Reframing Academic Leadership

Joan V. Gallos, Lee G. Bolman

• Publisher: Jossey-Bass
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781119663560
• eBook ISBN: 9781119663591
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Administration

Reframing Academic Leadership

Reframing Academic Leadership is the go-to guide for deepening leadership commitment, capacity, and impact. Gallos and Bolman tease out the unique opportunities and challenges in academic leadership and present powerful ideas and tools to guide and assist college and university administrators in:

Creating campus environments that facilitate creativity and commitment

Forging vital alliances and partnerships in service of the mission

Building campus cultures and shared vision that unite and inspire

Crafting institutional structures and strategies that foster innovation and excellence

In this updated edition, the authors integrate time-tested conceptual frameworks with rich and compelling real-world cases and tackle contemporary, high-impact issues such as changes in the professoriate and in student populations, funding shortfalls, equity and social justice, the double-edged sword of technology, managing conflict and crisis, ethics and governance, and strengthening leadership agility and resolve. This readable, intellectually provocative, and pragmatic book is for all who care deeply about higher education, are committed to making it better, and understand its potential to transform lives, families, communities, organizations, and nations. Leadership matters more than ever, and Reframing Academic Leadership offers the seminal framework for understanding and leading in higher education today.

PRAISE FOR REFRAMING ACADEMIC LEADERSHIP | 1st ED

"Reframing Academic Leadership is the most comprehensive book on the topic and an excellent source of knowledge for faculty and managerial leaders in every college and university. An invaluable resource for students of higher education leadership!"
—MAUREEN SULLIVAN, Past President, American Library Association and Association of College and Research Libraries

"Reframing Academic Leadership provides a compassionate understanding of the stresses of leadership in higher education. It offers insights to those who do not fully appreciate why higher education is so hard to 'manage' and validation for those entirely familiar with this world. I recommend it enthusiastically."
—JUDITH BLOCK MCLAUGHLIN, Senior lecturer on education and faculty chair of the Harvard Seminar for New Presidents and the Harvard Seminar for Presidential Leadership, Harvard Graduate School of Education

"Bolman and Gallos provide a refreshing view of leadership essential for those assuming presidencies and other important leadership positions in higher education. This work is a bedside reference for aspiring and current leadership in higher education not only in the U.S. but also abroad."
—FERNANCO LEON GARCIA, President, Sistema CETYS Universidad, Baja California, Mexico

"Bolman and Gallos have written a practical, lucid text that brings together illustrative vignettes and robust frameworks for diagnosing and managing colleges and universities. I recommend it to new and experienced administrators who will routinely confront difficult people, structures, and cultures in their workplaces."
—CHRISTOPHER MORPHEW, Dean, School of Education, Johns Hopkins University

"Reframing Academic Leadership is filled with real-world examples from leaders. The book reads like a guide for leading a chamber music rehearsal where one's role constantly shifts from star to servant and where multiple answers may be 'right'."
—PETER WHITE, Dean and Professor of Conducting, Conservatory of Music, University of the Pacific

Part I
Leadership Epistemology: When You Understand, You Know What to Do

The three chapters in Part I develop a central theme in the book: thinking and learning are at the heart of effective academic leadership. Colleges and universities are complex institutions that put a premium on sensemaking: the ability to decode messy and cryptic events and circumstances. One source of that complexity is the reality that academic institutions are inhabited by people and are designed to foster human creativity and development, which means that all the mysteries of the psyche, human groups, learning, personal and professional growth, and human relationships are central to the everyday work of academic administrators. Effectiveness in such a world requires both self‐knowledge and intellectual tools that enable leaders to understand and decipher the ambiguous situations they regularly face in order to make sensible choices about what to do.

Chapter 1, “A Tale of Two Presidents: Opportunities and Challenges in Academic Leadership,” opens with stories of two prominent university presidents whose careers ended very differently, before digging into the institutional characteristics that make academic leadership unique, rewarding, and tough. It previews many of the central ideas and issues that will be developed in later chapters. Chapter 2, “Sensemaking and the Power of Reframing,” examines everyday epistemology: how leaders come to know and understand their world and work; and how their humanity can limit or enhance their choices, tactics, and strategies. Chapter 3, “Knowing What You're Doing: Learning, Authenticity, and Theories for Action,” extends the discussion of sensemaking to the issue of learning from experience and from relationships with others. Leaders can never prepare for all that they may face. Strong capacities for ongoing learning and self‐reflection are indispensable.

1
A Tale of Two Presidents: Opportunities and Challenges in Academic Leadership

After 13 years as president of Spelman College, Beverly Tatum retired in 2015 amid widespread praise from constituents who credited her for leaving Spelman much stronger than she had found it (Watson, 2014; McAllister‐Grande, 2015). One of her contemporaries, Lou Anna Simon, served almost 15 years¹ as president of Michigan State University but resigned in much less happy circumstances, pushed out in 2018 in the wake of a devastating scandal around a serial sexual abuser. Simon and Tatum were both talented, high achievers, but the stark differences in their presidential denouements are emblematic tales containing vital lessons for contemporary academic leaders.

Tatum was new to Spelman, but came with a record as a distinguished scholar and a successful academic leader at one of America's oldest colleges for women, Mount Holyoke, where she had served as department chair, dean of the college, vice president for student affairs, and acting president. Spelman, when Tatum arrived, had a long history as an elite women's college in the world of historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) but was facing a challenging new environment with increased competition for talented students and faculty from elite institutions with massive endowments, as well as growing infrastructure needs, a revolving door in the provost's office, and low faculty morale (McAllister‐Grande, 2015). Tatum chose to focus on the opportunities the situation presented, describing Spelman as a jewel to be polished and a place that could realistically aim for “nothing less than the best” (McAllister‐Grande, 2015).

Tatum quickly engaged her constituents in an ambitious array of initiatives: a more collaborative and metric‐driven culture, a new 21^st century curriculum, a record‐breaking capital campaign, and stronger infrastructure in key areas like advancement, enrollment management, and technology. She infused new life into an inherited strategic plan by translating its 43 pages into a compelling vision under the acronym Spelman ALIVE (Academic excellence, Leadership development, Improving our environment, Visibility of achievements, and Exemplary customer service). She created myriad opportunities to engage and excite others about it. In 2013, Tatum became the first president of an HBCU to win the prestigious Academic Leadership Award from the Carnegie Corporation. By the time she retired in 2015, Tatum had “gained the respect of her colleagues, her students, and those outside of the world of higher education” (Commodore & Gasman, 2014).

Like Tatum, Lou Anna Simon had years of notable success at her institution. She was a Michigan State alumna whose career at the university spanned more than four decades and was marked by a steady rise to the top administrative positions of provost, interim president, and then president. In 2008, three years after she became president, Simon won many fans by declining a pay raise in a time of fiscal challenges (Haag & Tracy, 2018). Simon retained broad support until shortly before she was swept away by a wave a criticism over her handling of the scandal around Larry Nassar, a physician who had worked for the university for some 20 years as a faculty member and team doctor.

The first accusations against Nassar dated to 1997, but it was not until 2014 that Simon was informed that a Michigan State University physician had been the target of a Title IX investigation (Thomason, 2018). The victim testified that Nassar had massaged her breasts and vagina, but the university's inquiry concluded that Nassar's actions were nonsexual. Nassar was not penalized and continued to see patients (Thomason, 2018). He was only fired two years later when the Indianapolis Star reported that he had been accused of sexual abuse by two women athletes (Evans, Alesia,& Kwiatkowski, 2016). Nassar initially denied everything but eventually pleaded guilty in 2017 to multiple counts of criminal sexual activity.

Simon's presidency still seemed secure until January 2018, when more than 150 women accepted a judge's invitation to attend Nassar's sentencing hearing and share their stories of abuse. Their passionate testimony, punctuated by calls for Simon's resignation, produced a wave of revulsion on and off campus. Michigan State's board initially reaffirmed that Simon was “the right leader for the university” (Kolowich & Thomason, 2018). But the board's resolve evaporated within a few days as a media firestorm and a flood of outraged constituents led to a quick reversal. Simon resigned under pressure, expressing sorrow that a “trusted physician” had inflicted so much harm. In her own defense, she added, “As tragedies are politicized, blame is inevitable. As president, it is only natural that I am the focus of this anger” (Haag & Tracy 2018). After leaving office, Lou Anna Simon was dogged by charges of lying to police about when she first learned of accusations against Nassar (Smith & Davey, 2018; LeBlanc, 2019). A county judge eventually dismissed the charges for insufficient evidence, but Michigan's attorney general affirmed them as “solid” and said that her office likely would appeal the dismissal (Banta, 2020).

These two presidential sagas have much to teach about the similarities and the differences among colleges and universities – and what it takes to lead them. Intellect, skill, experience, and vision are always essential. So is a fit between individual and institution. Simon and Tatum both brought history and skills that aligned with the needs of their respective workplaces. The chair of Spelman's presidential search reported knowing at their first meeting that Tatum was the right person for the job: a visionary leader with the “academic bona fides” that faculty would accept, respect for Spelman's history and culture that alumnae would demand, and demonstrated fund‐raising prowess that Spelman sorely needed (McAllister‐Grande, 2015). Michigan State praised Simon's “strategic and transformative” leadership as vital for adapting the institution's land‐grant heritage to twenty‐first century global challenges, citing accomplishments like the early and above‐goal completion of a $1.5 billion capital campaign and the hiring of more than 70 new faculty members in the university's most promising research areas (Michigan State University, 2020). Skill, strategy, and opportunities to play to one's strengths are foundations of leadership success. Know thyself is a basic requirement for the job.

Every institution of higher education is unique, and its leaders face distinct challenges as a result. Spelman, a small, historically Black, women's liberal arts college in Atlanta with some 2,100 students is a very different place from Michigan State, a vast, public, land‐grant research university with a complex mission serving roughly 50,000 students. Spelman had a “highly personal, loyalty‐driven” campus culture (McAllister‐Grande, 2015), and Beverly Tatum had a personal relationship with a high percentage of Spelman's 600 employees. It was almost impossible for Lou Anna Simon to know all of the 13,000 employees who worked for her university, which multiplied the opportunities for someone, somewhere, to engage in corrupt behavior at a distance from her purview. Context matters, and understanding the unique leadership demands of an institution's culture, size, mission, and organization is vital. These two stories also underscore the importance of luck and of ethical principles: fortune sometimes causes bad things to happen under the watch of even highly competent leaders. When bad things happen to good leaders, how they respond is fateful.

Institutions across the higher education landscape also have much in common. Simon and Tatum faced many of the same challenges that confront leaders throughout higher education – fundraising, recruiting and retaining a talented workforce, fostering academic excellence, balancing complex priorities and budgets, and supporting student success. Both were demographic exceptions in the president's role, given that “[t]he typical college president is a 62‐year‐old white man with a Ph.D. who thinks his faculty just don't get it and that his college never has enough money” (Stripling, 2017). They were also atypical in that both served m...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Preface
• About the Authors
• Part I: Leadership Epistemology: When You Understand, You Know What to Do
• Part II: Reframing Leadership Challenges
• Part III: Leadership Pragmatics: New Ideas for Old Challenges
• Part IV: Leadership in a Changing World
• Part V: Sustaining Higher Education Leaders: Courage, Hope, and Values
• References
• Index
• End User License Agreement