Discusses how to encourage a more conciliatory approach to governance between college trustees and faculty members. Examines four similarities between trustees and professors that fuel mutual frustration: deadwood on boards and faculties, organizational conservatism, unsolicited advice, and inconsistency. Recommends regular, two-way communication…

Examined staff decision making at a restructuring urban middle school, noting how some of the decisions were made. The decision making process included balancing the relative needs of individual students and the whole class; managing consensus, dissent, voice, and democracy; and recognizing leadership, authority, and accountability. Collective…

Uses the example of award-winning Black Hawk Middle School in Minnesota to examine: (1) developing a middle school architecture; (2) benefits of the house concept; (3) the need for staff involvement in school design; (4) assembling houses into schools; (5) reduced discipline problems; (6) fostering teacher collaboration; and (7) measuring success.…

Discusses findings of two (British) research projects initiated by the National Union of Teachers: a survey of NUT school representatives' views of EAZs and an evaluation of teachers' role in EAZs. Despite provision of high-quality professional-development opportunities, many teachers at EAZ schools feel that they do not "own" the…

This pyramid model of team development has four sides--awareness, behavior, communication, and direction--on a foundation of evaluation. The four equal sides of a pyramid represent the equal importance of the different roles, including leader, within a team. All team members are involved in evaluation and deciding what is important, which empowers…

It is generally believed that, when partnerships with civil society are created, members of the public become engaged in defining and solving problems, and as a result become empowered through enhanced understanding of substantive problems, and of the processes used by society to deal with them. In this context, two fundamental assumptions related…

The conducivity process, a methodology for creating healthier workplaces by promoting conducive production, is illustrated through the use of the "conducivity game" developed in the NordNet Project in Sweden, which was an action research project to test a job redesign methodology. The project combined the "conducivity" hypotheses about a…

This study reports the friendship experiences and aspirations of adults with intellectual disabilities. The findings of a larger study were reviewed by an expert group of self-advocates with intellectual disability. The expert group confirmed some of the interpretation of the original data and expanded on issues. Friendship is established as an…

The changing context of community colleges today is enough to make even the most versatile and experienced administrator's head spin. The constancy of change and the ways in which traditional responses fall short in addressing current challenges seem to relegate leaders to a place where they have a toolbox of strategies from which to draw in hopes…

This paper provides an overview of research that I have conducted during my career using data sets collected by offices of institutional research. Many of the examples discussed in the paper deal with graduate education. The paper illustrates how valuable the data collection efforts by these offices are to academic researchers interested in…

The University of Minnesota's University Senate was established in 1912. At the time the proposal to expand it was developed in 2003, the senate had two subordinate bodies, the Faculty Senate and the Student Senate. Although the subordinate bodies could and did take action on their own, most of their actions were subject to final approval by the…

This article draws on a reanalysis of findings from two separate qualitative studies that examined a possible relationship between school board members' and curriculum directors' conceptions of power and the way they made decisions (Mountford, 2001; Ylimaki, 2001, respectively). The findings from both studies were then compared to the extant…

This article critically examines the extent to which one emerging NGO facilitates the participation of its beneficiaries and other stakeholders in the decision-making processes at the identification, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of basic education programmes in Malawi. The author argues that despite the comparative advantage of this…

On 29 November, 2004, NCSL held its first distributed leadership conference. A website, and pack of materials complemented this event. The pack comprises a variety of research findings on distributed leadership in school and materials to support schools in their development of this management concept. In this article, the author presents a summary…

Because the national education agenda is focused on standards, testing, and accountability, schools are at risk of narrowly defining their mission as improving test scores. In this environment, it is easy to forget that public education serves a larger civic mission. Preserving and promoting a democratic society was the founding precept of the…