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The purpose of the study is to identify barriers to collaboration among female administrators at a Ghanaian technical university (TU), based on the social identity theory (SIT).

A mixed-method approach was adopted, integrating qualitative interviews of 15 female administrators and completing structured questionnaires from 117 randomly sampled female administrators. The SIT, as the analytical framework, identified themes emerging from the data on barriers to collaboration among female administrators. While exploratory factor analysis identified measures of factors hindering collaborations, the use of structural equation modeling (SEM) enabled the confirmation of relationships among the barriers to collaboration with female administrators.

There existed statistically significant relationships between four of the barriers: intergroup relations conflict, trust with stakeholders and among females and structural barriers (SBs). For the quantitative analysis, it was found that SBs, intergroup relations, conflict and trust were statistically significant except for weak cultures. For the qualitative, results showed that SBs, lack of trust with stakeholders and among females and intergroup conflict hinder collaboration.

The study has a limited scope in using only one TU and focusing on a particular gender. The implications of this research will enrich the literature on barriers to female administrative collaboration in technical education based on the SIT.

Promoting administrative collaborations in the TU will ensure sustainability and efficient administrative systems.

Institutional policies should include gender inclusivity and equality on networking opportunities and provide mentorship programs for efficient administrative systems.

We used the SIT to determine barriers to collaboration among female administrators in a technical education institution, and the mixed methodology added a unique dimension to the study.

Legislators continue to label Critical Race Theory (CRT) and other race-based concepts as divisive. Nevertheless, CRT, at its core, is committed to radical transformation and addressing issues of race and racism to understand how People of Color are oppressed. Through rhetoric and legislative bans, this current anti-CRT movement uses race-neutral policies and practices to limit and eliminate CRT scholars, especially faculty members, from teaching and researching critical pedagogies and other race-based topics.

Through semi-structured interviews using Critical Race Methodology (CRM), the authors sought to understand how 40 faculty members challenged the dominant narratives presented by administrators through their responses to CRT bans. Additionally, this work aimed to examine how administrators’ responses complicate how faculty make sense of CRT bans.

Findings describe three major themes: (1) how administrators failed to respond to CRT bans, which to faculty indicated their desire to present a neutral stance as the middle ground between faculty and legislators; (2) the type of rhetoric administrators engaged in exemplified authoritarian approaches that upheld status quo narratives about diversity, exposing their inability to stand against oppressive dominant narratives; and (3) institutional leaders’ refusal to address the true threats that faculty members faced reinforced the racialized harm that individuals engaging in CRT work must navigate individually.

This study is one of the few that provide empirical data on this current anti-CRT movement, including problematizing the CRT bans, and how it affects campus constituents such as faculty members.

Although student evaluation of teaching (SET) is widely used, there has been a significant disparity between its potential benefits with the actual impact on improving educational quality. This study aims to inquire into the factors contributing to this discrepancy and the underlying mechanisms hindering the effective utilisation of SET.

This qualitative case study used problem-based methodology to investigate the theories of action of administrators involved in SET. The study uses SET documents and individual interviews with 18 administrators from six Vietnamese higher education institutions.

While the administrators monitored SET data and addressed SET problems, few used it for quality improvement. The participants’ SET approaches were influenced by various constraints, especially the intricate interaction between neoliberal agendas with professional and cultural values.

Despite a lack of statistical generalisability, this study contributes to analytical generalisation by vividly portraying the complexity of the SET practice in a higher education context.

This study suggests a more inclusive approach to quality improvement that prioritises multi-stakeholder engagement.

The constraint analysis offers invaluable insights into the challenges and dynamics of SET practice, which can be used to enhance SET effectiveness and overall educational quality.

This paper addresses the need to examine the theories of action of administrators involved in SET, emphasising the significance of a comprehensive understanding of the stakeholders’ underlying reasoning process for successful evaluation implementation.

The COVID-19 pandemic prompted changes to the terms and conditions of teachers' employment (e.g. working conditions), leading school districts to renegotiate collective bargaining agreements with teachers' unions. However, limited research has examined how these negotiations occur in times of crisis. This study aims to analyze how school district and teachers' union administrators adapted workplace policies to meet staff and student needs during the COVID-19 pandemic by using a panel dataset of Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) negotiated in 187 large US school districts.

The authors used the partial independence item response method to estimate MOU restrictiveness measures that captured the extent to which MOUs limited school administrator autonomy in setting the terms and conditions of teachers' employment. Descriptive analyses and ordinary least squares regression models showed how the scope of collective bargaining negotiations expanded during the COVID-19 pandemic, and how restrictiveness varied across school districts based on district and union characteristics.

Results showed that school district and teachers' union administrators increased restrictions on school administrator autonomy in the spring of 2020, but these restrictions decreased by fall 2021. The level of restrictions agreed upon varied based on the strength of teachers' unions and political partisanship of school districts. The COVID-19 pandemic led to an expansion of collective bargaining negotiations to include previously unconsidered topics such as employee and student health and remote instruction.

This study is one of the first to examine the modifications made to collective bargaining agreements during times of crisis by school district and teachers' union administrators. The findings suggest that there were considerable changes to the terms and conditions of teachers' employment during the COVID-19 pandemic, and that the strength of teachers' unions and political partisanship were associated with negotiation outcomes.

The existence and growth of research administration in the United States has been largely guided by the requirements imposed on recipients of federal funding and it continues to be influenced by those requirements today. What has changed over the past 80 years is how research administrators learn their craft and share their knowledge, how the profession has moved from mostly male dominated to being largely female, and how their roles expanded. The formation and growth of professional organisations has allowed research administrators to take an active role in development of regulations and policy and to advocate for the profession. The challenges faced by research administrators since the turn of the century have served to show the vital role played by the profession in moving the research enterprise forward.

This study explores factors that influence the initiation of leadership coaching relationships that include externally employed coaches and school administrators.

This qualitative research study includes semi-structured interviews, observations and documents collected across three academic years within the context of a university-based leadership coaching program. Participants included six leadership coaches and six school administrators who participated in the program.

Qualitative analysis indicates that gender and race, prior professional experience, pre-existing professional relationships and the complexity of the district’s organizational structure influence the initiation of the coaching relationship.

Confidentiality restrictions imposed by the program limit opportunities for member checking and other forms of triangulation. Additional data collection using more expansive research methods would help address this limitation.

This study contributes to the sparse literature about leadership coaching with school administrators by describing how different factors influence initiation coaching relationships.

This chapter explores the parallels between the recruitment and retention of students from marginalized backgrounds, and efforts with similarly identifying faculty and student affairs administrators. Higher education institutions target specific student populations to increase access, thus leading to an increase of students of color, low-income students, and first-generation students on college campuses (Chen & Nunnery, 2019). This welcome development proves inadequate on its own, as the critical support structures necessary for student success are not in place. Students' lived experiences are not attended to in a manner that fosters thriving (Jack, 2019; Nunn, 2021).

Research underscores the significant positive impact on marginalized students of having faculty and student-facing administrators from similar backgrounds on their campus (Braxton et al., 2014; Kuh, Kinzie, Buckley, Bridges, & Hayek, 2007). The intentional recruiting of these college personnel provides a vital means of attending to the needs of underrepresented students. Yet, the student experience is not instructive for the work with underrepresented college employees. The lived experiences of the faculty and administrators from marginalized identities are not being addressed either, similar to that of underrepresented students (Orelus, 2020). When these college personnel leave institutions unexpectedly or stay but are not thriving, this impacts students, colleagues and the college as a whole. In many respects, institutions are replicating inequities they commit to substantively dismantle, limiting the racial justice work they promised, and effectively thwarting their own Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) efforts.

Using an autoethnographic approach, this chapter will explore these parallel issues, and propose recommendations for future research and institutional policy and practice for retention of underrepresented faculty and student-facing administrators.

In North America, the profession known as ‘research management’ elsewhere across the globe, is often known as ‘research administration’ and encompasses the activities and work associated with developing, administering, accounting for and complying with sponsor requirements, guidelines, procedures, and laws relating to externally funded projects. In the United States and Canada, the expansion of respective federal government agencies and programmes was the major factor for the need and growth of the research administration profession. Initially, administrative and business staff often administered research funding, however over the decades, a fully-fledged profession has evolved with distinct specialisations. Both the United States and Canada now have maturing professions and professional societies to organise and advance research administration. This chapter outlines the chronological origins, growth, and professionalisation of research administration in North America, with a focus on the United States and Canada. Mexico has not yet evolved a formalised research administration infrastructure.

Starting in the late 1950s with the creation of the National Council of University Research Administrators (NCURA), followed by the formation of other professional organisations both in the USA and Europe, there was a growing sense that research management was indeed a profession. One goal was the creation of professional standards that would lead to a standard training curriculum and, ultimately, a professional credential, and there have been many attempts at developing research administration certification. Now, in the US, accreditation through the Research Administrators Certification Council (RACC) exam has become ubiquitous, whereas in other parts of the world, certification by portfolio is more common. This chapter will compare and contrast the salient features of certification, certificates, and degree programs in research administration and review their development and growth over the past 30 years. The chapter will discuss their relative merits and how they work to advance the profession of research administration.