Higher Education
Roger was recognized as one of “The 10 Most Visionary Education Leaders of 2021” by Education Magazine. Under his leadership, Belhaven was named one of “America’s Best Colleges to Work For” by the Chronicle of Higher Education.
The Online Train Has Left the Station
Too many universities have missed the meteoric rise of online education, and other innovative educational opportunities. So what do you do now? Just give up and focus on a traditional model that won’t sustain you economically? Do you have the resources to make major investments in capital in order to catch up? Or, is there another way? Through creative partnerships, and a careful understanding of the opportunities and costs for online education, the universities that have been slow to adjust to the new opportunities of higher education could find pathways to join the online revolution. Discover how to find your place in the online world without financially breaking your back in order to play catch-up.
No More Band-Aids For the Dying College
College leaders are caught in an ever tightening vice grip of unrealistic expectations that pressure them to value turn-around over transformation. This nearsightedness is eroding the foundational underpinnings of quality and severely handicapping the effectiveness of leaders. We have been pushed into hiring and rewarding people who can promote Band-Aid fixes as monumental solutions, creating plans that promise the moon and always come up short, raising funds from unrealistically compressed donor relationships, and touting those results that can most easily be measured and applauded. There is a better way: effective longview leadership that can flourish while serving an audience clamoring for immediate results.
Dramatically Accelerating Your Rate of Change – Without Getting Fired
Higher Education is changing at an unprecedented pace. From the president’s office to the department chair, the pressure to change – or resist change – is enormous. Riding this rollercoaster of change requires a new leadership framework to thrive, not just survive; lead for long-term significance rather than short-term applause; and bring about change that lets the results tell the story of your success as a leader. Eight Axioms to lead for change will equip college leaders to be in control of the change pressures they face, rather than the gravitational pull of change controlling them.
Moving New Ideas to Good Ideas
Colleges and universities are to be beacons of illumination, but too often our institutional new ideas are shielded by the level of examination we teach our students to value. In side stepping the light of evaluation, leaders not only become ineffective, but their secrecy collides head on with their calling as educators. Good decision-making comes to a screeching halt when colleges tolerate a dysfunctional organizational climate that limits examination of new ideas. Effective university leaders have learned to develop both the process and the courage to assure new concepts will be fully evaluated and exposed to the light of scrutiny.
Policies are for Cowards: Creating a Culture of Ownership
Broad sweeping college policies not only rarely solve the problem, but they slow the grind of the entire institution by spawning a host of new and more complex issues, draining precious energy from the college’s mission, and providing irritable employees a framework from which they can legitimately attack the system and hurt the morale of their coworkers. To create an environment of ownership, creativity, and energy, college leaders must not sheepishly hide behind policies functioning as surrogate arbitrators, but rather adapt a new way to look at policy making, that will strengthen institutional culture and lift faculty and staff morale.
Roger is one of the leading figures in American Christian higher education. An entrepreneur of the highest order, Dr. Parrott has much to share through his long, and rich success in education.