Resource Handbook for Academic Deans

This essential guide addresses the expanding, multifaceted role of college and university academic leaders.

The new edition of the Resource Handbook for Academic Deans, one of the most important offerings to the academic community by the American Conference of Academic Deans, is written by and for academic leaders to address the expanding, multifaceted role of college and university administrators. Each chapter explores a topic related to how higher education leaders are influenced by national events, local partnerships, or on-campus collaborations. Among the topics covered are:

• understanding educational policy at the national level
• working with leaders from department heads to provosts
• engaging with external partners
• leading collaborative change at small colleges and universities
• shifting toward student-centered campuses
• making data-informed decisions
• embracing diversity, equity, and inclusion
• managing and balancing salaries
• building effective leadership teams and mentoring future leaders
• holding difficult conversations
• returning to the faculty after leadership

Providing helpful advice that can be studied in short chapters and inspiring content based on personal experience, the forty-three authors in this volume hold positions from department chairs to presidents at four-year and community colleges across the country. Written during the COVID-19 pandemic and amid calls for greater diversity, equity, and inclusion in higher education, each chapter offers perceptive insights from experienced leaders who serve a broad range of institutional types.

Andrew Adams is the director of the School of Music at Western Carolina University.