1st Edition

Student Affairs Leadership Defining the Role Through an Ecological Framework

By Linda Kuk, James H. Banning Copyright 2016
    218 Pages
    by Routledge

    218 Pages
    by Routledge

    Kuk and Banning offer readers a new lens for viewing leadership, one that goes beyond a focus on the behavior and values of leaders as individuals to examine how positional leaders interact with their environments to engage in leadership “in context”. This book is addressed to aspiring and senior student affairs officers and offers a new “ecological” framework that recognizes that today’s leaders are affected by factors they may not control, and work within an environment they cannot expect to mold solely through their execution of skills and strategies.Based on research supported through a grant from the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA) Foundation, this book explores leadership as an interactive process within varied environmental contexts, and through an analysis of the transactional process between the leader, the organizational members and the various components of the organizations environment.It describes how leaders deploy differing competencies, skills and strategies in varied contexts, and how they choose to use past experiences, their training and personal characteristics to set priorities and navigate the cultural, social, physical, legal and political, resource, and ethical environments of their organizations.Several chapters conclude with an account of how the experiences of the SSAO participants in the research informed their practice of leadership and understanding of how leadership actually works.

    ForewordPart One. Introduction to the Ecology of Student Affairs Leadership 1. The Evolving Concept of Leadership 2. The Ecological Model for Leadership in Student Affairs 3. The Identity of Leaders. How Do They View Leadership? Part Two. The Environmental Influences of Leadership Engagement 4. The Cultural Environment 5. The Social Environment 6. The Physical Environment 7. The Political/Legal Environment 8. The Resource Environment 9. The Ethical Environment 10. Integrating Leadership Engagement. The Ecological Perspective Part Three. The Future of Student Affairs Leadership 11. The Environment for Organizational Change 12. Voices on Leadership Issues. The Future 13. Collection of the Voices

    Biography

    Linda Kuk currently serves as the Program Chair for the Higher Education Leadership Program in the School of Education at Colorado State University and is an Associate Professor of Education. Within her work she continues to prepare leaders for roles in Higher Education Institutions. Prior to her return to the faculty in 2006, she served as the Vice President of Student Affairs at Colorado State University, her alma mater. During her administrative career in Student Affairs she served as a Vice President for Student Affairs for nearly 23 years at Colorado State University, the Rochester Institute of Technology and SUNY, Cortland. She also served as Dean of Students at Marquette University in Milwaukee Wisconsin, and held various positions within student affairs divisions at Iowa State University and the University of Connecticut. She has served as an organizational consultant for a number of Colleges and Universities within the United States and in China. She has published three books, Positioning Student Affairs for Sustainable Change, (2010), New Realities: Emerging Specialist Roles and Structures in Student Affairs Organizations, (2012) and The Handbook for Student Affairs in Community Colleges, (2014). She has published over 30 articles in referred journals, as well as numerous book chapters and presentations. Her research interests include: issues related to organizational behavior, change and leadership in student affairs and higher education, student engagement and retention, and student affairs professional development. In her limited spare time she is a painter, dabbling in a variety of media and also likes to bike and golf. James H. Banning , Professor Emeritus, Colorado State University, is an environmental psychologist and studies institutional learning environments from the perspective of campus ecology. Jim holds a Ph.D. degree in clinical psychology from the University of Colorado – Boulder, Colorado. He has served in a number of Senior Stude

    "In my 28th year as a SSAO at the same institution who teaches leadership courses, this book resonates with me on many levels. After outlining the many streams of thought flowing through leadership literature, these two distinguished scholars cogently establish a new stream of research fully capturing and explaining my professional and informal work for my institution, colleagues, and students. It rigorously outlines the many components of leadership engagement from an ecological perspective capturing the wholeness of our working spaces. This results in a holistic parameter for decision making, leading, and meeting the challenges in today’s increasingly complex student affairs management environment."

    Frank P. Ardaiolo, Ed.D., Vice President for Student Life & Associate Professor

    Winthrop University

    "This work opens new doors into the study of leadership for the student affairs profession. 'Contextual leadership' is a developing area to be applied differently than the governmental and corporate settings. This concept, researched and aided by the theory of the ecological perspective, will help future administrators prepare and execute their leadership roles well for years to come. Kuk and Banning’s research will impact and strengthen the student affairs profession."

    John R. Laws, Ed.D., Vice Chancellor Student Affairs

    Ivy Tech Community College