What Do I Do Now?: Tackling Higher Education Adaptive Leadership Challenges

The presenter and participants will discuss current trends, policy issues, and adaptive challenges influencing higher education institutions. Through discussions of research and case scenarios, participants will analyze adaptive leadership strategies and best practices for chairs to develop departmental cultures that are responsive to adaptive challenges

Equity, Inclusion, and Faculty Hiring Committees

Issues of explicit and implicit bias pervade hiring processes for faculty members. This session focuses on creating equitable and inclusive faculty hiring processes and practices. Practices include defining and recognizing bias, adhering to university policies, and addressing equity during committee deliberations and decision-making processes

“Oh, I’m a Damsel in Distress”: Women Higher Education Leaders’ Narratives

This study focused on women higher education administrators’ experiences related to intersections of gender and work lives, using a narrative analysis research methodology. Women administrators shared stories of the influence of gender on their work lives. Participants “violated” gender norms by pursuing traditionally male-dominated careers, and some shared experiences of sex discrimination and/or witnessed phenomena such as the glass ceiling, sexual harassment, and various double binds related to gender stereotypes. Participants’ stories challenge the literature’s focus on barriers and gender-related challenges for women higher education administrators. Social constructions of gender, contexts, individual personalities, critical life events, among other factors inform these administrators’ perceptions and responses to workplace experiences and events. Prominent counter-narratives and themes emerged, including alternatives to formal mentors, substantial support, absence of or mitigating effects of obstacles, and equitable workplace environments, revealing the ways the participants often engage in feminist praxis

Calculating the Pace of Change During the COVID Era

The pandemic has caused ongoing economic, health, and educational challenges over the past two years. At the beginning of the pandemic, leaders were most concerned about immediate issues such as distance learning and safety for faculty, staff, and students. Now that institutions have returned to in-person learning, leaders must move forward with strategic planning and action with pandemic issues still playing significant roles in decision-making. During this session, participants will learn and discuss approaches for managing the pace of change and emotionally intelligent strategic planning during this challenging historical period

Relationships Between Dual Enrollment Parameters and Community College Success in Tennessee

The purpose of this non-experimental quantitative study was to evaluate the relationships between completion of high school dual enrollment courses and subsequent success of first-time, full-time community college students as measured by completion of an associate degree and time to completion of the degree. In addition to comparing dual and non-dual enrollment student performance, the effects of the number of dual enrollment courses completed and the subject areas of those courses were evaluated. Student subgroups reviewed included gender, race, socioeconomic status, and prior academic preparation (ACT score). Archival data from Tennessee community colleges used in this study included 62,644 students across four years (2015-2018) comprising 11,949 dual enrollment students and 50,695 non-dual enrollment students. Six research questions were answered from these data utilizing independent samples t tests, twoway contingency tables using crosstabs, Pearson correlations, logistic regression, or descriptive statistics. Findings revealed that completing just one dual enrollment course significantly increased the probability of completing an associate degree, and this finding was consistent across all subgroups studied. In addition, dual enrollment students completed associate degrees in significantly less time. Completing more dual enrollment courses tended to further increase the probability of completing a degree and further reduce the time to completion

"If you're coming out, what are you coming into?": queer educators theorize about teaching, living, and learning in the South

This study, using a narrative research methodology, focuses on how gay, lesbian, transgender, and queer educators in the South negotiate the complex intersections between their identities and their teaching. The central dilemmas on which this study focuses are the problematic situations of addressing sexuality and difference in classrooms at the K-12, college, and university levels; negotiating the complexity and controversial nature of the different ways of being "out" as an LGBTQ educator, especially in the South; and examining how various aspects of educators' lives influence the development of their pedagogies and relationships with students and fellow school workers. This researcher found that identities are dynamic and complex and cannot be reduced to stages in monolithic processes or be easily defined by socially constructed categories. The nine educators (K-12, college, and university)--who shared their life stories and who live and teach in the South--problematize their own identities; strive to make-sense of how their identities inform their teaching, living, and learning; and often provide counter narratives to dominant and master narratives perpetuated by tradition, popular culture, and the literature about LGBTQ educators. The goal of this study is not to come to definitive conclusions about what it is like to be a queer educator in the South at the beginning of the 21st century but to broaden socio-historically situated understandings of the intersections of identities and how these identities within a Southern regional context influence, or not influence, teaching and learning for equity and social justice

How Can Leadership Be Taught?: Implications for Leadership Educators

Whether leadership can be taught is a decades-long debate. The purpose of this descriptive quantitative research study was to better understand how leadership is taught and learned. Onehundred-and-thirty-two K-12, college, or university faculty, staff, or administrators responded to a survey questionnaire on leadership. The majority (74.54%) of participants who were leaders reported that they felt prepared for leadership positions. The majority (86.36%) of participants reported that leadership can be taught, with only 3.79% indicating that leadership is not a teachable skill. Abilities to create positive work environments, communicate to constituent groups, lead change, and supervise personnel were the top-ranked leadership competencies. Dealing with personnel matters; navigating institutional, local, and state politics; and managing complex budgets were listed as the top challenges leaders face. Participants reported that leadership can be learned through formal education, mentorship, and leadership experience. Participants emphasized the importance of human relations and communication skills for leaders