Related Pages

Worksheets & Tools

Leadership Growth Plan

Sylvia F. Nadler
The Leadership Growth Plan provides the steps towards developing an effective leadership action plan. By following through the process and asking the right questions, a leader can implement this plan in both his professional and personal life.

Stories

Cultivating a shared environmental vision at Middlebury College

Nan Jenks-Jay
In the mid 1990s, Middlebury proposed significant advancements in leadership in the environmental sciences. A presidential declaration was recognition that the environment was integral to Middlebury's educational mission and operational goals.

Reports

Creating a research-rich curriculum at Miami University

William Rauckhorst
Miami University has attempted in recent years to build upon a collection of student research participation opportunities at the University, and develop a comprehensive "research-rich” undergraduate curriculum. A major step in this direction was the creation in 1995 of the Undergraduate Summer Scholars (USS) program.

Key findings - Occidental College undergraduate research assessment

Chris Craney
In their assessment of undergraduate research, Occidental College has examined two questions: who participates and what are the outcomes.

Presentation

Cycles in curriculum planning

John E. Kolb, Gary A. Gabriele, Sharon Roy
A chapter in the SCUP publication Technology-Driven Planning: Principles to Practice, edited by Judith V. Boettcher, Mary M. Doyle, and Richard W. Jensen, this essay serves as an accompaniment to the presentation above and provides insight into the RPI story and the institution's change in curriculum, computers, and teaching styles.

Link to another site

10 Principles of Good Practice: Supporting Early-Career Faculty

This document includes: "ten principles of good practice; inventories to prompt department chairs, senior colleagues, and other academic leaders to examine their individual and institutional practices; and examples of concrete and innovative approaches to good practice being tried out now in a variety of institutional settings."

Keck Consultation Reports

Leadership in Setting the Right Issues on the Table
The Keck/PKAL Consultation Program

This letter from the Keck/PKAL consultants advises a president of a college or university on planning new spaces for science.

Essay

A PKAL essay: Advancing the momentum toward reform

Jeanne L. Narum
A current challenge is to move the initiative of reform from the heart and mind of an individual agent of change into the formal policies and practices of an institution.

A PKAL essay: Creating a community dedicated to the assessment of student learning

Jeanne L. Narum
One responsibility of leaders in undergraduate STEM is to keep their community focused on the quality of learning of their students- what lasts. Exercising this responsibility calls for discussions and negotiations to take place at many different stages in a long and iterative process...

A PKAL essay: Taking the scientific approach

Jeanne L. Narum
Sharing their work for review, comment and use by others brings another dimension of the scientific approach into the work of institutional transformation. As people learn about, adapt and build upon the work of colleagues with experience in setting, implementing and assessing goals for a research-rich learning environment, a better informed community of practitioners will emerge, similar to more traditional disciplinary communities of practice.

A PKAL essay: The need for collaborating communities

Jeanne L. Narum
Taking the kaleidoscopic perspective on institutional transformation requires examining how the changing context calls for different kinds of collaborating communities pursuing new visions of institutional distinction.

A reflection on Personal characteristics of leaders

Anne C. Dema
Reflecting on her first PKAL F21 Leadership Institute in 1996, this F21 member discusses her experiences as a departmental leader. She comments on Mel George’s essay Personal Characteristics of Leaders and emphasizes the importance of "relational" leadership.

Building Communities: Asking the Right Questions

Jeanne L. Narum
Questions that must be asked first and asked persistently- before and beyond the process of planning a facility.

Communication, Communication, Communication
Connecting Assessment to Enhance Student Learning

Donna L. Sundre
In the real estate profession, the mantra is "location, location, location." In most other pursuits, an advisable mantra might be "communication, communication, communication." The prudence of academic leaders adopting such a mantra in the instance of assessment of student learning is easily illustrated by even the most fleeting review of institutional case studies where false starts, strong beginnings accompanied by equally strong fizzles, and outright "no-go's" are evident.

Planning Spaces that Make a Difference: Critical Questions

Science across the curriculum - The Binghamton University Story

Albert H. Tricomi
In 1996, Binghamton University inaugurated its first General Education Program for all students. The process of discussing and approving requirements for this program had an immediate and a lasting effect on how students on our campus experience learning in mathematics and science.

The importance of gifted individuals

Bruce Alberts
A series of personal insights reflects on the need for bold and progressive leadership to fight the forces that typically resist change.

The politics of change: creating a risk-taking campus culture

Lisa B. Lewis
Based on the essay Faculty and the Politics of Change and her own experiences, Lisa Lewis describes the critical characteristics of a campus that supports change and risk. She also emphasizes how faculty and administration must develop a similar language in achieving a vision of change.

The role of the science dean

James M. Gentile
The story from Hope College, about the impact of strong leadership at the divisional level from the science dean, is presented in an essay by James Gentile, currently dean of science at Hope. How such leadership helps to frame and form a sense of community that breaks down disciplinary boundaries, encourages the joint pursuit of a research-rich learning environment, and forsters the scholarly career of each member of the faculty in the context of serving broader institutional goals.

Other Resources

Personal Reflections of a Leader

Freeman A. Hrabowski III
Freeman A. Hrabowski, President of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, reflects on transforming undergraduate science education at the university to focus undergraduate research and increasing participation and enrollment of minority students and faculty.

Technologies are Changing Learning and Teaching