Leadership and management skills
A program that enhances the behavior of leaders inexpensively and seamlessly, embedded in a gamified approach
A scheme that enables staff members to learn and to apply the latest advances and research on tertiary institutions
Evaluation
A series of advanced methods to increase the utility and validity of surveys; otherwise, results tends to be dismissed, biased, or uninformative
A cooperative and committee that identifies suitable, rather than unlawful or unethical, industry partners
Participation
A protocol that optimizes student representation on committees and the degree to which students can shape decisions
Incidental leadership development
A program that enhances the behavior of leaders inexpensively and seamlessly, embedded in a gamified approach
Outline of the problem
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Although most tertiary institutions acknowledge the importance of leadership development, programs that are designed to achieve this goal are often expensive—especially because leadership is not limited to executives and directors.
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Typically, after leaders complete these programs, changes in behavior are often transient or modest rather than enduring and pronounced.
Outline of a solution
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Leaders could instead receive a checklist of leadership behaviors that researchers and specialists recommended—such as acknowledging personal shortcomings or delivering unexpected rewards
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Leaders could record examples in which they enacted the various behaviours in a shared repository—and their line managers evaluate these records as part of the performance appraisal.
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A 360 assessment, or similar procedures, could perhaps complement this approach
Possible variation
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To embed this program into a gamified approach, other leaders can evaluate these examples
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These other leaders gain points if they correctly guess which behavior corresponds to each answer
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Leaders also gain points if someone else correctly guesses which behavior corresponds to one of their answers
Distributed management knowledge
A scheme that enables staff members to learn and to apply the latest advances and research on tertiary institutions
Outline of the problem
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Managers at tertiary institutions often reach misguided decisions because of several reasons. First, staff often feel they had been exposed to adequate succession planning or management training before they assume their first management role.
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Second, in most tertiary institutions, the responsibilities of these managers are unduly extensive. Because these managers tend to be inundated with work, they cannot remain abreast of the literature and advances in university operations.
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Third, many staff at tertiary institutions feel that management disregard their contributions and perspectives, culminating in frustration and burnout.
Outline of a solution
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To address all these challenges simultaneously, tertiary institutions should somehow enable staff to develop, and then apply, expertise on specific advances in educational management. To achieve this goal, tertiary institutions, working in isolation or in a coalition, should identify all the distinct topics in which staff could develop expertise—such as blockchain technologies or automated assessments.
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To identify these distinct topics, specialists should examine the literature on tertiary institutions systematically. For example, specialists might scrape citation data—that is, data that indicates which publications in the field cite one another. The specialists can then apply cluster analyses to identify constellations of publications that tend to cite one another and thus represent distinct advances in the field.
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Next, staff members who express an interest in management could indicate, on a 10-point scale, the degree to which they would like to learn about the various topics, such as blockchain technologies or automated assessments. These data could inform two decisions
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First, tertiary institutions could allocate each staff member one topic. These staff members should agree to develop expertise and read about this topic over time, perhaps dedicating about 30 minutes a week to this endeavor.
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Second, tertiary institutions could also subject these data to another cluster analysis, primarily to identify teams of staff who share overlapping interests. Each team would meet regularly and uncover opportunities to apply their overlapping expertise to improve the organization.
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Thus, most advances in tertiary education would be familiar to at least one staff member, and this staff member would be empowered to share their insights to teams of interested colleagues—increasing the likelihood that many of these advances will be implemented to some extent.
Smart surveys
A series of advanced methods to increase the utility and validity of surveys; otherwise, results tends to be dismissed, biased, or uninformative
Overview of the problem
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Tertiary institutions often conduct surveys to gauge the insights of students, staff, and stakeholders—partly to fulfill regulations or requirements
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Unfortunately, the results of surveys tend to be dismissed, biased, or uninformative.
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To illustrate, on one survey, staff might indicate that communication is the most significant problem of this institution—generating a score of 1.7 out of 5. In response, institutions will tend to devote more funding to this matter. However, institutions should devote more funding to the matter that will generate the highest return on investment—and this return does not depend only on the magnitude of these scores.
Overview of a solution
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Instead, a range of methods and advances can improve the utility of surveys.
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For example, before the survey is administered, managers should be asked to estimate the average response on each question. The analysts can then calculate and communicate the difference between the predicted responses and the actual responses. When this method is applied, managers can no longer ascribe unflattering results to some recent event, such as a restructure. That is, managers cannot dismiss these findings.
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In addition, academics should be able to use their expertise to insert questions in these surveys—and then utilize the results in their research. Because of their expertise, their analysis is more likely to uncover valid and helpful recommendations as well as extend their research activity.
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Finally, rather than administer the whole survey at one time, questions should be distributed over time. Specialists can then assess how the responses change over time, in response to various events. The ensuing insights enable institutions to estimate the return on various investments.
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These measures could initially seem unnecessarily cumbersome. But, if these measures are not applied, the results tend to be misleading.
TIPP-C
A cooperative and committee that identifies suitable, rather than unlawful or ethical, industry partners
Outline of the problem
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Tertiary institutions strive to establish strong partnerships with a range of corporations. Occasionally, if not frequently, these corporations engage in activities that contradict the values and objectives of these institutions—such as breach the UN sustainable development goals.
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For example, even now, some universities receive financial and other support from tobacco companies. University endowments do not often divest their stocks in tobacco. Similarly, tertiary institutions often support corporations that, according to Violation Tracker, have committed a range of serious breaches of laws in tax, work safety, employee rights, consumer protection, and the environment.
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These relationships often legitimize these corporations and thus normalize, and ultimately promote, unlawful and unethical behavior.
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These relationships may eventually tarnish the reputations of these tertiary institutions as well.
Outline of a solution
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A coalition of tertiary institutions could develop a cooperative in which they agree to abstain from partnerships with corporations that deviate from their shared values. This cooperation would establish a committee to evaluate these partnerships.
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Specifically, this committee would first utilize databases, such as Violation Tracker and Corporate Rap Sheet, to collate data on the level of malfeasance, inequality, and other relevant attributes of corporations
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Second, if members of this cooperative planned to establish or maintain a relationship with an industry partner, they would apply to this committee.
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The committee would either approve this relationship, approve this relationship but only on projects that fulfill the UN sustainable development goals, or reject this relationship altogether.
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Third, industry partners who would like to collaborate with tertiary institutions would also contact the committee. The committee would thus act as a broker to identify suitable partners.
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The tertiary institutions that are members of this cooperative enjoy several benefits. First, this cooperative facilitates the formation of partnerships between tertiary institutions and ethical industry partners, diminishing the costs of due diligence and industry engagement.
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Second, this cooperative may enhance the reputation of members. Tertiary institutions can refer to their membership of this cooperative on brochures and other documents.
The student voice equation
A protocol that optimizes student representation on committees and the degree to which students can shape decisions
Outline of the problem
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To attract students, tertiary institutions like to depict themselves as student-centered and profess to center their decisions around the needs of students
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Yet, because of several constraints, the extent to which students can shape the decisions and practices of institutions is limited and—according to critics of neoliberalism and consistent with some research—has gradually eroded over time.
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Responses to surveys, tend to be aggregated, obscuring some of the key insights and concerns of particular demographics of students
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And the student representatives on committees are too scarce and vulnerable to appreciably sway the opinion of executives.
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Because they cannot shape decisions to the degree they anticipated, many students feel disillusioned or disappointed with their institution.
Outline of a solution
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Several, or even many, tertiary institutions should become signatories to a protocol that is designed to enable students to influence key decisions
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First, teaching staff can set assignments in which students apply the knowledge they learned to recommend changes that could improve the institution
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Second, a student team, comprising interested students but selected randomly, identify specific recommendations they would like the institution to introduce. They could derive these recommendations from the assignments that received the top grades or they could apply other methods as well.
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This student team also convert each recommendation to a tangible and measurable goal as well as assign this goal to one committee.
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Third, representative staff members of the participating institutions collaborate to estimate the workload of each recommendation. For example, one recommendation might be equivalent to three days work; another recommendation might be equivalent to five days work.
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Fourth, after one year, the student team determine which targets were achieved.
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Fifth, this information is utilized to compare the performance of participating institutions. For instance, one institution might have completed the equivalent of 20 days of recommendations. Another institution might have completed the equivalent of only 10 days
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Finally, and most importantly, the following equation is applied to ascertain the extent to which the number of student representatives on each committee should be increased. The upshot is that institutions that do not introduce the recommendations of students agree, in essence, to increase student representation on their committees accordingly.
% increase = 100 - 100 x no. of days completed at this institution / no. of days completed at leading institution
Contributors
To seek advice or engage specialists on these initiatives, contact the contributors of this page
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The collaborative index
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Utility over popularity
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The action plan generator
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The writing pyramid
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Research development appraisals