Academic Leadership Advice: Understanding What is Within Your Power

Most of us who have found our way into academic administration (surely, few of us actually plan such a career) have learned to survive the whitewater rafting experiences of academe by drawing on reserves of stoic patience and calm rationality we never knew we had. That is to say, Epictetus lives today in many an academic administrator’s office, perhaps sitting like some modern-day Jiminy Cricket on the administrator’s shoulder, saying, “Patience, my friend. Be strong and endure, for this too will pass.”

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Student-Centered Teaching: The Academic Leader’s Role in Shifting Paradigms

During the past 10 years or so, higher education institutions have made strides in transitioning from an instructor-centered approach to a learner-centered approach to teaching. These strides, both large and small, have transformed the college classroom environment to provide students with greater opportunities for active learning, collaboration, and engagement.

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Promoting Teaching Excellence: What Departments Can Do

On Tuesday’s post, we discussed an Oxford University study that looked at departments recognized for their excellence in teaching at 11 research-intensive universities. Based on what they learned, Christopher Knapper and Sergio Piccinin, two of the researchers who conducted this study, offer the following advice:

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The 10 Commandments of Grant Writing

In the world of grant writing there are two ways to begin: 1.) You can develop an idea that will solve a critical program or concern on your campus and then look for an agency or other funding source with a similar vision; or 2.) You can research funding sources to see who has money to spend and use the RFP as inspiration to bring about change.

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Do Learning Styles Matter?

There’s been a lot written about learning styles. More than 650 books published in the United States and Canada alone. Do a Google search on “learning styles” and you get over 2,000,000 results. Most people know if they’re a visual, auditory, or kinesthetic learner, and instructors often try to design their courses to accommodate the different learning styles so as to ensure that each student’s strongest modality is represented in some fashion.

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