 3.5% return on their investments, they could fund 100% of their total annual operating costs, including paying all student tuition, without affecting their principal balance.
Financial pressures seem to be the most burdensome for academic leaders and most all other issues appear to be tied to money. Hiring more faculty requires more money, improving labs takes more money, conforming with more governmental regulations takes more money, etc. Therefore, it seems prudent that the best academic leaders of the future will be proficient fund-raisers. They must know how to fill-in-the-gap between declining revenues and increasing costs through philanthropic activities (fund raising). I hope that my experiences working with our Foundation Office, creating a new project last spring, served to educate me in this regard.

ELAF 786 Academic Leadership in H.E.
Summary 4 – Leading Change
By: Ronald M. Oler, Ph.D. – First Published on November 8, 2006

A television commercial depicting cowboys herding cats was created as a marketing tool for EDS, Incorporated several years ago (http://video.google.com; search for herding cats). This allegory could also be applied to leading change in academia. People, like cats, each have their own ideas of how their lives should be organized. Some like to sit around doing very little, while others are constantly bounding around stirring up a cloud of dust wherever they tread. And, herding them all together, heading in the same direction, is nearly impossible. Most will scatter to and fro towards their personal preferences and away from any new system-wide initiatives.
Differences of opinions and experiences serve to make academia the rewarding institution it has become. However, these same forces make it very difficult to manage, or to lead change. So, leading change, managing multiple academic disciplines is akin to herding cats.
The following list shows some skills, competencies, and tools that the effective academic leader will need to master in order to be successful at leading change:
 Clear understanding of their institution’s governance structure, policies, and procedures
 Flexible and adaptable
 Skilled trust builder
 Ability to manage multiple resources
 Excellent priority setting skills
 Consensus builder
 Strategist
 Thick skinned
 System thinker
 Culturally aware
 Accepting of diversity of ideas and behaviors
 Political prowess
 Good listener
 Be a walker, not a sitter – get out of the office and meet people in their spaces
 Act like a goodwill ambassador
 Skilled decision-maker and problem-solver
 Able to differentiate between the tyranny of the moment and true long-term problems
 Skilled critical thinker
Most academic departments on today’s college and university campuses behave more like small entrepreneurial groups than departments of a larger organization. Therefore, changing their behaviors must be tied to some type of reward system – faculty must be able to see how the change will positively affect their futures. The chief academic officer must act not only as a team leader but also as the CEO of a diverse conglomerate.
Balancing every department’s wants and needs with those of the larger organization takes a lot of patience and skill. Balancing also involves changing they way we think; from “my department” to “our institution.”