The study examined urban university faculty members’ perceptions of their presidents’ leadership role in urban school reform. The population for this study consisted of faculty members from five urban research universities. All of the universities are members of the Great Cities’ Universities (GCU) coalition, an alliance of 19 public urban research universities that are collaborating to address educational challenges in their communities. The study entailed a purposive sample with universities chosen on the basis of their membership in the GCU. The subjects were 245 faculty members from colleges of education and colleges of arts and sciences at the five urban research universities. All participants completed the Urban Faculty Questionnaire (UFQ), a confidential, web-based questionnaire designed by the researcher. The questionnaire consisted of five statements about general perceptions of urban school reform, 30 statements about perceptions of the university presidents’ leadership roles in the specific institutions’ urban school reform initiatives, eight statements regarding personal characteristics and a section for optional additional comments. The statements corresponded to seven internal scales of analysis. The seven scales were (a) Perceptions of Urban School Reform, (b) University Structure and Culture, (c) Presidential Awareness, (d) Internal Relationships, (e) External Relationships, (f) Resources and Support and (g) Accountability and Recognition. The data show faculty believe urban schools need reform. Faculty also believe universities located in urban communities should be involved actively in urban school reform. Faculty generally do not take personal responsibility, however, for urban school reform initiatives at their universities. Faculty seem more aware of their presidents’ external relationships than their internal relationships in urban school reform. Faculty tend to agree that their presidents build strong relationships with the local business community and with the local political community; however, they tend only somewhat to agree that their presidents build strong relationships with local public school representatives and local families and citizens. The study also reveals that no statistically significant difference exists in faculty perceptions of their presidents’ leadership in urban school reform by the faculty members’ academic college, academic rank, years of service at their current institutions, highest academic degree earned, gender and ethnicity.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the factors and events associated with the derailment of presidents at public, Master’s level institutions. The research study was guided by three questions: 1) What factors are perceived to be associated with the derailment of public, Master’s level college presidents? 2) What events are perceived to be associated with the derailment of the president? 3) What relationship, if any, may be found between derailment factors emerging from previous Center for Creative Leadership research and factors emerging from this study? Data were collected from 19 in-depth interviews of current presidents, board members, faculty members, and vice presidents who were familiar with the derailed president. Field notes, media accounts of the derailment, and board minutes also served as sources of data. Findings of this study supported three of the enduring themes of derailment stemming from the Center for Creative Leadership’s research. Those include: failure to build and lead a team, problems with interpersonal relationships, and failure to understand and value the institutional culture (inability to change or adapt during a transition). Three unique factors emerged: failure to communicate effectively, the inability to work with key constituencies, and ethical failures. These findings suggest that college presidents must take time to understand and value the mission of the institution that they serve, as well as work hard to maintain effective communication with key constituency groups so if problems arise he or she will have social capital to draw on and help them avoid derailment. Implications for practice and recommendations for future research are discussed.

Regarding presidential responsiveness and leadership, this study addresses two questions: Does the president respond to the public? Does the president lead the public? Unlike prior research, this study tries to answer these questions by focusing on the news media intervening in the relationship between the president and the public. Rather than positing a direct relationship between them, this study points out that information flows between the president and the public through the news media, which affect the president and the public. The public receives daily political information including presidential messages from the news media. Also, presidents recognize public sentiments from news stories. Accordingly, this study examines the potentially multidirectional relationships between the three actors from 1958 to 2004 in the United States. This study estimates the reciprocal relationships between the three actors by using Vector Autoregression (VAR) and Moving Average Response (MAR) simulations. Analyzing the three actors' issue stances, this study reveals that the news media significantly influence the public and the president. However, the direct relationship between the president and the public is negligible. Furthermore, the empirical findings demonstrate that presidential responsiveness is more likely to be observed when the news media report news stories consonant with past public opinion changes.

As society changes, so must higher education. Therefore, colleges and universities and the presidents leading them must adapt to survive in today’s highly competitive marketplace. What must an institution do to stay abreast of the changes? Once the necessary changes are identified, what processes are used by a president of a college or university to go about deliberately creating change on campus? By understanding how to create planned change, leaders within higher education will be able to better ensure that their institutions remain relevant in today’s rapidly changing environment. For many colleges and universities, their ultimate survival may depend on their ability to change. This study examines the transformation of one college. In doing so, it identifies and describes organizational change strategies utilized by its president to influence those changes. This qualitative, single-case study of Georgetown College was executed solely by the researcher. The process of data collection consisted of interviews, observation, and document analysis. The data was then analyzed to identify major emerging themes as well as strategies, processes, and practices that resulted in organizational change at Georgetown College.

This study provides a literature review of presidential leadership styles, how college presidents communicate with constituencies, shared student governance and independence of student newspapers. The study involved two surveys: one to Pennsylvania college public relations directors and a second to Pennsylvania college student editors. The combined survey results examined whether presidential leadership style affected interactions with faculty, administration and student newspapers. The study concluded that the type of presidential leadership style did not correlate with interactions with student newspapers or the paper's coverage of the president, that there was no correlation between the independence of newspapers and its treatment of the president and that an institution's religious or secular structure had no influence on the president's interactions with the student newspaper. / School of Education / Interdisciplinary Doctoral Program for Education Leaders (IDPEL) / EdD / Dissertation

Possessing a vision to correct problems is an area of interest for leadership and political studies, as presumably vision provides the goal to orient upon and overcome problems, and should apply at all levels of leadership. The worsening situation in Syria since the end of the Cold War begs the questions of whether any recent U.S. President tried to address the issues in the relationship with Syria, and what was the vision the President sought to achieve. This study reviews Presidential rhetoric from President's News Conferences, major speeches and Executive Orders for a vision to ascertain the intended direction for U.S. policy for Syria. Also, the study reviews the leadership styles of the five Presidents for consistency and effectiveness in conveying a foreign policy message. Broadly, the study concludes that the Presidents need more than a strategy to engage other nation to fix problems. They need an achievable outcome to aim the U.S. government towards and to effectively broadcast their vision to a broad audience. It takes an appreciation for history, realistic expectations and an eye for the future to form a vision for a coherent way forward. Unfortunately, the Presidents in this study did not give the appropriate time or resources to correct the pervasive problems in Syria. Their overall policies ranged from incoherent to stagnant, therefore hampering the U.S. ability to guide progress fixing the situation. / Master of Arts / The pervasive problems within Syria are some of the more important U.S. foreign policy issues that require guidance and direction to overcome. The worsening situation in Syria since the end of the Cold War begs the questions of whether any recent U.S. President tried to address the issues in the relationship with Syria. Broadly, the study concludes that it takes more than a strategy to engage another nation and fix problems. It takes an appreciation for history, realistic expectations and an eye for the future to form a vision for a coherent way forward. Additionally, Presidents require the ability to effectively communicate their vision to a broad audience. Unfortunately, it appears the Presidents in this study did not give the appropriate time or resources to correct the problems, and therefore hampered the U.S. President’s ability to guide progress to fix the situation.

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Transformational leaders have tendencies that include: 1) projecting confidence and optimism about goals and followers' ability, 2) providing a clear vision, 3) encouraging creativity through empowerment and rewarding experimentation, 4) setting high expectations and creating a supportive environment, and 5) establishing personal relationships with followers. Transactional leadership as a process in which leaders and followers decide on goals and how to achieve them through a mutual exchange. The leader provides followers with resources, rewards, and punishment in order to achieve motivation, productivity, and effective task accomplishment. Laissez-faire leadership is the process of letting followers work without direction or guidance from the leader. The laissez-faire leader avoids providing direction and support, shows a lack of active involvement in follower activity, and abdicates responsibilities by maintaining a line of separation between the leader and the followers. The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the assumption that a combination of transformational and transactional leadership factors is more predictive of greater followers' job satisfaction, motivation toward extra effort, and perceived presidential effectiveness than either leadership style alone. The study investigated perceptions of the degree to which transformational leadership, transactional leadership, and laissez-faire leadership were practiced by presidents of member colleges and universities in the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU). In addition, the study considered whether some combination of transformational and transactional behaviors is more predictive of job satisfaction, motivation toward extra effort, and perceived presidential effectiveness than either transformational or transactional leadership alone. The independent variables in the study included the transformational, transactional, and laissez-faire leadership behaviors of the college and university presidents and the dependent variables were job satisfaction, motivation toward extra effort, and perceived presidential effectiveness. This study points to specific behaviors that are predictive of job satisfaction, motivation toward extra effort, and perceived presidential effectiveness. By combining the behaviors identified as transformational, transactional, and laissez-faire leadership behaviors, this study determines specifically which behaviors are predictive of the three dependent variables. By combining the transformational leadership behaviors of Attributed Charisma and Individual Consideration with the transactional leadership behavior of Contingent Reward, leaders may develop leadership styles that are more satisfying, motivating, and effective for followers than solely using the transformational model of leadership. Followers indicate that they are more satisfied and motivated by leaders who possess great energy, high levels of self-confidence, strong beliefs and ideals, are assertive, have the ability to make followers feel more confident, who create greater personal confidence within their followers, and who use positive reward systems to affirm desired behavior. This information provides empirical data to support the concept that a combination of charisma, personal consideration, and a reward system may increase follower's job satisfaction, motivation toward extra effort, and perceptions of leaders' effectiveness better than transformational leadership behaviors alone.

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