Building an In-House Faculty Leadership Development Program: A Case Study at The Claremont Colleges

We recently shared our in-house faculty leadership program, the Claremont Faculty Leadership Program (CFLP), with the ACAD community through an interactive workshop presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Conference of Academic Deans (ACAD; Armstrong et al., 2023). In the workshop, we offered CFLP as a case study for building an effective and sustainable in-house faculty leadership program that identifies and trains emerging faculty leaders while also building community. Topics covered in CFLP include crisis management; leadership self-assessment; mindfulness in leadership; budgeting in higher education; and best practices for diversity, equity, and inclusion when recruiting and retaining faculty. CFLP leverages the unique assets of The Claremont Colleges, which is a consortium of five undergraduate and two graduate institutions located in Claremont, California, but the lessons from CFLP are generalizable to other institutions. In the hopes that others can build upon CFLP’s success, herein we offer general strategies for building, operating, assessing, and sustaining an in-house faculty leadership program tailored to one’s own institutional context.

The Higher Education Leadership Landscape

The success of a higher education institution depends upon strong and stable leadership. It is particularly important to have agile leadership in higher education with its ever-changing landscape (Altbach, 2014). According to the 2023 American Council on Education’s American College President study (Melidona et al., 2023), more than half of college presidents arrive to the presidency through the traditional faculty or academic pathway. Since the basis for faculty appointments to leadership roles is often success in their disciplinary fields rather than leadership skills per se, faculty members may hold leadership positions without extensive preparation. As such, leadership development programs targeting faculty have become pivotal in creating a pipeline of academic leadership talent.

Recent data from Higher Education Publications, Inc. indicates that senior leadership positions at colleges and universities consistently experience high turnover rates (College Administrator Data/Turnover Rates: 2018-Present); in such an environment, faculty have opportunities to purposely step into these roles. Leadership development programs are an established, sound method by which to prepare emerging leaders to be agile and effective. There are several national academic leadership development programs (e.g., American Council on Education (ACE) and Higher Education Resource Services (HERS)), as well as consortial/regional leadership programs (e.g., the Big Ten Academic Alliance Academic Leadership Program and Five College Mellon Faculty Leadership Development Program). These programs can be costly, and many institutions do not have the financial resources to enable participation by their faculty. Some institutions offer on-campus leadership development programs (e.g., Florida State University’s Faculty Leadership Development Program, MIT’s Leader to Leader, and New York University’s Faculty Leadership Development Program), which provide leadership training in the unique context of each institution but are usually considered to be complementary to outside leadership programs.

We designed CFLP to be a low-cost, consortial leadership development program that supports purposeful, bespoke training for faculty within the Claremont Colleges Consortium. For those aspiring to take on leadership roles in faculty governance, consortial collaboration, and academic administration, CFLP gives faculty the opportunity to raise their hands and be intentional in developing their skills, learning from in-house experts in both academic and non-academic positions, and networking with faculty peers and senior administrators at their home institutions and throughout the consortium. The CFLP blueprint promotes diversity, equity, and inclusion by providing equitable pathways to leadership that are accessible, inviting, and tailored to meet the needs of diverse faculty constituencies. The in-house aspect of CFLP affords administrators the opportunity to identify, cultivate, and cross-train faculty leaders. It fosters a unique return on investment of time, energy, and resources for the faculty fellows, associate dean organizers, and in-house presenters that is grounded in community spirit and a shared dedication to inclusive, collaborative, and sustainable leadership.

Building the Program: Learning Goals and Themes

We designed CFLP to fulfill specific learning goals that we organized under five broad themes:

Growth into Leadership

• Develop the attributes and skills to support successful growth into leadership roles, such as resilience, work-life balance, and relational and conflict resolution strategies.

Sustainable, Ethical, and Inclusive Leadership

• Cultivate behaviors, techniques, and approaches that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion
• Effectively collaborate with people in different institutional roles, including non-academic leadership, and participate in cross-functional teams.

Crisis Management

• Increase awareness of tools to manage crises and support all members of the campus community.

Financial Management

• Build bridges and facilitate greater understanding between the academic and financial arms of the institution.

Challenges and Opportunities in Consortial Collaborations

• Foster relationships with current and future academic leaders across our consortium.
• Identify specific institutional and consortial challenges, tradeoffs, and appropriate resources for resolution.

Operating the Program: Design, Logistics, and Support

The implementation of an in-house faculty leadership development program will always be institutionally specific. Taking a design-centered approach, we found it helpful to start with a set of basic operational questions.

For how long and how often will the program run?

• The answer to this question will depend on both the size and interest of the potential pool of faculty participants. With relatively small faculty bodies at The Claremont Colleges and a wide range of interests in leadership development opportunities, we chose to launch a small program consisting of 21 faculty fellows (three selected by each of the seven Claremont Colleges through a coordinated nomination and application process). Based on assessments of faculty interest, funding availability, and time required for preparation and implementation, our program runs on a biennial cycle with a planning year followed by an implementation year.

 Who will oversee and provide administrative support for the program?

• The CFLP Faculty Director runs a working group comprised of seven associate deans, one from each of The Claremont Colleges. The CFLP Faculty Director oversees the program, proposes budget and assessment plans, and reports to the consortial academic deans who approve and fund the program. One of The Claremont Colleges is charged with providing administrative support for the program as a whole, and each associate dean contributes to consortial programming and runs their own campus-specific programming for their cohort of three fellows.

 What happens during the planning year?

• Fall Semester: The seven associate deans of the CFLP working group hire a new Faculty Director through an open application process.
• Spring Semester: The newly hired CFLP Faculty Director begins their 18-month appointment and collaborates with the working group to develop CFLP programming for the next year. This design process centers the themes and learning goals listed above and prioritizes programming that is interactive, such as the simulation described below. The working group selects CFLP fellows who have applied to the program through an open nomination and application process.

What does the implementation-year programming look like?

• CFLP consists of consortial activities—including two half-day workshops, a two-day conference, and networking receptions that bookend the year—as well as events on each campus that are customized to the interests and experiences of its three CFLP fellows.

Consortial Events

• September: Opening reception with academic deans, associate deans, and fellows to create networking opportunities.
• October: Half-day interactive leader development workshop (paired with optional one-on-one coaching opportunities). During this workshop, fellows participate in a simulation of a consortium-wide meeting to practice high-level problem solving in a collaborative context.
• January: Two-day conference with role-playing exercises in crisis management and sessions on diversity, equity, and inclusion in faculty recruitment and retention; leadership challenges; and mindfulness and self-care.
• February: Half-day budget workshop in which collaborative exercises immerse fellows in budget making, revenue allocation, and cost prioritization in the context of strategic planning in higher education.
• April: Closing reception for current and alumni fellows to celebrate and connect as participants move ahead on new pathways.

Campus-Specific Events

• Lunch discussions (1-3 per semester) with senior administrators on topics matched to program themes of particular interest to the three campus CFLP fellows.

How much does the biennial program cost?

• The answer to this question will vary depending on local catering costs, number of participants, speaker costs, administrative costs (e.g., program director), and any transportation and lodging expenses. CFLP avoids travel and lodging costs because it is local to its participants in Claremont, California. Programming is provided pro bono by institutional leaders whose participation makes a sustainable investment in our shared community. With these caveats in mind and subject to inflationary pressures, the cost per fellow for the most recent two-year cycle of the program was approximately $1,150. The largest line items in the CFLP budget were catering and the director stipend.

Creating Engaging Programming: Collaborative Simulation Exercises

The programming for CFLP is intentionally immersive and interactive. Through experiential learning exercises, fellows engage in collaborative work in cross-functional teams across institutional roles. While challenging, efforts to break down traditional siloes and engage in joint problem-solving can be transformative. These types of exercises have been well received by CFLP fellows.

In our 2023 ACAD workshop, we modeled a 35-minute role-playing exercise to simulate a sample interactive experience of a CFLP fellow. We placed workshop participants into groups of five and assigned each of them to a role on a five-person coordinating committee overseeing the creation of a new Institute for Mental Health at a fictional college. The five assigned roles were Chair of the Faculty Executive Committee; Psychology Department Chair; Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion; Associate Dean of Students; and Associate VP of Special Gifts in the Development Office. We provided each person with specific background information about their role (see Appendix A) and instructed them to imagine that they had just been convened as a group for the first time and informed that their newly formed committee is charged with the design and implementation of plans for the new Mental Health Institute. The plans are to be introduced to the community in a letter that the President will release the next day announcing the new Institute and the members of the Coordinating Committee. We showed participants the proposed letter (see Appendix B) and asked them to meet in their five-person groups for 15 minutes and consider the first three of the following four questions from the perspective of their role (there was not enough time for the fourth question):

• What are your overarching issues with the plan outlined in the letter?
• Who should be looped in before this communication goes out?
• Who is missing from the five-person Coordinating Committee?
• What follow-up action items (after the letter goes out to the college community) would make this a productive and useful initiative for your constituencies?

After the 15-minute small-group discussions, we reconvened as one large group for 15 minutes and asked all the people who were assigned to each role, one role at a time, to summarize their responses to the three questions from the perspective of their role. Role-playing exercises like this are designed to engage participants in collaborative problem solving with a wide range of stakeholders. Taking on the role of someone from advancement, student affairs, or the academic administration gives faculty fellows a small window into the responsibilities, priorities, perspectives, and constraints in divisions across the institution. A critical part of this simulation is considering who isn’t at the table yet, whose critical perspectives are missing from the decision-making process, and how they can be incorporated in a meaningful way in a timely manner. This is a challenging task because although smaller committees may operate more efficiently than larger groups, they risk crafting a program that alienates key stakeholders. Through this work breaking down traditional siloes across academic and non-academic units, faculty fellows gain valuable practice looking for common interests across divisions and advocating for their own priorities while respectfully considering the needs of others. By making some institutional structures newly visible to faculty members, this exercise seeks to foster a collaborative culture of respect through recognition of the varied needs and constraints of other stakeholders.

Sustaining the Program: Assessment and Outcomes

Aren’t you worried that you’ll train faculty to be administrators, and then they’ll leave? This is a reasonable question you might ask as you read this. But what happens if you don’t train them and then they stay? An in-house faculty leadership development program builds potential and capacity from within, arming faculty with new skills that shape their work as curricular innovators, committee chairs, department chairs, program directors, institute directors, and associate deans.

How do you know if your program works? In order to evaluate CFLP, we distributed three surveys per implementation year.

1. Entrance survey: Fellows shared what they wanted to learn during the year-long program
2. End-of-conference survey: Learning outcomes were assessed at the end of the two-day conference
3. Exit survey: Fellows evaluated the program as a whole, including both consortial and campus-specific programming, and reflected on their growth into leadership over the course of the year.

This past year, we also conducted substantive interviews with program alumni in order to collect longitudinal data.

• Current and past fellows shared how the program has given them a broader perspective on leadership: “CFLP has helped me in reframing how I view leadership on my campus, which is not necessarily a specific role that I hold, but even just a way of interacting.”
• Fellows found content applicable to their current positions: “I really appreciated the DEI information that was presented; I was on several search committees…having gone through that workshop helped me.”
• Given our unique consortial structure, fellows also appreciated faculty networking opportunities across our colleges: “The different perspectives regarding leadership and career goals you get not only from your cohort but from faculty from other schools were great.”

Through three iterations of the program, we have seen the transformative impact of experiential learning and meaningful networking, with more than half of our alumni now serving in leadership roles: 23.8% are serving in faculty governance roles, 19% are serving in administrative roles, and 9.5% have moved into leadership roles in professional/disciplinary associations. Is this the end of the accidental administrator? An in-house faculty leadership development program has helped us create a more robust pipeline of intentional academic leaders, all armed with the self-awareness, knowledge, and know-how to help them and their respective institutions thrive.

References

Altbach, P. G. (2014). Knowledge for the contemporary university: Higher education as a field of study and training. In L. E. Rumbley, P. G. Altbach, D. A. Stanfield, Y. Shimmi, A. de Gayardon, & R. Y. Chan (Eds.), Higher education: A worldwide inventory of research centers, academic programs, and journals and publications (3rd ed., pp. 11–21). Lemmens Media.

Armstrong, J., Bizuneh, M., Levin, S., Rentz, E. K., & Van Heuvelen, K. (2023, February). Building an in-house faculty leadership development program: A case study at The Claremont Colleges. Workshop presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Conference of Academic Deans (ACAD), Tampa, FL.

Melidona, D., Cecil, B. G., Cassell, A., & Chessman, H. M. (2023). The American College President: 2023 edition—Executive summary. Washington, DC: American Council on Education.

Acknowledgements

The Claremont Faculty Leadership Program emerged from a capstone project presented by Shana Levin at the 2017 Summer Institute of the Association for Collaborative Leadership in Claremont, California. We thank the Claremont Colleges Office of Consortial Academic Collaboration and the Teagle Foundation for encouraging and funding Dr. Levin’s participation in the Summer Institute. We thank the Claremont Colleges Academic Deans Committee for providing generous funding for the biennial CFLP since it was first implemented in 2018. For more information about the program, please visit the CFLP website: https://colleges.claremont.edu/cflp/about/.

Appendix A.

Role Descriptions for Simulation Exercise

Imagine that your college president plans to send a letter to the campus community tomorrow announcing the opening of a new Institute for Mental Health on your campus next fall. The Institute will develop a full-scale, integrated institutional approach to overcoming health challenges in our community, our nation, and our world. The President has constituted a Coordinating Committee to oversee the creation of the Institute. The committee is composed of the Associate Dean of Students; Chair of the Faculty Executive Committee; Chair of the Psychology Department; Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion; and Associate VP of Special Gifts in the Development Office. You have been selected by the President to serve on the committee in one of these roles. Please read the background information about assigned your role below and imagine that you have just been convened as a group for the first time and informed that your newly formed committee is charged with the design and implementation of plans for the new Mental Health Institute.

Chair of the Psychology Department

You are the Chair of the Psychology Department, and you are concerned that your colleagues will be disproportionately burdened. The proposal for the new center has created a rift in your department between the clinical psychologists and everyone else.

• The clinical psychologists are concerned that they will be asked to assist in the programming, operations, and assessment of the new center. They are already overburdened by the number of students seeking referrals for follow-up care at the student health center and in the surrounding community and they would like to be able to spend more of their time on their own research and clinical practice.
• The non-clinicians in your department are concerned that all of the college’s resources will go toward the new center and they will not be able to receive as much internal funding for their own research. They are also concerned that their clinical colleagues will receive teaching release time to help out with the new center, and they will need to fill in for them by teaching more of the required core classes in the major instead of their research-focused advanced electives.
• You welcome this new center, but you have not been informed as to its exact mission and how it will interface with the Psychology Department.

Associate VP of Special Gifts in the Development Office

As a relatively new employee of the college, you’re feeling some pressure in your new position. You worry that you’re perceived as an “outsider,” having come to the College from a different sector. You don’t know the faculty yet, and it’s been hard figuring out how to do that – it’s hard to navigate a new place, and it doesn’t help that your office is in a building that’s on the outskirts of campus.

You’re really excited about the new Institute for Mental Health: this is your first big win! You’re proud of the relationship you’ve established with the donor (who wishes to remain anonymous), and you have reason to believe that this will lead to future gifts down the road; it’s important to keep this donor happy and engaged.

As the donor specifies in the Terms of Agreement, the Psychology Department must be the lead department. The donor has made it clear that the Institute is intended to serve students, and you’re not sure how flexible they’ll be in terms of broadening out from that; the donor is passionate about supporting young people (and their family has weathered some very personal – and public – struggles with mental health).

The donor is eager to move as quickly as possible. You want to strike while the iron is hot, but you’re also worried about moving too quickly. You have a lot to prove, and the stakes feel really high. Although this was a win for you, your office’s previous campaign failed, so you feel like all eyes are on you.

Chair of the Faculty Executive Committee

You were elected to be the chair of the Faculty Executive Committee (FEC) and you have only been in this role for one semester. FEC has four faculty members (also elected by the faculty), one senior and one junior student (with one of them being able to vote on committee matters), the Dean of Faculty (a voting member), and the President (ex officio, non-voting).

There has been an increase in mental health issues among your students and faculty have expressed being burnt out and being overburdened with additional responsibilities in their classrooms (vis-a-vis accommodations) and in advising.

You are also aware that this new institute is going to be costly and would be interested in knowing the source of funding for this project as well as what its implied prioritization means for other items that need sourcing such as increasing the number of tenure-track/ tenured professors in each department due to an increase in student enrollments. You are also concerned that the establishment of such an institute may have financial implications for faculty salaries.

Lastly, given that FEC was not consulted in the concept of this institute as well as its functioning before it was shared with FEC as information and given that your faculty are committed to the practice of robust shared governance (see composition above) you are worried that this will be perceived as a top down decision from the administration without the input of the community (faculty in particular).

On one hand, an expedited move on this potential solution for the mental health crisis that is being observed is welcomed, but on the other, it is your job to make sure that the process of shared governance is followed.

Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

You are just concluding your second year as the associate dean for diversity, equity, and inclusion. In this capacity, you work closely with staff, faculty, and students to make sure that college practices are equitable and inclusive, and your charge includes supporting all members of the community. Your primary focus is building a sense of belonging on campus.

• Expanding access to health care has been a major priority during your time in this office, as all members of the community are navigating burnout due to emergency remote instruction and a challenging return to campus. Many students are struggling with mental health, and a disproportionate number of staff colleagues are dealing with long COVID after working in dining halls and supporting students in quarantine.
• Along with Student Affairs, you are in contact with a student disability advocacy group on campus. This group of students does not want mental health issues (including neurodivergence) to be viewed as “problems” that must be fixed top down by the institution.
• You are finalizing a report for the Dean, the Provost, and the President about the physical plant and the ways in which aging campus buildings do not accommodate people with mobility challenges. This report has involved many hours of meeting with constituencies on campus, listening to students, staff, and faculty who navigate disabilities and chronic illness, liaising with HR, touring all buildings on campus, and partnering with facilities staff.
• Student affinity groups do not have dedicated space on campus; they have long been promised more space, but that has not yet materialized. In the meantime, affinity groups are using classrooms after hours or using a corner of a dorm common space. In each case, students in these groups are lugging their supplies between the dorms and their meeting spaces. You are actively advocating for dedicated space for these groups.
• While you appreciate the idea of a new center, you aren’t sure how it will intersect with existing institutional projects and priorities.

Associate Dean of Students

You are an Associate Dean of Students and supervise the Assistant Deans in charge of Case Management in addition to other Student Affairs staff. On a daily basis you are navigating the increase in mental health challenges in our student body.

• The number of students seeking counseling services is unprecedented and cannot be met with the current resources at the student health center or in the surrounding community.
• Faculty are reaching out to you to share their concerns about students in the classroom–students are missing class, not completing work, and not participating in group assignments.
• Staff across campus have shared that many students have stopped showing up to their campus jobs, often leaving their campus employers in awkward positions.
• At the same time, you are in contact with a student disability advocacy group on campus. This group of students does not want mental health issues to be viewed as “problems” that must be fixed top down by the institution.

The increase in workload in Student Affairs over the past several years has taken a toll, you have seen high turnover in your department and you can see that your staff are struggling with their own mental health.

You welcome this new center, but you have not been informed as to its exact mission and how it will interface with current work in the student health center and with your Case Management team.

To cite these materials:

Armstrong, J., Bizuneh, M., Levin, S., Rentz, E.K., & Van Heuvelen, K. (2023, February). Building an in-house faculty leadership development program: A case study at The Claremont Colleges. Workshop presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Conference of Academic Deans (ACAD), Tampa, FL.

Appendix B.

Leed College
Cogitando et Agendo Ducemus
est. 1923

From the Office of the President

February 24, 2023

Dear Leed Community:

In response to the challenges facing our community, I write to express the college’s deep commitment to the health and wellness of our students, faculty, and staff.

Together, we must develop a plan for how best to reinforce the value we place on the health of our community through our actions. With this in mind, I’d like to announce the opening of a new Institute for Mental Health, which has been fully funded by Anonymous Donor, on our campus in Fall 2024 (the “Institute”). The Institute will develop a full-scale, integrated institutional response to overcome health challenges in our community, our nation, and our world.

I have constituted a Coordinating Committee composed of the Associate Dean of Students; Chair of the Faculty Executive Committee; Chair of the Psychology Department; Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion; and Associate VP of Special Gifts to lead the first planning phase this summer. They will seek your thoughts and suggestions about a number of action steps that we plan to develop as we prepare for the opening of the Institute’s physical location at the beginning of Fall 2024. Together, we will make our Institute for Mental Health a model of community success.

Please join us in our collective efforts.

Thanks, and take good care,

President Smith

To cite these materials:

Armstrong, J., Bizuneh, M., Levin, S., Rentz, E.K., & Van Heuvelen, K. (2023, February). Building an in-house faculty leadership development program: A case study at The Claremont Colleges. Workshop presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Conference of Academic Deans (ACAD), Tampa, FL.