Course Coordinator as Academic Leader

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Course Coordinator as Academic Leader
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The Team!
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Program Overview

• Value your feedback!

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Group Demographics

• 53 are UG coordinators, 30 PG, and 17 both UG
  and PG
• 47.8 have courses at regional campuses and 8.7
  offshore
• The number of locations varies from 1-9
• The majority of you (43.5) have been CCs for gt
  25 months, 26 for lt 1 year and 30.5 for 12-24
  months

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Pre-Participant SurveyLeadership
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Academic Leadership Different From General
Leadership?

• Requires greater consultation and more detailed
  explanation to convince academics (and students)
  that change is worthwhile and beneficial
• Academicsassuming I am leading a teamare used
  to being very autonomous and have great expertise
  in many areas
• Requires more collaborative and considerate
  approachlow boss mentality, rather leading
  co-workers and colleagues
• The same principles apply to leadership in all
  organisations. But they differ very much in their
  application to different environments
• Not sure/ Dont know but would like to find out
• Have to deal with well educated people

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What You Want From the Program

• Enhance leadership skills in a changing
  environment
• Understanding academic leadership
• Assistance in managing staff and students
• Tips on balancing teaching, research and
  administrative loads
• Clearer understanding of role and the
  universitys expectations
• Different perspectives on CC role and how others
  do it

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Discussion

• 3 things about your role which are great
• 3 things which grate!

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Things which are great!

• Autonomy
• Pastoral roleassisting students achieve their
  goals
• Stimulating
• Satisfyingwhen you have a win
• Potential for continuous improvement

• Having a big picture view
• Diversity of students/issues
• Role modelling (including the profession)
• Teaching
• Staff development

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Things which grate!

• Never stops
• Multi-tasking (stimulating and exhausting)
• Cumbersome systems
• Complexity of hierarchies and administrative
  processes
• CCs not being budget managers
• Frustrationresponsibility but no line authority
• CCs not budget managers

• Decisions not being made in a timely fashion
• Urgency of deadlines
• Managing standards and consistency in different
  locations
• Colleagues who dont deliver (academics and
  professional staff)

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• Leadership succession crisis
• Focus on effective change management
  implementation
• Excellent leadership needed at all levels to
  remain competitive

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Course Coordinators

• Least well recognised for their roles in
  determining whether change occurs
• are critical to engage with change agenda as
  they focus efforts and assist staff to learn how
  to make desired change work in practice (Scott
  et al. 2008 pxvii)

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10 most important influences

• Decreased government funding
• Balancing work and family life
• Managing pressure for continuous change
• Slow admin processes
• Handling unexpected events
• Finding retaining high quality staff
• Pressure to generate new income
• Rapid changes in technology
• Dealing with local university cultures
• Greater government reporting/scrutiny

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Areas of Work Focus for CCs

• Working on student matters
• Developing learning programs
• Reviewing teaching activities
• Identifying new opportunities
• Managing other staff
• Participating in meetings
• Managing relationships with senior staff
• Scholarly research
• Responding to ad hoc requests
• Strategic planning

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Leadership Capability Framework Scott (2008)
Capability
Inter- Personal
Personal
Cognitive
Role specific
Competency
Generic
Capabilities that count!
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Leadership Capability Scales Items

• Personal
• Self regulation (considered decisions, knowing
  self, work/life balance, calm under pressure)
• Decisiveness (take hard decisions, tolerate
  ambiguity, values/ethical)
• Commitment (energy passion, perseverance)
• Interpersonal
• Influencing (peers up, motivating, networking,
  feedback)
• Empathising (transparent honest, cultural
  competence)

• Cognitive
• Diagnosis (underlying causes, recognising
  patterns, identify from mass of information)
• Strategy (see act on opportunities, creative,
  best way to respond, priorities)
• Flexibility responsiveness (adjusting, sense of
  learning, no fixed answers)
• Competency
• Learning teaching
• University operations
• Self-organisation skills

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Program Philosophy and Learning Experiences

• Theoretical framework
• Experiential learning
• case/problem-based
• Toolkit
• 360 degree feedback iCVF
• Peer coaching/ self-reflection/ journaling
• Online resources
• Workbook folder

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Program Overview

• Course Coordinator as Academic Leader
• Academic Leadership for Excellent Curriculum
• Course Review
• Developing Academic Leadership Capacity x2 (iCVF)
• Building the Course Team
• Communicating with Emotional Intelligence
• Building Performance
• Managing Change Resistance
• Developing Key Relationships

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Next Session!

• Academic Leadership for Excellent Curriculum
• focus on assessment