Some book titles can hide or confuse. Other titles, though, truthfully convey a book’s essence. Vanessa Grigoriadis, an editor for the New York Times Magazine and Vanity Fair, has written thoughtfully about sexual assault at colleges. It is a difficult topic, emotionally charged and painful. It is a politicized issue – from the right and…
The Best Leadership is Useful Leadership
Ever talk with someone joining the community college world as an employee who doesn’t know all that much about community colleges? If I could only recommend one book – and that person was going to take some sort of leadership role – I would definitely recommend Practical Leadership in Community Colleges: Navigating Today’s Challenges. It is…
A Recipe for Leadership Training
Looking for best and better practice in the community college world? Check out the programs and institutions that are Bellwether Award finalists. The Bellwether College Consortium, through the Community College Futures Assembly, evaluates innovative and successful programs across the nation. In 2005, the Community College of Philadelphia‘s Leadership Institute was a finalist for the Bellwether…
Gen X Community College Leadership: A Sign of the Times?
The United States is home to more than 1,100 community colleges. Since 2012, there have been more than 900 community college presidential transitions. The average tenure of community college presidents is dropping, too, to 6.5 years (a few years back it was 8.5 years). This is a ton of change in a vital part of…
Leadership = Change = Innovation
Way back in 2008, the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) published an interesting book called The Creative Community College: Leading Change Through Innovation. Edited by John E. Roueche, M. Melissa Richardson, Phillip W. Neal and Suanne D. Roueche, the book contains profiles of fourteen community colleges that had grown, changed and made significant improvements.…
Learning Leadership – Going Primal?
Leadership – who is a leader, how one becomes a leader, how one learns to be a better leader – is an ongoing topic of discussion at my college, with colleagues, and across higher education. Institutions of higher education only improve through effective leadership. There simply aren’t enough generalized organizing factors that can promote institutional…
Does Reading a Good Book Make You Better? Learning From Librarians
James LaRue, librarian and head of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, gave a short talk at Dominican University recently (the 22nd Annual McCcusker Memorial Lecture). I attended – and as a non-librarian, I was informed and encouraged by the important work that public libraries are doing to secure and strengthen public space…