This module offers six courses that are designed with a specific focus on the challenges faced by leaders and aspiring leaders working in universities. The courses cover broad topics common to a management syllabus, including organizational change, strategic planning and managing people and resources. Through this module, faculty will be equipped with the skills they need to embrace the opportunities and deal with the challenges presented by today’s complex educational environment.

Course 5: Managing Resources

Your skill in managing the fiscal, facilities and human resources available to your administrative unit will be essential to your success as a manager and to the success of the department. As the fiscal issues surrounding higher education become more complex so does the role of the resource manager within a department at a college or university. The challenges are many and include an increase in the competition for funds in both the public and private sectors of the economy. Governments are faced with demands for increasing expenditure on infrastructure, as well as increasing demands for governmental services. In addition, higher education is becoming increasingly dependent on private funding to meet needs formerly met through government funding. Concurrently, operational costs for institutions have risen, including – but not limited to – the cost of technology, other goods and services, and the increased competition for qualified academic staff.

Course 6: University Leadership and Management

Academic and teaching departments and support or service units are the core of your university institution. They are the first-line units through which your institution fulfils its mission, serves its students and the community, and most directly engages in discovering and disseminating knowledge. These units do the ‘work’ of the university, and in many ways the major purpose of much of the rest of the university is to support them.

In the four modules of this course we hope to give you some ideas and suggestions on how to improve the functioning of your department and your institution, while at the same time making your role more satisfying and rewarding.


Course 4: Managing People

It is widely recognised that a higher education institution’s people are its most precious resource: the key to achieving its strategic plan, the basis on which its reputation lies – and more. The management of people is therefore a crucial responsibility for all higher education leaders and managers if we are to achieve the aspiration of establishing well-motivated and high-performing departments. But let us not fool ourselves either: exhortations about the value of staff are often met with scepticism, often because staff themselves feel that their institution fails to practise what it preaches. It is here, then, that you can make a real and substantial difference in your role. As a head, you play the key role in motivating your staff, developing their competence, improving their performance, realising their potential and maximising their contribution. The aim of this course is to help you do just that.

Course 3: Strategic Planning

For universities and colleges, strategic planning is a relatively new activity, helping to clearly identify:

1. Mission, vision and objectives
2. Priorities and targets for improvement
3. The actions to be taken to achieve them.

Despite its relative novelty, the importance of good strategic planning is widely recognized throughout the higher education sector – and the need for good strategic planning has arguably never been greater.


Course 1: The University Context: An introduction

As you will see throughout this program, leaders and managers in higher education can have a profound influence on a work group. They can also play a significant role in promoting better systems, practices and performance. Our goal is to help you reach a new level as someone who others choose to support and follow, and who guides their community towards optimal outcomes. Enjoy the journey.

Course 2: Understanding University Cultures

University culture influences the way people interpret and respond to their work setting. It guides the beliefs and even the most ordinary tasks that people perform. As head of your team, you may be experiencing some obstacles in changing people’s behaviors and values. A better understanding of culture and its enactment in university settings can explain why some behaviors subvert and others support the university’s desired priorities and your attempts to lead and manage. Whilst you play a major part in shaping the culture within your department, you also need to understand the other influences that can affect the community.