Many challenges face community; technical, and junior colleges as they prepare for the 21st century. The more than 1,400 community colleges in the United States and Canada are led by approximately 14,000 academic deans and department heads, each of whom must balance the demands of the students, faculties, sponsors, community, and the college itself. As college enrollments increase, so do responsibilities, problems, and stress. Fur-ther stress will come to bear upon com-munity colleges in the next decade, when 40% of their academic leaders are expected to retire. There is justifiable concern about the identification, recruitment, and preparation of individuals to assume vacant leadership positions. Academic Leadership in Community Colleges provides the neces-sary touchstones and guidelines for per-sons within institutions preparing for new leadership. Written by professional educators, this book is based on a survey of 3,000 deans and department heads in community col-leges in the United States and Canada. The survey disclosed the broad variety of responsibilities, organizational structures, and developmental strategies exercised by academic leaders in community colleges from coast to coast. The research was conducted by the Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and supported by the National Community College Chair Academy. Introductory chapters present compara-tive information about community col-leges: their various missions, instructional units, and demographic situations. Other chapters focus on the beliefs and values, tasks, skills, competition, and challenges that greet academic leaders. Readers will find useful strategies for confronting frequent problems and procedures for achieving greater college cohesion and efficiency.

In Positive Academic Leadership, Jeffrey Buller offers new insights and practical tools, as well as language and tactics, for fostering a more effective approach to leadership. With acumen and a dash of humor, he shows leaders how they can take the focus off the negative and change what they say, their perspectives, and their strategies. This more constructive leadership style plays to the strengths of leaders rather than to the weaknesses of their institutions. Offering time-tested and fresh ideas for becoming the type of leader who acts as a coach, counselor, and conductor for faculty, staff, and students, Buller demonstrates how positive leadership can become a day-to-day practice. With its down-to-earth style, the book draws on the most current research on positive leadership in neuroscience, psychology, management, organizational behavior, and other disciplines and translates their lessons into readable and accessible recommendations. It then makes these recommendations come to life by providing real-world examples that illustrate how to implement positive leadership strategies in all spheres of the leader’s activities and institution. Positive Academic Leadership is a wise guide for transforming any leader’s attitude about inevitable daily crises into manageable challenges that are based on a philosophy of accepting the environment and situation but working to make things better.

Anticipate, manage, and overcome the complex issues facing community colleges Practical Leadership in Community Colleges offers a path forward through the challenges community colleges face every day. Through field observations, reports, news coverage, and interviews with leaders and policy makers, this book digs deep into the issues confronting college leaders and provides clear direction for managing through the storm. With close examination of both emerging trends and perennial problems, the discussion delves into issues brought about by changing demographics, federal and state mandates, public demand, economic cycles, student unrest, employee groups, trustees, college supporters, and more to provide practical guidance toward optimal outcomes for all stakeholders. Written by former presidents, including a past president of the American Association of Community Colleges, this book provides expert guidance on anticipating and managing the critical issues that affect the entire institution. Both authors serve as consultants, executive coaches, and advisors to top leaders, higher education institutions, and leadership development programs throughout the United States. Community colleges are facing increasingly complex issues from both without and within. Some can be avoided, others only mitigated—but all must be managed, and college leaders must be fully prepared or risk failing the students and the community. This book provides real-world guidance for current and emerging leaders and trustees seeking more effective management methods, with practical insight and expert perspective. Tackle the college completion challenge and performance-based funding initiatives Manage through economic cycles, declining support, and calls for accountability Delve into the issues of privatization and employee unionization Execute strategies to align institutional goals and mission Manage organizational change and new ways of thinking that are essential in today's competitive environment Manage issues involving diversity, inclusiveness, and equity Prepare adequately for campus emergencies Community colleges are the heartbeat of the nation's higher education system, and bear the tremendous responsibility of serving the needs of a vast and varied student body. Every day may bring new issues, but effective management allows institutions to rise to the challenge rather than falter under pressure. Practical Leadership in Community Colleges goes beyond theory to provide the practical guidance leadership needs to more effectively lead institutions to achieve results and serve the students and the community.

This edited collection is the first book to address the topic of how leaders work with teams to manage and transform community colleges. There is a need to develop better leadership teams in order to administer community colleges effectively and to improve these organizations, whether it be an individual campus, multi-college system or state-wide organization. Edited by two long-time leaders in the field, the book includes contributions from many other experienced leaders and scholars of community colleges.

Two-year colleges are facing major change. The majority will undergo a turnover in college presidencies in the next ten years, at a time when they are being asked to be engines for economic growth, enable more students – and a greater diversity of students – to gain 21st century qualifications, and provide a pathway to higher degrees, all with reduced state and local funding. Recognizing that future community college leaders – at all levels– will manage increasingly complex organizations, and face very different challenges than their predecessors, this book provides a multidimensional model of leadership suited to these new demands and environments. The model addresses issues of leader cognition, race and gender, the importance of culture, and the need for more collaborative modes of communication and decision making to frame and implement change. It recognizes that there is no longer any one way to lead, and that the next generation of leaders will be more diverse, possess experience and qualifications from a wider variety of careers, and follow new pathways to their positions. Leaders in the future will possess a cultural competency that is fostered by being lifelong learners.Through over 75 individual interviews with leaders and campus members, Eddy is able to provide examples of the model’s components in practice and to illuminate which experiences proved the most relevant for these leaders on their route to upper administration. She shows how her model intersects with the leadership competencies defined by the American Association of Community Colleges, and proposes strategies for future leadership development. This book is intended for anyone considering a leadership position, at any level, in a community college; for college administrators and boards responsible for leadership development programs; and for individuals in corresponding organizations who conduct training programs for aspiring leaders. Likewise, those employed at four-year universities may find value in the model as a developmental tool.

Winner of the 2012 ASHE/CAHEP Barbara Townsend Lecture AwardTo prosper and thrive in an increasingly unpredictable national and global environment, U.S. higher education will need to adapt, innovate, and evolve once again, as it has during every major societal change over the past four centuries.The purpose of this new edition, published a turbulent decade after the first, is to provide institutional leaders -- from department chairs to trustees -- with a broad understanding of the academic enterprise, strategic guidance, and key principles, to assist them in navigating the future and drive the success of their institutions as they confront the unimagined.Recognizing that the hallmark of higher education in the U.S. is the diversity of institution types, each of which is affected differently by external and internal influences, the authors provide examples and ideas drawn from the spectrum of colleges and universities in the not-for-profit sector.This book covers the major functions and constituent departments and units within institutions; the stakeholders from students and faculty through the echelons of administration; the external environment of elected officials, foundations, philanthropists, and the new changing media; and innovations in teaching, technology, data analytics, legal frameworks, as well as economic, demographic, and political pressures.The book is informed by the proposition that adhering to four principles--which the authors identify as having enabled institutions of higher education to successfully navigate ever-changing and volatile pasts--will enable them to flourish in the coming decades:The four principles are:1. Be mission centric by making all key decisions based on a core mission and set of values.2. Be able to adapt to environmental change in alignment with the mission and core values.3. Be committed to democratic ideals by seeking to promote them and modeling democratic practices on and off campus.4. Be models for inclusion, equity, and positive social change.

This book presents leaders and aspiring leaders in community colleges with a theoretical and practical framework for analyzing their leadership styles, and determining the dimensions of leadership they need to improve in order to strengthen their capacity to resolve complex issues and effectively guide their institutions. It does so through presenting theories about leadership that are congruent with the notions of equity, access, diversity, ethics, critical inquiry, transformational change, and social justice that drive the missions of community colleges, and at the same time provides the reader with the strategic skills to prepare for and navigate the profound changes ahead.Readers will gain an understanding of how to use theory as a tool to guide their practice, better understand the intricacies of the issues confronting them, the power dynamics and organizational context in which they operate, predict potential outcomes, and develop processes to achieve desired outcomes. Utilizing theory in conjunction with case study analysis provides community college leaders with the tools needed to comprehensively interrogate and inform decision-making processes. The authors provide a number of rich and realistically complex case studies, all of which are situated in a community college environment, to which readers can apply the various theories and perspectives, develop their view about the principles and actions most likely to lead to satisfactory outcomes, and hone the approaches to leadership that are authentic to them, and effective. The authors aim to help readers develop the multi-faceted approach to leadership that is essential to running complex organizations. They aim to promote development of the “whole” leader through a three-fold framework of theory, practice, and introspection in context of institutional change. In doing so, leaders will be better equipped to lead community colleges in challenging times.The authors tie AACC’s competencies to the leadership theories they cover, as well as to the analysis of the case studies, and leadership inventories, as an essential framework for developing the skill sets to enact the community college mission.The book is suitable for personal reading and reflection, institutional leadership retreats and training, and as a text for higher education courses.