LDST 390-03: LEADERSHIP AND THE FUTURE OF HIGHER EDUCATION Spring 2012 Professor Bill Cooper [email protected]; office 211 Weinstein Hall This course is designed to provide students with an understanding of leadership in higher education, with particular emphasis on the role of the university president. Theories and concepts of leadership will be applied to case studies of pivotal presidents. In addition, these theories and concepts will be applied to a project devoted to designing a new university in which students play a role in crafting the mission, values, and organizational framework. The course will be conducted as a seminar with classroom discussion and small group projects. Requirements: Class participation, two exams, and one 7-10 page paper, each contributing 25% toward the final grade Learning Objectives: Students will learn how theories and concepts of leadership apply to the role of university president. Students will learn how presidents achieve and maintain legitimacy, how they help shape plans and guide operations, how they make decisions, and how they influence the long-term evolution of their universities. Each student will delve into the case study of a single presidency to learn how theories and concepts apply to one institutional context. In addition, students will help craft the design of a new university by simulating the role of the university’s founding president, enabling students to apply their learning about presidents and universities to future circumstances. This project will require a blend of creative thinking, analysis, and synthesis and will make use of university and global forecasting as well as students’ introspections about how they would seek to optimize the college experience of a sibling or young friend who will enroll as a first year college student five years hence. Class participation will provide opportunities for oral expression and learning to work on small group exercises. Students should emerge from this course with (a) a clear understanding of how theories and concepts of leadership apply to the role of university president, (b) understanding how universities are designed and developed, (c) improved strategic thinking and moral reasoning, and (d) improved ability to think creatively, write and speak clearly on issues of leadership and universities. Principal Readings: Bornstein, R. Legitimacy in the Academic Presidency: From Entrance to Exit. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003. Padilla, A. Portraits in Leadership: Six Extraordinary University Presidents. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2005. Sample, S.B. The Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership. San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons, 2002.ASSIGNMENTS Jan 11 Bornstein Chapters 1-6 The Academic Presidency Under Siege; The Decade of the 1990s—A Time of Testing; Millennial Requirements for Leadership Legitimacy; The Presidency: Calling, Corporate Executive Role, Job; Theories of Legitimacy; Factors in Presidential Legitimacy Jan 18 Bornstein Chapters 7-9 Threats to Presidential Legitimacy; Strategies for Gaining and Maintaining Legitimacy; A Fund-raiser’s Quest for Legitimacy Jan 25 Bornstein Chapters 10-12 The Impetus for Change: Crisis, Niche, Quality; The Context for Change; Factors in Achieving Legitimate Change Feb 1 Bornstein Chapter 13-15 Threats to Change Legitimacy; Strategies for Legitimate and Successful Change; A President’s Quest for Institutional Repositioning Feb 8 Bornstein Chapters 16-18 Presidential Succession and Legitimacy; Factors in Succession Legitimacy; Threats to Succession Legitimacy Feb 15 Bornstein Chapters 19-20 Strategies for Succession Legitimacy; A President’s Exploration of the Timing, Grace, and Legitimacy of Exit Feb 22 FIRST EXAM Mar 1 Sample Chapters 1-3 Thinking Gray, and Free; Artful Listening; Experts: Saviors and Charlatans Mar 15 Sample Chapters 4-6 You Are What You Read; Decisions, Decisions; Give the Devil His Due Mar 22 Sample Chapters 7-9 Know Which Hill You’re Willing to Die On; Work for Those Who Work for You; Follow the Leader Mar 29 Sample Chapters 10-11 Being President Versus Doing President; The University of Southern California: A Case Study in Contrarian Leadership PAPER DUE April 5 Padilla Chapters 1-4 Introduction; The University as a Complex Organization; Leadership; Prologue to the Cases April 12 Padilla Chapters 5-7 The Berkeley Quaker; The Catcher from Dallas, North Carolina; God, Country, Notre Dame, and Father Ted April 19 Padilla Chapters 8-11 Lenny, Left, and Chancellor Slaughter; Bowen’s Beautiful Mind; Hanna Holborn Gray: The Second Woman; Lessons, Conclusion, and Implications SECOND EXAM Examples of Readings Suitable For Paper Topics: Alley, R.E. Frederic W. Boatwright. Richmond: University of Richmond, 1973. Altbach, P.G., Berdahl, R.O. and Gumport, P.J. American Higher Education in the Twenty-First Century: Social, Political, and Economic Challenges. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999 American Council of Learned Societies. Liberal Arts Colleges in American Higher Education: Challenges and Opportunities. Washington: American Council of Learned Societies, 2005. Baker, C. A Friend in Power. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1958.Barzun, J. The American University: How It Runs Where It is Going. 2nd Edition: Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993. *Blanshard, F. Frank Aydelotte of Swarthmore. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1970. Birnbaum, R. How Academic Leadership Works: Understanding Success and Failure in the College Presidency. San Francisco, Jossey-Bass, 1992. *Bok, D. Our Underachieving Colleges: A Candid Look at How Much Students Learn and Why They Should Be Learning More. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006. Botstein, L. Jefferson’s Children: Education and the Promise of American Culture. New York: Doubleday, 1997. Bowen, W.G., Kurzweil, M.A., Tobin, E.M., and Pichler, S.C. Equity and Excellence in American Higher Education. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2005. Bowen, W.G. and Shapiro, H.T. (eds.) Universities and Their Leadership. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998. Bradley, R. Harvard Rules: The Struggle for the Soul of the World’s Most Powerful University. New York: HarperCollins,