University Administrators as Caring Academic Leaders in an HBCU Setting

Abstract

This chapter examines caring university administrative leadership within a bureaucratic reality of authentic university academic caring (AUAC). AUAC is regarded as a university's formal intent to provide genuine academic caring: caring about (emotive attention; motive), care for (disciplined nurturing), caregiving (institutional guardianship), and care receiving (student as customers). In the bureaucratic realm, caring administrative leadership is an administrative capacity to guide, influence, inspire, and motivate an institution to achieve the goals of AUAC. This chapter opens by providing scholarly support for caring administrative leadership as a critical element of AUAC. This chapter also includes an account of a research study and empirical analysis that investigated the association between caring administrative leadership and AUAC at the University of the Virgin Islands, a Historically Black College and University (HBCU). Ultimately, this chapter identifies direction for future research in authentic caring university leadership.

Advancing a Framework for STEM Caring Intelligence for Academic Administrative Leadership to Broaden Participation: Perspectives of HBCU Provosts

“…Critics and scholars have pointed to the fact that universities have a responsibility to care for and about the academic well-being of students [7,10]. In fact, research suggests that academic caring enhances the overall quality of university administrative leadership [5]. Within STEM education in particular, the current research points to a vital need for high-quality leadership by mid-level and upper-level administrators, including presidents, provosts, chancellors, vice provosts, deans, chairs, and program directors to advance equity, diversity, and inclusion in STEM higher education [15].…”

“…Hendrickson and Francis recognized that organizational transcendence within university's academic domain can only be achieved if caring is cultivated and supported by the academic administrative leadership [5]. This type of caring by administrative leadership is an amalgamation of knowledge, ethics, reflection, and relational leadership [19].…”

“…The more generalized academic caring is characterized by "formal and informal humanizing practices of providing both caring-about (motive) and care-for (instrumental action) within all institutional levels (i.e., administrative and frontline) and divisions of university academic services (i.e., administration/operations, schools/colleges and faculty/classrooms)" [5]. Three central characteristics of academic caring are (a) values-driven organizing, (b) developing creative pedagogue, and (c) cultivating a culture of nurturing [23].…”

“…To counter STEM attrition, scholars argued for reforms that shift the competitive, survival-of-the-fittest culture in STEM higher education to a nurturing, caring academic culture that can cultivate diversity in STEM education [2,3]. Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HCBUs) are widely recognized for traditions of academic caring suggested to account for their comparatively high production of URM STEM graduates in relation to betterresourced institutions [4][5][6]. Examining the discourse of HBCU administrators, commonly recognized as standardbearers in this area, can advance our understanding of the role and practice of leadership in service to broadening participation of URM in STEM.…”

“…Most of the current educational research on academic caring in STEM has focused on pedagogical caring strategies promoted by faculty, such as curriculum reform and faculty-student mentoring [2,3]. There is a burgeoning body of literature on academic caring by HBCU administrators [4][5]7] that draws on crossdisciplinary scholarship on academic caring and caring in academic administration [8][9][10][11][12]. In particular, this paper is interested in demonstrations of STEM caring by upperlevel academic administrative leadership, or chief academic officers (CAO), who are responsible for the direction, evaluation, and resource allocation for the university's academic goals and priorities including faculty mentoring and affairs [13].…”