The future and the female academic leader: advancing student engagement

[摘要] The ever-changing face of academic leadership demands constant consideration and as such there is clearly much interest within the community at large to examine this most important of academic roles. To be truly effective the academic leader must be a unique animal who goes beyond merely ensuring that departmental budgets are aligned at the end of the fiscal year but use an ever evolving technological environment to lead in all aspects of teaching, research as well as administrative duties in support of their respective department. In this environment leaders not only need to be aware of, but demonstrate proficiency, in the use of MOOCs, cloud based computing and even efficient use of email software (Huang, 2001; Ruby, 2013). Such a task may seem to be quite unnerving to the new entrants to the field—this is especially relevant for the female academic who may not readily adopt such emerging technologies (Venkatesh and Morris, 2000). However, in a sector where almost all new entrants expect to achieve a leadership position at some point it is important to highlight the current orthodoxy with regards to achieving such a position and any possible mediating role that technology may play. Current research endeavors that highlight the moderating effects of gender in achieving leadership positions within academia are discussed here. It is argued that such research takes a limited perspective on both the roles required with academia but also the unique and very important contributions that female leaders can provide to students. Here, it is clear that the unique collegial and social manner of a female style of leadership that is often seen with managers in industry is an ideal trait for leadership within academia especially with regards to the most important aspect of academia, and often the most overlooked, and that is the student (Eagly and Karau, 1991). Student engagement is a key determinant for improving student motivation, how students approach learning and academic success (Lazaros and Davidson, 2013). It is argued here that technology, particularly the use of email, can play an important role in providing students with access to the unique skill set of certain academic leaders.

[学科分类] 心理学（综合）

[关键词] academic leadership;email;technology;student engagement;student retention