Leadership Competencies Required for Associate Deans in Community Colleges

• In Event: Advocacy, Change, and Transformation

Abstract

The role of associate dean is ambiguous at best. Often the associate dean oversees curriculum development, managing resources to operationalize implementation of new programming, course scheduling, enforcing institution policies, assisting faculty needs, addressing student complaints, and more. Research indicates that many associate deans in higher education come from faculty ranks or department chairs and bring with them transferrable skills that help make the transition (Behling, 2014). When the role of associate dean is isolated to those who occupy the position in community colleges, the dynamics change. The American Association of Community Colleges’ (AACC) Commission on Leadership and Professional Development released a comprehensive list of leadership competencies in eleven areas of focus (AACC-2018-Competencies). These competencies are designed for leaders at specific levels within the institution; faculty, midlevel leaders and CEO’s. With respect to each level, the competencies reflect the skills necessary to lead student access and success initiatives in community colleges, continuous change in community colleges, and guidelines to help emerging leaders advance within the institution or their careers. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to identify key leadership characteristics required for associate deans in community colleges. Additionally, this study seeks to provide data for development of cultural competence among associate deans in community colleges to effectively manage the demographic makeup of these institutions of higher learning. The AACC competency model is the framework that will be used for this study, as previous studies have utilized versions of this framework to measure skill sets of senior level community college leaders.

Author

• Cathy Taylor, Elgin Community College