Enhancing Campus Capacity for Leadership An Examination of Grassroots Leaders in Higher Education Adrianna J. Kezar and Jaime Lester |
2011 368 pp. 16 figures, 6 tables. ISBN: 9780804776479
Cloth $60.00 ISBN: 9780804781626
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"[This book] provides insightful critique of status quo organizations, and theoretical and practical strategies for making differences and building capacity throughout an institution. . . Overall, Kezar and Lester make a significant contribution to the literature that connects to prior work by Tull, Hirt, and Saunders, Amey and Reesor, Hirt, Kuk, Banning and Amey, and others who remind readers of the importance of understanding your context, how it works, what is of value in it, and how to create opportunities and influence regardless of your location in the organization. . . It is an important book for all of us in higher education."—Marilyn J. Amney, Journal of College Student Development "[Enhancing Campus Capacity for Leadership] is the first research book of its kind to look at how bottom-up leadership (leadership from faculty and staff) can operate and succeed within the academy . . . The authors are to be congratulated for bringing us such a thoroughly researched study about non-positional, bottom-up leadership in higher education."—Helen S. Astin, The Review of Higher Education "Grassroots leadership is one of the most promising approaches to replenishing higher learning by helping to bring greater clarity and cohesion to our nation's colleges and universities. Ideas are precious, and this text advances several promising ones—not only for enriching the literature on leadership for change, but also the daily lives of those of us who believe that we need to work together to bring about a meaningful future. What a pleasure to read a book in which one feels that one is in conversation with the authors. This is an exemplary piece of work."—Clifton Conrad, University of Wisconsin-Madison and co-editor of The SAGE Handbook on Research in Education: Ideas as the Keystone of Exemplary Inquiry, Second Edition "This exemplar of case study design examines grassroots change initiatives in higher education to reveal the shifting nature of faculty and staff leadership in increasingly corporatized colleges and universities. Kezar and Lester highlight the dynamics of power in contemporary institutions, offering strategies for negotiating those dynamics. The voices of the research participants authentically and vividly demonstrate the power and process of leadership without formal authority."—Suzanne Estler, University of Maine Enhancing Campus Capacity for Leadership explores a mostly untapped resource on college campuses—the leadership potential of staff and faculty at all levels. This book contributes to the growing tradition of giving voice to grassroots leaders, offering a unique contribution by honing in on leadership in educational settings. In an increasingly corporatized environment, grassroots leadership can provide a balance to the prestige and revenue seeking impulses of campus leaders, act as a conscience for institutional operations with greater integrity, create changes related to the teaching and learning core, build greater equity, improve relationships among campus stakeholders, and enhance the student experience. The text documents the stories of grassroots leaders, including the motivation and background of these "bottom up" beacons, the tactics and strategies that they use, the obstacles they overcome, and the ways that they navigate power and join with formal authority. This investigation also showcases how grassroots leaders in institutional settings, particularly more marginalized groups, can face significant backlash. While we like to believe that organizations are civil and humane, the stories in this book demonstrate a dark side with which we must reckon. The book ends with a discussion of the future of leadership on college campuses, examining the possibilities for shared and collaborative forms of leadership and governance. |
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Business -- Management and Leadership
Business -- Organizations
Sociology -- Society and Education
Organizational Studies
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