The Academic Leadership Forum seeks to engage academic leaders, whether Chairs, Deans, Institute and Center Directors or Principal Investigators in subject matter discussions contributing to individual growth, organizational success and a richly supportive environmental culture. Attendees experience collaboration among academic executives, experienced and new academic leaders to discuss leadership challenges and enhance mutual success. The result hoped for is measurably enhanced academic environments and facilitated transformation of institutional climates.

The Forum is designed in four modules:
Module I; Academic Planning
This module focuses on identifying characteristics of best practices in academic leadership and uses appreciative inquiry as the approach to examination of successes. Discussion includes investing in building increasingly supportive academic environments and includes consideration of success driven policy development. The module concludes with a discussion of leadership dimensions and stewardship roles of academic leaders.
Module II; Faculty Recruitment and Retention
Section A, Recruitment, includes a discussion of charging and supporting faculty search committees, strategies for attracting top candidates, case practice for credentials review and finalist selection. The recruitment process concludes with approaches for mutually successful offer packages and creating great starts.
Section B, Retention, defines strategies for identifying top contributors, discovering from them what engages and builds their commitment to the department. Participants develop an understanding of how to create retention strategies that meet individual needs, enhance satisfaction of key faculty and contribute to development of future academic leaders in the discipline and department.
Module III; Negotiations, Power and Influence
This module examines leadership dynamics associated with generating powerful collaborations that yield mutual success. Participants define ethical uses of academic power coming from both direct and indirect sources. Understanding personal styles, needs for power and influence, and case study practices help Forum attendees develop personal skills in successful problem solving. Cases include "The Faculty Meeting", "The Search Committee" and "Retired In Tenure"
Module IV; Rewards and Risks of Leadership
This leadership discussion is primarily participant driven. Attendees identify what helped or inhibited their personal career advancement, the characteristics of success and failure observed in others, and the characteristics they expect of themselves. They consider the collaboration and leadership they expect from others. Participants consider why they accepted a leadership position and the incentives to lead as well as what the incentives should be. They share their experiences of the rewards of leadership. Finally, participants identify current challenges in academic leadership. They conclude the Forum by determining how they might work together to continue productive examination of and potential solutions to these challenges.

ACADEMIC LEADERSHIP FORUM - COACh

Purpose:
The Academic Leadership Forum seeks to engage academic leaders, whether Chairs, Deans, Institute and Center Directors or Principal Investigators in subject matter discussions contributing to individual growth, organizational success and a richly supportive environmental culture. This focus is key to attraction, retention, growth and success of women faculty in the sciences, engineering and medicine. The result should measurably enhance academic environments and facilitate transformation of institutional climates.

Participation:
Attendees will experience collaboration among academic executives, experienced and new academic leaders to discuss issues, leadership challenges and enhance mutual success. Case studies, theater and lively debate are, therefore, central to the design.

Schedule:
The plan includes four to six hour "early bird" sessions preceding each National meeting over a course of modules covering:
Academic planning, budgeting, policy and stewardship
Faculty recruitment and retention
Leadership dynamics; faculty meetings, anatomy of power and negotiation skills
Rewards, risks and current challenges of academic leadership

Annual renewal:
Past and current participants gather for an invitational forum with an invited speaker on a subject chosen for its current relevancy, major challenge or strategic nature as indicated by participant input and speaker nomination.

Support:
The forum is supported financially and operationally by COACh through the auspices of the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health and the Department of Energy.

Measurement of potential outcomes:
Collection of data and measurement of outcomes is possible in several areas.
Success in academic leadership position as reported by:
- deans, participants, junior and senior faculty women, post docs and research staff
Environmental transformation and change factors:
- climate (positive, tolerant, inclusive, respectful, supportive, mentoring)
- equal access for success (openness, availability of data, transperence,
diversity, fair treatment, committee assignments, assignment to leadership opportunities
- policy application (family friendly, equal treatment, etc.)
- financial and promotional results (salary equity, promotion and tenure
rates by gender, value of initial offer and renewal packages)
Academic Leadership Forum (draft design)

MODULE I
Academic Planning and Budgeting
Planning and budget cycles
Useful templates
- Best practices (shared examples)
• support for hiring and promotion initiatives
• funding climate based interests
- Periodic program review (process, approach and shared reports)
Academic Policy
The faculty handbook
Policies in development
Culture driven policy direction
- Family friendly policies
- Environmental equity
- Promotion and tenure
- Faculty – student relationships
Identification of helping and hindering policies (discussion)
Stewardship
Expectations of academic leaders
University support for responsible leadership and operation management of:
- People
- Financial assets
- Data
- Facilities and
- Legal compliance

MODULE II
Faculty recruitment and retention
Recruitment
- Charging and supporting a faculty search committee
- Strategies for attracting top candidates
- Reviewing credential (case practice)
- Selecting the successful finalist(s) (theater, feedback and replay)
- "Putting it all on the table"
- Collaboration to satisfy mutual interests
- Building the offer package
- "It’s a ten act play"
Retention
- Demographics
• Who is staying, going, approaching retirement
• Who came and why do they stay (attractors discussion)
• Who left, is leaving or considering leaving (detractors discussion)
• Where are they going, did they go (competitors discussion)
• What change, transformation or action is needed to improve climate
and retention
• What action plan, responsibility assignment can be enacted

MODULE III
Examining leadership dynamics; the faculty meeting, the anatomy of power and negotiating successful outcomes.
The faculty meeting
Facilitating successful meetings (speaker)
Considering "problem" meetings – the answer is not "get rid of ‘em"
- Shared experiences and advice
- Q&A for the speaker
A faculty meeting (theater, audience response, replay)
Decision making
Autocratic, consultative, consensus or anarchy
The power dynamic
The anatomy of power
- Over powering, powerful, powerless (discussion)
- Positive and negative uses of power
- When the answer is just plain "no"
- Difficult conversations
• important questions (if I got hooked - what happened, was said,
felt, resulted, could I change, is a better result possible)
• cases nominated by participants or provided by the facilitator(s)
i.e.; "Acting out and retired in tenure" or The expectant post-doc"
Negotiating successful outcomes
Principles
Interest based approaches
BATNA or developing alternatives
Styles (avoid, accommodate, compromise, collaborate, compete)
Listening
Packaging (no zero sum games)
The 10 act play

Module IV
Rewards, Risks and Challenges of Leadership
Rewards and risks
Charting (list participant contributions)
What helped or inhibited your career advancement
What characteristics of success and failure do you observe in others
What baggage (biases, coalitions, favoritism, style, etc.) have you brought
to this leadership position, if any
What supportive characteristics do you expect of yourself
What supportive collaboration and leadership do you expect from others
Why did you accept this leadership position
What are the incentives to lead; what should they be
What are the rewards of leadership
Current challenges in academic leadership (discussions)
Potential subjects (to be expanded by participants)
- Building a world class faculty and academic program
- Supporting faculty performance
• post tenure review
• recognizing and rewarding faculty performance
- Economic realities and institutional advancement
• grants
• research space
• interdisciplinary faculty, research and degrees
- Creating and maintaining a positive organizational culture
Closing comments, recognition of progress and understanding
- Hopes for the future
- Next steps
Celebration

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