Identifying Faculty for Administrative Careers in Academic Leadership

Universities benefit from a strategic combination of hiring academic leaders externally and promoting from within. Such a combination ensures the consolidation and maintenance of initiatives while also bringing in new ideas and experiences from elsewhere in higher education and, when appropriate, from other industries. Internal academic leaders are often drawn from the faculty, a logical extension of their roles in shared governance and other institutional work. In fact, that was the case for the two of us, who served in roles such as program director, department chair, center director, participants in the faculty senate, and members of task forces charged with imagining, implementing, and/or assessing institutional initiatives. However, not all faculty members who serve in these roles prove to be ideal candidates for promotion to assistant/associate dean or associate/vice provost, or selection into higher-level academic leadership positions typically filled through national searches.