Change Leadership in Higher Education: A Practical Guide to Academic Transformation

by Jeffrey L. Buller

Initiate innovation and get things done with a guide to the process of academic change Change Leadership in Higher Education is a call to action, urging administrators in higher education to get proactive about change. The author applies positive and creative leadership principles to the issue of leading change in higher education, providing a much-needed blueprint for changing the way change happens, and how the system reacts. Readers will examine four different models of change and look at change itself through ten different analytical lenses to highlight the areas where the current approach could be beneficially altered. The book accounts for the nuances in higher education culture and environment, and helps administrators see that change is natural and valuable, and can be addressed in creative and innovative ways. The traditional model of education has been disrupted by MOOCs, faculty unions, online instruction, helicopter parents, and much more, leaving academic leaders accustomed to managing change. Leading change, however, is unfamiliar territory. This book is a guide to being proactive about change in a way that ensures a healthy future for the institution, complete with models and tools that help lead the way. Readers Leading change involves some challenges, but this useful guide is a strong conceptual and pragmatic resource for forecasting those challenges, and going in prepared. Administrators and faculty no longer satisfied with the status quo can look to Change Leadership in Higher Education for real, actionable guidance on getting change accomplished.

Genres: Nonfiction, Leadership

288 pages, Hardcover

First published December 2, 2014

About the author

"Jeffrey L. Buller grew up in Wisconsin and has since turned a lifelong passion for ideas, stories, and the stage into a distinguished international career. He has served in academic and administrative roles at Loras College, Georgia Southern University, Mary Baldwin College, and Florida Atlantic University, earning a reputation for bringing both rigor and wit to the art of leadership. A classicist by training and a scholar of Wagnerian music drama by avocation, he has lectured and led workshops around the world, including serving as the English-language lecturer for the International Wagner Festival in Bayreuth, Germany. He is also the author of numerous works of fiction, poetry, and essays that explore art, travel, and the search for meaning, including the novels The Archaic Smile and Bird Without Wings and poetry collections Pampelmousse and Sobremesa." "This biography was provided by the author or their representative."

Reviews

[Reid Mccormick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Change is any organization is quite difficult. There are board members, executives, shareholders, customers, suppliers, neighbors, and other stakeholders that all have to be convinced before change can occur. This change is even more complex in the world of higher education.

Though college and university administrators are typically visualized as a team of bespectacled erudites with patches on their elbows that govern from dark wood rooms filled with thick books, higher education leadership is surprisingly flat and accessible. There is a shared trust between the board, the president, and the faculty. However, this shared trust actually makes higher education the seemingly immovable object so resistant to change. The larger the object, the harder it is to move.

Change Leadership in Higher Education is full of leadership theories and models. The book breaks them down to an almost annoying manner. Every page includes bullet points, lists, or a table. Having said that, this made the book easier to skim.

If you are interested in change leadership models, this book breaks it down pretty well. The conclusion at the end of each chapter is all you really need to read to understand everything.

Also, this book is only really interested in academic leadership. There is very little discussed from an administrative or student affairs side of higher education.