Academic Leadership: Fundamental Building Blocks
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Developing the Leadership Capability of Academic Coordinators
Leadership roles in universities are constructed in different ways and given a variety of
titles, but all universities have designated academic staff who undertake the academic
coordination of significant courses or programs (e.g., honours coordinators; coordinators of
large first year core courses and large academic programs) in a faculty. Typically these
people have responsibility for the ‘practical and everyday process of supporting, managing,
developing and inspiring academic colleagues’ (Ramsden, 1998, p. 4) and little if any
formal power. Frequently they are also involved in teaching. Their direct and indirect
impact on the learning outcomes of large numbers of students makes the role a critical one
in all discipline areas. Academic development has traditionally focussed on aspects of
teaching and learning rather than management and leadership. This paper describes a
leadership framework based on research in the field of management (The Integrated
Competing Values Framework or ICVF), relates it to the work of academic coordinators
and describes how the framework is being applied, in a project funded by the Australian
Institute of Learning and Teaching, to provide insights into the development of academic
leadership skills in higher education. Implications for practice, theory and policy that have
emerged from the early stages of the research are described.
Keywords: academic leadership, quality in teaching and learning, academic coordinators
Higher education has undergone momentous change as a result of pressures from
governments, employers and an increasingly diverse student population. Neither the
pace or scope of change is likely to abate in the near future. An increasingly casualised
workforce of teaching academics needs to come to terms with ‘the challenges of new
forms of learning, new technologies for teaching, and new requirements for graduate
competence’ (Ramsden, 1998, p. 3) while their leaders seek to deal with the challenges
associated with larger numbers of students from a wide range of backgrounds (Askling &
Stensaker, 2002; Yielder & Codling, 2004), increases in the variety of programs offered
(Askling & Stensaker, 2002), decreases in government funding and increased
accountability (Askling & Stensaker, 2002; Yielder & Codling, 2004), growth of
competition and market forces (Yielder & Codling, 2004), and an increased focus on
research. The complexity of this environment impacts on the role of both those who
teach and those who coordinate the teaching – the latter role arguably becoming more
important in this environment. However, D’Agostino (2007) argues that there is a gap in
our knowledge about academic leadership, particularly for those at the academic
coordinator level. In addition, the focus of staff development is currently centred on
lecturing and assessment and not academic leadership for academic coordinators
(D'Agostino, 2007).
This paper seeks to provide insights into the development of academic leadership in
universities by referring to the leadership literature more generally and investigating the
role of academic leaders within a theoretical framework taken from that literature. It uses
preliminary data collected as part of a Australian Institute for Learning and Teaching
funded project, “Improving the leadership capability of academic coordinators in
postgraduate and undergraduate programs in business” (Vilkinas, Leask, & Rogers,
2007). Academic leaders are defined as those staff who undertake the academic
coordination of programs in a faculty or division. Typically these people have
responsibility for the ‘practical and everyday process of supporting, managing,
developing and inspiring academic colleagues’ (Ramsden, 1998, p. 4) in various and
