Alone yet not alone: Networks and regional facilitation in leading a university campus (original) (raw)

Universities and Place Leadership: a question of agency and alignment

2021

There is increasing interest in the question of how different stakeholders develop, implement and lead regional upgrading processes with the concept of place leadership emerging as one response to this. Simultaneously, universities face growing expectations that they will contribute to regional development processes – often through their collaborative relationships with other regional stakeholders. But universities are complex in terms of their internal and institutional structures, which undermines their capacities to enact coherent place leadership roles. We seek to understand how strategic leadership in universities can contribute to innovation and regional development in the context of the fundamental institutional complexity of universities. We address this through a qualitative, explorative case study comparing six European regions where universities have sincerely attempted to deliver place leadership roles. We identify that the elements of agency and alignment are vital in t...

Distributed Leadership in Higher Education

… Management Administration & …, 2009

In this paper we present findings from research in 12 UK universities that sought to capture a range of perspectives on 'distributed leadership' and reveal common and competing experiences within and between institutions. From analysis of findings we identified two principle approaches to the distribution of leadership: 'devolved', associated with top-down influence, and 'emergent', associated with bottom-up and horizontal influence. We argue that whilst the academic literature largely promotes the latter, the former is equally (if not more) significant in terms of how leadership is actually enacted and perceived within universities. We conclude, therefore, that as a description of leadership practice, the concept of 'distributed leadership' offers little more clarity than 'leadership' alone. As an analytic framework it is a more promising concept drawing attention to the broader contextual, temporal and social dimensions of leadership. Fundamentally, though, we argue that distributed leadership is most influential through its rhetorical value whereby it can be used to shape perceptions of identity, participation and influence but can equally shroud the underlying dynamics of power within universities.

Women Leading University-Community Engagement: Disruption, Resistance; Resilience

Journal of Education, Teaching and Social Studies

This paper explores the identity jolts and professional responses of female leaders of institutionalized university-community engagement in Canada, the U.S., the U.K. and Australia. Using a feminist narrative approach we explored the disorienting dilemmas, critical events and identity jolts related to women’s participation in the institutional leadership of social change initiatives, in particular university-community engagement (UCE). Themes of disruption, resistance and resilience in the neoliberal institutional cultures and practices in which university-community engagement (UCE) is situated are shared through participants’ stories of praxis. This paper is one of a series exploring sociocultural influences on the institutionalization of university-community engagement and the development of engaged and engagement scholarship as an intellectual domain in higher education.

1-DISTRIBUTED Leadership in Higher Education : Rhetoric and Reality

2007

In this paper we present findings from research in 12 UK universities that sought to capture a range of perspectives on 'distributed leadership' and reveal common and competing experiences within and between institutions. From analysis of findings we identified two principle approaches to the distribution of leadership: 'devolved', associated with top-down influence, and 'emergent', associated with bottom-up and horizontal influence. We argue that whilst the academic literature largely promotes the latter, the former is equally (if not more) significant in terms of how leadership is actually enacted and perceived within universities. We conclude, therefore, that as a description of leadership practice, the concept of 'distributed leadership' offers little more clarity than 'leadership' alone. As an analytic framework it is a more promising concept drawing attention to the broader contextual, temporal and social dimensions of leadership. Fundamentally, though, we argue that distributed leadership is most influential through its rhetorical value whereby it can be used to shape perceptions of identity, participation and influence but can equally shroud the underlying dynamics of power within universities.

DISTRIBUTED LEADERSHIP IN A UNIVERSITY

A recent President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology report predicts a shortfall of 1 million college graduates in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields in the United States over the next several years (2012). Recommendations to address this include diversifying the STEM workforce, which is plagued by a lack of gender diversity (Hill, Corbett, & St. Rose, 2010). UniversitySchool partnerships are crucial in developing a pipeline that moves interested primary and secondary students (aged 5-18) into majoring and eventually working in STEM fields. The lower involvement of women in STEM fields is multi-factorial and affects all communities, including Abilene, Texas. Abilene Independent School District’s STEM high school, the Academy for Technology, Engineering, and Science (ATEMS) consistently has a female student population at or below 35%. A local university, Abilene Christian University (ACU), has struggled to increase female undergraduate students in STEM fields. Creating a UniversitySchool partnership between ACU and ATEMS aided in building a STEM pipeline for girls in the Abilene community. In this chapter, we describe this collaboration between ACU and ATEMS and highlight the key features that led to success of the collaboration.

Distributed Leadership in Higher Education: What Does It Accomplish?

Leadership, 2009

The term `distributed leadership' has been prominent in research into educational management for some time. A number of articles have recently questioned the explanatory utility of the concept; in this article we examine its rhetorical function in higher education institutions. We suggest that it has served to contain, and to some extent ameliorate, two contradictions in the experience of academics who take on managerial roles or who exert leadership of some sort. First, it may help to make sense of a contrast between their experience of leadership and their sense of what it should be; second, it helps to mediate conflicts in the identity-work of being an academic and a manager. Also, placed in the wider context of changes in the cultures of universities, `distributed leadership' masks the concentration of influence with those who have control of budgets, and simultaneous threats to traditional means of upward communication, and the predominance of academic leadership. We co...