Online Master of Arts in Organizational Leadership: Higher Education Leadership Concentration

This course allows students to gain perspective on the historical and societal context of higher education in America and the organizational structures, functions, behaviors, and cultures that exist within institutions.

This course discusses the fundamentals of American law that directly and indirectly affect the environment of higher-education. Students will use diverse sources of law to understand the many different ways laws, code and common law affect the life of an higher education administrator. Ethical issues will be explored in relationship to critical issues in higher education such as admissions, affirmative action, dismissal procedures, academic honesty, and student loans.

In this course, students will gain an understanding of the daily and long-term operational challenges colleges and universities face. The course intends to cultivate a strategic mindset about higher education organizations and a recognition that institutions exist in a competitive environment that require them to change in order to survive.

This course will highlight how individuals access higher education and how that education affects students’ development via programs, services and interventions designed to promote student growth. The course will explore multiple dimensions of the student experience and how student development theory is used to understand and enhance those experiences. Students will also explore student affairs organizational structures and functions common in colleges and universities.

Through this course, students will be introduced to the concept of institutional effectiveness which focuses on an institution’s ability to use planning strategies and evaluation information to assess current performance and plan for improvements. Students will understand the importance of a performance assessment culture including the presence of clear performance goals and measures, collaborative decision-making, and engaged leadership. A focus on determining what should be assessed in academic and administrative units and strategies for initiating performance assessment programs is reviewed.

This course examines institutional effectiveness matters focusing on assessment processes in higher education. It explores topics such as the evaluation of academic programs, assessment of student learning outcomes, and involvement in accreditation and accountability demands in higher education. This seminar-style course will cover key organizational and educational theories, and students are introduced to the uses and outcomes of administrative practice in relation to assessment planning and implementation. The course covers the pragmatic planning skills and decision-support tools relevant to accreditation processes. Understanding the roles of governance, institutional research, policy analysis, and decision-making is critical to understanding the changing organizational planning function of a college or university. Just as businesses are expected to adhere to compliance and ethics standards, this course provides an in-depth look at how universities’ adherence to standards pertaining to academic success can and will lead to an assurance that accredited universities are achieving their institutional goals, meeting the public's expectations, and realizing their greater societal mission.

Through this course, students will develop skills in statistical communication, incorporating data into delivery methods such as writing, public speaking, teaching, informal conversation and collaboration, programming, and graphic visualizations. Students will understand the importance of creating a data-informed culture and how it contributes to an organization’s success. They will also learn methods and strategies of how to communicate to a non-technical audience.

Increasingly, leaders and employees are part of a more diverse, multiethnic and globally influenced workforce. You can become more conversant with forms of diversity, such as different cultural traditions, as well as differences in generational sensibilities, ableness, gender, and level of adult development. You can learn about the different “worldviews” which organizational members bring into the organization, and how that affects their ability to work together. The course can develop your knowledge of and skills in practicing principles for optimizing human performance in organizations, cultural intelligence, human diversity, and leading multicultural organizations.