Effective Leadership
Strategies, Challenges, and Lessons Learned: A Western University Leaders Response to Crises
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Glory Ovie
Natural disasters, conflict, turmoil, riots, terrorism, and health warnings dominate today’s headlines and highlight the reality that social or geographical boundaries no longer limit the reach of crises. A situation that one region faces today will likely affect another community, country, or continent tomorrow (Gainey, 2009). Higher education institutions are not exempt nor immune from these crises. Whether an organization survives a crisis with its condition intact is determined less by the severity of the crisis than by leadership, timeliness, and effectiveness of response (Demiroz & Kapucu 2012). Leaders in higher education will need to become crises leaders, and develop competencies to effectively manage, determine risk, get people out of harm’s way, and provide some form of safety and normalcy. If ever there was a time for crisis leadership in higher education it is now, because the stakes are high, therefore, this research is timely and expedient. This narrative inquiry explored how senior leaders in a Western University in Canada responded to man-made and natural crises with a focus on crisis leaders competences. Data sources were semi-structured interviews, and documents. The findings, insights, and experiences from this study will be useful in advancing the knowledge base in the field of crisis leadership and response to man-made and natural disasters in higher education. As well as provide a learning tool for current and future educational leaders as they better understand situations that they can prepare for but can never truly predict.
The Impact of Educational Leadership Preparation Programs: A Five-Year Study of Leaders' Perceptions
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Barbara Roquemore, Juliann Mc Brayer, Summer Pannell
It is critical that educator preparation programs lead in current and future needs of schools. Two institutions of higher education asked the questions in order to define the roles and responsibilities of school leaders and to explore the issues in preparing leaders for the work. To identify the impact of educational leadership programs on the preparation of educational leaders and its impact on districts and schools, a five-year study was conducted and included leadership candidates and graduates from two leadership programs at two universities in the State of Georgia. There were 1500 graduates and candidates presently in the programs who were invited to participate in the study. The research provides quantitative and qualitative data about the leadership graduates and the leadership candidates presently in the programs. It provides information about the employment of graduates in leadership roles in schools and school districts. The data provides quantitative and qualitative data on the graduates’ dispositions about their leadership training and their perceptions about the knowledge, skills, and dispositions essential for the new and developing trends in leadership.
Preparing Principals for the Literacy Demands in Primary and Elementary Schools
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Carol S. Christy, Barbara Roquemore
Principals in primary and elementary schools face escalating literacy requirements for their students, teachers, and themselves. These requirements include selections of appropriate materials for the instruction of students across all individual needs, additional instructional categories and requirements from state and regional entities, and interpretation and response to a variety of assessment materials, practices, and data sets. Many educational leadership candidates have never worked as a teacher in a primary or elementary, and they have no background in teaching literacy or literacy assessment as uniquely differing from other assessments. Principals who are currently employed may never have worked with children ages 5-12 before. What do these individuals wish they had known when they began their work, what have they had to learn on the job and is there a way to embed that learning in existing certification assignments within a state accredited leadership program? This presentation will share the results of surveys and interviews with current and future principals, and some assignments that may be helping to support these individuals.
