2 - The Hybrid Administrator-scholar Paradigm in Higher Education Leadership in Africa (original) (raw)

2 - Academic Programme Leadership in African Higher Education: A Phenomenological Reflection

Journal of Higher Education in Africa

Given a dearth of literature on the role of middle-level academics in African higher education, this article contributes to the understanding of the roles played by this cadre. In this article, I draw on my lived experiences of leadership as an academic programme coordinator in higher education studies located at a higher education unit at a South African university. I pose two phenomenological questions: 1) how is it to be an academic programme leader, from my lived experiences of leadership at a South African university? and 2) what do my lived experiences of academic programme leadership reveal about programme leadership at a South African university? To answer these questions, I utilised a personal phenomenological reflection by drawing on concepts of lifeworld and being. The results showed that academic programme leadership was demanding and required paying attention to systemic contexts of universities as well as developing skills such as decision-making, curriculum developmen...

The Academic Dean and the Challenges of Meeting Changing Expectations in a Competitive Higher Education Environment in Africa

2015

This article seeks to provide guidelines for leadership decisions and practices that university deans can follow to be effective in their institutions and be relevant in an increasingly competitive African milieu. The paper provides an overview of academic leadership by faculty deans and assesses the degree to which they demonstrate leadership in addressing contemporary challenges and expectations. The paper shows how academic leaders must hold and convey ideas and knowledge that could shape managerial thought and practice. It also emphasizes that they must develop a human resource network inside and outside their departments and university and at levels – be they local, national, and international. Academic leadership needs to have a structured approach to faculty and staff promotion and development, and it should be placed on a priority list. Deans need to use technology and communication channels effectively to improve access to knowledge. The educational programmes must be dynam...

7 - The Academic Dean and the Challenges of Meeting Changing Expectations in a Competitive Higher Education Environment in Africa

Journal of Higher Education in Africa

This article seeks to provide guidelines for leadership decisions and prac- tices that university deans can follow to be effective in their institutions and be relevant in an increasingly competitive African milieu. The paper provides an overview of academic leadership by faculty deans and assesses the degree to which they demonstrate leadership in addressing contempo- rary challenges and expectations. The paper shows how academic leaders must hold and convey ideas and knowledge that could shape managerial thought and practice. It also emphasizes that they must develop a human resource network inside and outside their departments and university and at levels – be they local, national, and international. Academic leadership needs to have a structured approach to faculty and staff promotion and development, and it should be placed on a priority list. Deans need to use technology and communication channels effectively to improve access to knowledge. The educational programmes must be d...

Outsiders within? Deconstructing the educational administration scholar

This paper weaves together the auto-ethnographic narratives of the two authors and Bourdieu’s key concepts of habitus, field, capital and strategies as we seek to bring to a level of explicitness the reflexive lens which have shaped our scholarly work. In particular, we examine the process of becoming educational leadership scholars whose shared interest in critical approaches to theory, practice and matters of social justice, locates us at the periphery of a research field in which such issues have been secondary concerns at best. We explore how our own locatedness as ‘outsiders within’ (Stanley, 1997) educational leadership practice, as well as our multiple locations within a range of fields such as feminism, unionism as well as schools and academia has shaped our scholarly dispositions and concerns. Such resources, we argue, are urgently required forms of capital at a time when there may well be a powerful political investment for scholars in ignoring or overlooking the moral, ethical and political life force of leadership and management as a fertile site of intellectual vitality in terms of research and scholarship.

Issues in Academic Leadership

Multidisciplinary Issues Surrounding African Diasporas, 2020

Occupying administrative positions in any organization is an enormous and difficult task, especially in universities and other higher institutions of learning where the culture and conventional practices demand shared governance and collective decision making. Even more complex is when such positions are occupied by minorities who need to weigh a lot of factors in their decision making in order to effectively navigate and accomplish their duties and objectives. This chapter offers a brief theoretical insight into administrative leadership in the academy. More importantly, it provides the narratives of the personal experiences of administrators in the United States and Guyana; people whose gender and racial backgrounds categorize them as minorities. Sharing such experiences aligns with the purpose of this book and also provides some learning opportunities for people in the diaspora who aspire to become administrators in the academy and minorities who are currently doing the job.

Academic Dean and the Challenges of Meeting Changing Expectations within a Competitive Higher Education Environment in Africa

Creative Education, 2015

This article looks at the challenges involved and seeks to provide guidelines for leadership decisions and practices for the Deans that can be effective in institutions of higher learning. This paper provides an overview of academic leadership by faculty deans, and assesses the degree to which deans exhibit the behaviors embedded in this leadership in addressing the challenges and expectations of this century. Deanship is therefore treated as the academic act of building programs and a community of scholars to set direction and achieve the expectations of stakeholders in the current challenging economic times. The need for transformational leadership is emphasized. The paper shows how academic leaders must be the purveyors of ideas and knowledge that shape managerial thought and practice. Further, academic leadership needs to develop a human resource network inside and outside the departments and university and at the local, national, and international levels. Academic leadership needs to have a clarified program for faculty and staff promotion and development, and it should be placed on a priority list and agenda. Deans will need to use technology effectively and communication innovations to improve access to knowledge. Keeping pace with change in the world of work means offering education programmes that are relevant, are of high quality and, increasingly, include practical or work experience, as well as working more closely with stakeholders such as employers in course design or delivery. They will also need significantly to streamline their operations by incorporating new teaching and learning delivery mechanisms. Finally it is observed that academic leaders should take the initiative by adopting measures of success that are truly useful management tools for their institutions and that have credibility with the institution's external stakeholders.

ENHANCING INSTITUTIONAL LEADERSHIP IN AFRICAN UNIVERSITIES: LESSONS FROM ACBF's INTERVENTIONS*

This paper draws on the extant literature and experiences of selected ACBF-supported programs to interrogate approaches to enhancing institutional leadership in African universities. The paper posits that African universities must proactively take charge of fostering institutional leadership so as to translate leadership competence into strategic assets. Such assets are key to bolstering intellectual capital, strategic scanning , i.e. the capacity to recognize the behaviour of interconnected systems to make effective decisions under varying strategic and risk scenarios, and the transformation of knowledge. To this end, African universities need to transcend their current 'modern' system of education to a post-modern perspective, which recognizes context, collaboration and knowledge as valued skills. Enhancing institutional leadership is also crucial if Africa is to compete in today's rapidly globalizing world and knowledge society. More importantly, doing so has direct i...

Towards a Scholarship of Practice for University Leadership in Southern Africa: The Two-Way Practitioner-Researcher Loop

International Journal of Higher Education

Vice chancellors of public universities in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region face a myriad of challenges that require research- and data-driven decision-making. This paper presents a decision-making model for college and university leadership - The Two-Way Practitioner-Researcher Loop. This scholarship of practice has the twin goals of developing a knowledge base for college and university leadership and improving leadership practice in the university. The scholarship of practice comprises two “loops”. In the practitioner-to-researcher loop, vice chancellors develop practitioner-defined research agenda to be researched internally by Departments of Institutional Research and externally by members of Higher Education research communities. In the researcher-to-practitioner loop, research findings are communicated back to vice chancellors for immediate application to institutional planning, policy formulation, and decision making. This scholarship of practice deve...

Searching for and accessing senior managers for public universities in Africa: challenges and opportunities

2001

Searching For And Accessing Senior Managers For Public Universities In Africa: Challenges And Opportunities Paul P.W. Achola, Ph.D and Eric Masinde Aseka, Ph.D Kenyatta University Introduction The theme or title of this conference allows for a wide latitude of interpretations as to the intended objectives. But, perhaps, a common purpose seems to run through, namely that leadership and governance of higher education in the countries of the continent require overhaul to achieve the desired goals of higher education. Opinion is bound to differ about what aspects of higher education leadership and management need transforming and this is perhaps why the convenors of this conference identified a variety of themes for exposition. Yet the imperfections in African higher education leadership and management that the conference theme implies will require both time and patient boldness to resolve; and any solution proposed may be unnerving, especiallv to some of those with vested interests in ...