Academic Deans Research Articles

Organizational Diagnosis in State Universities and Colleges (SUCs): Academic Deans’ Perspectives through the Lens of Weisbord’s Six-Box Model

Organizational Diagnosis in State Universities and Colleges (SUCs): Academic Deans’ Perspectives through the Lens of Weisbord’s Six-Box Model

Outstanding scholar as dean: the impact of dean academic achievements on school research output

ABSTRACT In recent years, China emerged as one of the world’s largest producers of academic research papers contributing massively to national and international journals annually. This prolific output serves as evidence to the dedicated efforts of Chinese universities to foster research activities among their teaching staff. However, the role of academic leaders, particularly that of school deans, on research productivity within these institutions remains an important and unresolved question. The aim of this study is to investigate the impact of the academic achievements of deans on the research output of business schools of China prestigious 985/211project universities. For this purpose, we manually collected data on the deans of business schools of 985/211 project universities from 2000 to 2018 as well as data on published research papers by each school. Empirical results show that during the tenure of an ‘academic dean’, the average number of papers published by business schools increased by about 10.6% annually. After being converted into standard ‘Economic Research Journal’ articles, this effect increased by as much as 28%. The above results are robust with several different model specifications and definitions for academic deans. Our research findings hold significant policy implications, not only for China's education system but extends to various knowledge-intensive institutions, such as hospitals, research labs, and consultancy organizations.

Critical friend mentoring: strategic sounding boards for academic deans

ABSTRACT Academic deans in higher education can benefit from various types of mentoring to compensate for limited, formal administrative training. Using a nationally disseminated survey, we examined academic dean engagement with critical friends as one form of mentoring for their leadership development. The national survey included 27 items addressing deans’ backgrounds, their critical friend engagement, and specific topics of consultation. Some 98 academic deans completed the electronic survey with a decided majority reporting that they consulted with critical friends inside and outside their institutions. Critical friends most often tended to be assistant/associate deans, dean colleagues, department chairs, Provosts/CAOs, and significant others. Prior deans, White deans, and deans at institutions with several schools/colleges engaged critical friends more frequently. The predominant topics of discussion with critical friends were personnel issues, contentious colleagues, conflict resolution, and feelings about their jobs. Further exploration of the use of critical friends as a form of informal dean mentoring appears warranted.

American Dental Education Association Compendium Entrustable Professional Activities Workgroup report.

Entrustable professional activities (EPAs) are discrete clinical tasks that can be evaluated to help define readiness for independent practice in the health professions and are intended to increase trust in the dental graduate. EPAs provide a framework that bridges competencies to clinical practice. This report describes the work of the American Dental Education Association (ADEA) Compendium EPA Workgroup to develop a list of EPAs for dental education and supportive resources, including specifications and a glossary. Preliminary work including literature and resource review, mapping of existing competencies, and review of other health professions' EPAs informed the development of our EPAs list. Workgroup members achieved consensus using a modified Delphi process. A Qualtrics survey using a validated rubric for the assessment of EPAs as described in peer-reviewed literature was used. Dental educators, including academic deans, were surveyed for feedback on the content and format of the EPAs. Based on findings in the literature analysis of existing EPAs and competencies in health professions, a list of EPAs was developed along with a description of specifications. The EPA workgroup (nine members from multiple institutions) used the Delphi process in receiving feedback from various experts. A list of 11 core EPAs was vetted by dental educators including academic deans (n=∼23), and the process of development was reviewed by EPAs experts outside dental education. A glossary was developed to align language. These EPAs define the scope of dental practice. This report represents Phase 1 of the EPA framework development and vetting process. Future directions will include a broader vetting of the EPA list, faculty development, and national standardized technology that support this work to optimize implementation.

Teaching on Jews and Judaism in Selected US Catholic Seminaries

Interviews with the academic deans or their designees at nine leading Catholic theologates in the US disclosed that there was a serious discrepancy between the formation of Catholic priests and the aspirations of the Second Vatican Council and subsequent official ecclesial teachings on the Catholic Church’s proper relationship with Jews and Judaism. Most of the seminaries had no access to Jewish scholars and had no relationship with the local Jewish community. They also failed to provide any guidance to seminarians on the pastoral care of Catholic-Jewish couples and families, even in dioceses with large Jewish populations. The seminaries, for the most part, were not engaged in promoting Catholic-Jewish scholarship, and they appeared to have no systemic programs on antisemitism or the modern State of Israel. Most significantly, the seminaries provided no homiletic instruction to future priests on addressing the anti-Judaic content in the New Testament, especially during Lent and Holy Week.

Providence and Science in a World of Contingency: Thomas Aquinas’ Metaphysics of Divine Action

Providence and Science in a World of Contingency: Thomas Aquinas’ Metaphysics of Divine Action

Providence and Science in a World of Contingency: Thomas Aquinas’ Metaphysics of Divine Action

Providence and Science in a World of Contingency: Thomas Aquinas’ Metaphysics of Divine Action

Resource Handbook for Academic Deans: The Essential Guide for College and University Leaders, Fourth Edition

Resource Handbook for Academic Deans: The Essential Guide for College and University Leaders, Fourth Edition

Training future leaders: A qualitative study exploring leadership development in predoctoral dental curricula.

Commission on Dental Accreditation (CODA) accreditation standard 2-19 states predoctoral dental schools must assess students' ability to function successfully as the leader of the oral health care team. This study aimed to explore how dental schools incorporate leadership training into their curriculum to better understand the leadership skills students learn, the ways students engage in leadership training, and the opportunities students have to practice leadership skills with their peers. The aim of this 2022 qualitative phenomenology study was to use semi-structured interviews with academic Deans at CODA-accredited dental schools and one subject matter expert to uncover types of cognitive, behavioral, and environmental factors influencing leadership training through the lens of social cognitive theory. All interviews were recorded on Zoom, transcribed, de-identified, and analyzed for recurring themes using NVivo. Eight academic Deans and one subject matter expert participated in the study. Four major themes emerged from the data: leadership is essential for dental professionals, leadership is incorporated into the curricula in diverse ways, students most often engage in leadership training opportunities with dental peers and interprofessional opportunities could be expanded, and dental schools often face barriers to incorporating leadership training. Vertically integrated case presentations and team-based practice management simulations are meaningful leadership development activities. Prominent barriers include time constraints, lack of faculty champions with teaching leadership expertise, and prioritizing the development of hand skills. Standard practices for student leadership development and assessment do not appear to exist across dental school curricula. Findings support the need for a leadership development framework.

Perception gap: Academic leadership styles in Maldivian higher education institutes

Leadership stems from recognition and acceptance, surpassing the mere reliance on their title. Research indicates varying perceptions of relationship values between leaders and followers. A leader’s crucial awareness of these differences prevents harm to the institution through disagreements that expose poor style and self-knowledge. This study examines the perception difference of deans’ leadership styles in Maldives higher education institutes using self-rating and their lecturers’ perceptions using followers rating. In this study, a sequential explanatory mixed-method design was used. The first phase collected data via surveys from deans and lecturers (N = 190) from nine different HEI, with SPSS used for analysis. The second phase included qualitative interviews with deans and lecturers (N = 21), which were evaluated using template analysis. The independent sample t-test was used to assess the difference in averages between two independent groups, leaders and lecturers. According to the data, there was a slight statistically significant difference between deans’ self-assessments of their own current leadership styles and lecturers’ ratings of their leaders’ existing leadership styles. On the other side, it was discovered that both leaders and lecturers like the same leadership approaches. The findings of this research study suggest institutes to focus on developing academic deans’ leadership styles based on followers’ perception. Leadership measurement should consider both leaders’ and subordinates’ perceptions to avoid flawed conclusions. Also, this study calls for academic deans to reflect on their leadership, acknowledge limitations, and engage in developmental activities for growth.

Deanship at Chinese Universities: A Thematic Literature Review

Deanship, the critical middle level of leadership in higher education, has been a relatively under-studied area in the Chinese context. Academic deans play significant roles in higher education, as they connect university leaders, administrative staff, faculty members, students, and the public. With the changing environment within and outside higher education, academic deans are encountering increasing role conflicts and challenges. Most of the literature discussing deanship has been concerned deans in Western societies such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and some countries in Europe. In China, deans’ leadership is situated in a different cultural and political discourse in higher education institutions, as they interact with academic, administrative, and political leadership. This study aims to investigate the status quo of the literature on deanship in Chinese universities, identify knowledge gaps, compare the Chinese literature with the existing literature in the West, and suggest future research directions. This article uses a narrative review method to examine the literature about deanship and to extract major themes in the field: roles and performance, challenges, effectiveness, and leadership development. Using these themes, it explores the literature on academic deans’ leadership in universities in China. The study found that the qualities necessary for deanship in Chinese universities emphasize deans’, communication competence, capacity to balance academic and administrative roles and ability to deal with faculty members and university leaders under the Communist Party’s leadership. Chinese academic deans have comparatively more constraints on their capacity to set goals and create vision in their faculties. They also face similar challenges to their counterparts in the West: role conflicts as scholars and academic managers, ambiguous expectations, and work stress. Suggestions and strategies for improving deans’ leadership at Chinese universities are also put forward.

Nurturing academic leadership: A quest for the ideal academic leadership style for Maldives higher education

Higher education leadership is an understudied area, especially at the departmental or faculty level. The current study explored preferred academic leadership styles as perceived by academic deans and their lecturers in Maldivian Higher Education Institutes (HEIs). A sequential explanatory mixed method design informed by post-positivist techniques was used in this study. In the first phase, the survey method was used to directly reach many respondents, administer the instruments and to collect the required data. from deans (N=20) and lecturers (N=170) from nine different HEIs. SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) version 23 was used to analyze the data using descriptive statistics and inferential statistics such as means, percentages, standard deviations, independent sample t-test and Pearson correlation coefficients. In the second phase, a qualitative approach was used to explain, validate and to triangulate the quantitative findings. This phase used semi-structured interviews for purposively selected deans (N=5) and lecturers (N=16) from seven different HEIs. The interview transcripts were thematically analyzed and coded using the template analysis method. The most preferred academic leadership styles in Maldivian HEIs were found to be transformational, distributed, and transactional leadership styles, respectively. To enhance academic leadership in HEIs in the Maldives, this study recommends academic leaders to use transformative and distributive leadership behaviors, which would also help HEIs in the skill development of academic deans.

Leadership styles of academic deans and department heads: university dons' perspectives on how they affect their job satisfaction

PurposeLeadership has been recognised as a critical factor for employees' job satisfaction. However, much remains to be learned about how university academics who work in developing country contexts perceive their head of departments (HoDs) and deans' leadership styles and how such leadership styles influence their job satisfaction. Therefore, extending earlier research on higher education leadership, this study was pioneered to examine deans' and heads of departments' leadership styles and how such leadership styles influenced their job satisfaction.Design/methodology/approachThis study employed an exploratory research design to draw on data from in-depth interviews with university academics sourced from two private and two public universities. Participants constituted fifteen academics (N = 15) from the studied universities. The collected data from interviews were transcribed verbatim and subjected to thematic analysis.FindingsThe findings revealed that overall, academics perceived their HoDs and deans as employing both transformational and transactional leadership styles. As such, both styles of leadership influenced academics' job satisfaction in diverse ways although the transformational leadership style appeared to be the most dominant in influencing academics' job satisfaction.Practical implicationsThe article highlights the need for university managers (i.e. heads of departments and deans) to flexibly employ preferred leadership styles to achieve job satisfaction among academics.Originality/valueFrom the theoretical point of view, this article contributes to expanding the earlier research by showing how academics' perceptions of leadership styles employed by their academic leaders shape their job satisfaction.

Reflections on Mentoring and Faculty of Color: A White Academic Dean’s Perspective

This article reflects on the role of the academic dean in theological education in relation to faculty of color. Drawing on research related to faculty of color in higher education and theological education, the article explores issues and responses to the challenges faced by faculty of color in predominately White institutions, and maps potential responses and strategies.

In Memoriam – Thomas S. Gladsky

Tom Gladsky was born August 26, 1939, in the coal-mining community of Shenandoah, Pennsylvania. He passed away March 30, 2022, in Monroe Township, New Jersey, where he and his wife Rita had retired after long academic careers. A scholar in her own right, Rita passed away just five weeks before Tom, on February 21, 2022.Gladsky earned degrees in history and English education from Bloomsburg State Teachers College—now Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania—before going on to receive an MA in English from the University of Arizona and a PhD in American Literature from the University of North Carolina-Greensboro.He joined the English Department at the University of Central Missouri, where he later served as Interim Dean of Graduate Studies, and continued his administrative career as Dean of the Graduate School and International Programs at Eastern Illinois University. While there he formed the Polish/Eastern European Cultural Interest Group for students. He later served as Academic Dean at St. Mary's College, Orchard Lake, Michigan, helping to develop the Polish and East Central European Studies Program before the college closed in 2003.Gladsky's interest in his Polish roots, combined with his literary studies, also led him to spend considerable time in Poland. He was a Fulbright Professor at Marie-Curie Sklodowska and Jagiellonian Universities, as well as a guest lecturer at the University of Rzeszow's Institute of English Studies.Princes, Peasants, & Other Polish Selves: Ethnicity in American Literature, Gladsky's 1992 study, helped ensure a place at the table for Polish American writing in the field of ethnic American literature and Polish American studies. His next book, Something of My Very Own to Say: American Women Writers of Polish Descent, which he edited with Rita Holmes Gladsky, helped open the door to what is now a well-established focus on Polish American women and on gender issues. Something of My Very Own to Say won PAHA's 1999 Halecki prize. Gladsky's stint as Project Director of PAHA's Polish American Memoirs Project underscores his interest in the making a space for the under-represented voices within Polonian history. In addition to his work on Polish American literature, Gladsky published on Polish literary figures like Jerzy Kosinski.Tom Gladsky served as PAHA president from 1998–2000, and in 2002 received the Haiman award for “sustained contribution to the study of Polish Americans.” He helped shape the universe of Polish American Studies as we now know it, and left a lasting legacy to this organization and to the scholars who took inspiration from his work.

Perceptions of academic deans regarding interprofessional education and its implementation in dental colleges in India: results of a national survey

ABSTRACT This national survey was conducted to assess perceptions and status of implementation of interprofessional education in dental colleges in India. An online link to the questionnaire survey was sent to Deans and Academic Deans of those dental colleges having more than one health profession institute on the same campus. The response rate was 47%. Dental colleges’ primary collaborative partner was a medical faculty (46%), with the majority of IPE experiences occurring in post-graduation (58%). Lectures (54%), case-based discussions (64%) were reported to be predominant teaching-learning methods, while written exams (40%), small group participation, and group projects (30%) were predominant assessment methods of IPE experiences. Seventy-six percent responded that there are no faculty development initiatives for IPE while 20% responded that IPE is at planning/developmental stage and 38% responded that IPE is not considered presently. Faculty resistance (32%), academic calendars, and schedule (34%) were pointed out to be the most common barriers to implementing IPE. The findings revealed that although the concept and importance of IPE were well perceived by Academic Deans throughout dental colleges in India, and although dental colleges’ co-existed with other faculties on same campus, IPE was not systematically implemented with minimal formal interprofessional education involving dental students.

The status of teachers’ collaboration in Ethiopian public universities found in the Amhara region

Research findings on the issue of teachers' collaboration in Ethiopian higher education institutions are limited. The main objective of this study was to examine the status of teachers' collaboration in Ethiopian public universities found in the Amhara region. In addition, this study also aimed at comparing the status of teachers' collaboration among the four generations of Ethiopian public universities found in the Amhara Region. Using a convergent parallel mixed design, data were collected from teachers, department heads, and academic deans through questionnaires and interviews using a multistage stratified sampling procedure. Four universities were selected from the ten public universities after stratifying them into four categories based on generations. From the sampled universities, 250 participants were selected randomly to complete a self-administered questionnaire. In addition, 8 teachers, 4 department heads, and 4 academic deans were selected using the purposive sampling technique for the interview. The quantitative data collected through a close-ended questionnaire were analyzed using mean, standard deviation, t-test, and one-way ANOVA, and the qualitative data were analyzed using thematic analysis. Finally, the qualitative and quantitative results were blended to compare or relate to each other. The findings of this study revealed that university teachers found in the Amhara region were moderately collaborative in information sharing and informal collaborations/collegial relationships. However, teachers’ collaboration in professional activities seems unsatisfactory. The result of this research also indicated that there is a significant difference across the four generations of universities. Hence, Ethiopian public universities found in the Amhara region should give adequate attention to strengthening collaboration among teachers in professional activities.

The Evaluation of a Digital Health Intervention to Improve Human Papillomavirus Vaccine Recommendation Practices of Medical Students.

We investigated what is being taught about HPV in US medical schools and evaluated a digital health intervention for medical students to increase their intention to provide a high-quality HPV vaccine recommendation. An online survey was emailed to Academic Deans at the 124 accredited US Schools of Medicine and Osteopathic Medicine between February and April 2018. A digital educational module was emailed to medical students in June 2020. A single-subject longitudinal study design was employed. Pre- post-survey administration measured change in knowledge, attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, and intention to recommend HPV vaccine. Gaps in medical school curricula were found. Very few schools (~ 9%) reported teaching content on HPV prevention strategies or patient education. For the digital intervention, independent and dependent variables increased positively. Perceived behavioral control improved at significant levels as participants felt more confident addressing parents' concerns about the vaccine (p < 0.001) and more confident recommending the vaccine for patients (p < 0.05) post module. On the pre-survey, only 6% of the sample knew the most effective HPV vaccine communication style and on the post-survey 81% correctly identified it (p < 0.001). The intervention increased HPV and HPV vaccine knowledge, self-efficacy, and intention to provide a high-quality HPV vaccine recommendation to patients.

Academic collaboration in Ethiopian Higher Education Institutions: from a senior-junior staff support perspective

This study examined the level of collaboration between senior and junior academic staff in Higher Education Institutions in the Amhara Regional State, Ethiopia. We employed a convergent parallel mixed research design and collected data from 203 teachers, four department heads, and four academic deans using questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. The researchers also employed frequencies, percentages, mean, standard deviations, independent sample t-test, and one-way analysis on variance to analyze and interpret the quantitative data. The qualitative data on the other hand, was analyzed thematically using reflexive thematic analysis. The results show that the collaboration between senior and junior faculty members is too weak and limited to information exchange and material-sharing practices. The study also shows that independent variables such as gender and level of qualification did not affect senior and junior staff collaboration, while age and teaching experience affected it. We recommend the concerned bodies in higher education institutions to establish a system that entertains a genuine collaborative culture between senior and junior academic staff, following an integrative approach among different groups and considering all the challenges in realizing such an effective collaboration.

Gender discrimination in the business school’s C-suite? Evidence from aggregate decomposition approaches

Workplace discrimination continues to at least be perceived as a problem by faculty and staff in higher education. The current study extends the academic literature in this area by exploring the possibility of gender discrimination in the wages of academic deans. Using data on deans’ salaries from more than 200 colleges and schools of business in the U.S., we focus our analysis on aggregate decompositions from both the usual Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition approach and the newer inverse probability weighting technique. Aggregate decomposition results from both the usual Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition approach and inverse probability weighting fail to support the existence of gender discrimination in administrative wages in academia. They do, however, support new theoretical research asserting that the publicness of academic administrators’ salaries works to circumvent any wage discrimination based on gender or race.