Elizabeth H. Bradley has served as president of Vassar College since 2017.
Why was the faculty leadership program established – in particular, what were the skills and insights they don’t usually learn during their Ph.D. journey that were missing – and what are the goals for participants?
We established the faculty leadership program to strengthen shared governance in higher education.
- A unique and important aspect of many liberal arts colleges is large decisions – about curriculum, promotion and tenure, and even faculty salary budget allocations – made jointly by administration and faculty. Shared governance ensures the academic mission has a firm role in guiding the institution.
- These responsibilities cannot be executed effectively if faculty do not have sufficient training and experience in leadership and governance practices – topics rarely covered in their academic preparation. Suddenly, they find themselves on a key committee or chairing their department without needed skills or confidence in strategic problem-solving, group dynamics, management and leadership.
- Without these skills, faculty can become quickly fatigued or burned out taking on leadership roles integral to shared governance. We wanted to equip faculty with skills and capacity to thrive in institutional management, leadership and governance roles.
Vassar College
What does the program consist of and what has the response been, especially in terms of what faculty want and need in order to build the necessary skills to become leaders at their institutions?
We do a lot of work on strategic problem-solving and group dynamics.
- Through a variety of experiential learning techniques, participants learn to diagnose and influence organizational culture as well as recognize and address group-level (rather than individual-level) determinants of conflict.
- Participants also learn and practice the nuts and bolts of management, leadership and governance – how to plan and run an effective meeting, how to manage a project, how to supervise staff and how to align peers to a shared goal.
What lessons have been learned from this undertaking that would be helpful for other institutions? What advice would you offer for those trying to address this issue?
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Leadership in higher education has particularities that are important to recognize as distinct from leadership in other fields.
- Higher education has a dual authority structure that has to be balanced (e.g., the academic structure of peers and the more management structure of administration).
- The product of academic work is difficult to measure, and institutions have multiple objectives (rather than a simple profit motive found in many industries), the mission is about creativity, exploration and innovation.
- Education is about relationships and growth, not just a set of tasks.
Together these properties of higher education necessitate nuanced approaches to leadership that avoid top-down solutions and cookie-cutter methods. At the same time, low-hanging fruit is abundant.
- Faculty are quick learners, and they are hungry to learn these skills and continue in their prominent roles influencing the future of higher education.
- So far, 100% of those completing our leadership development program have rated themselves as very satisfied and reported they would recommend it to a colleague.
