Leadership Development

Leadership Development

The Big Ten Academic Alliance offers a comprehensive range of leadership development programs designed for faculty and higher education administrators and bring perspectives that are unique to individuals from large R1 universities. These targeted collaborative professional development opportunities garner on the expertise of its member institutions and complement existing development programs on each Big Ten Academic Alliance campus. Participation is available to member university faculty and academic administrators.

  • Academic Leadership Program (ALP): An intensive year-long leadership program that develops the leadership and managerial skills, as well as, provides an orientation for faculty, including those currently appointed as academic administrators, to gain a better understanding of university-level academic administrative leadership and its challenges. 
  • Department Executive Officer Program (DEO): This hybrid program is designed for recently appointed department heads/chairs to hone key skills specifically related to their role. Topics range from conflict competency and communication to faculty development, performance reviews, and group problem solving.
  • Deans Leadership Program (DLP): A six-month intensive leadership program designed specifically for deans who have been recently appointed to their roles. The program focuses on critical issues that occur in the initial months and years of the dean’s role. 
  • Professorial Advancement Initiative (PAI): For over 30 years, the Big Ten Academic Alliance Graduate Deans have fostered pipeline programs designed to increase the number of underrepresented minority (URM) graduate student enrollments and faculty candidates. With a focus on multi-institutional and systemic change, Big Ten colleagues across the consortium are working together to create tools for transforming the hiring culture, individuals, and the academy by creating mentoring networks and programs that train search committees to recognize unconscious bias.
  • IT Leaders Program (ITLP):  In an effort to better prepare leaders for 21st century challenges within their respective IT organizations as well as higher education in general, the Big Ten Academic Alliance Chief Information Officers instituted the ITLP in the spring of 2005. Since that time, more than 100 IT staff from Big Ten Academic Alliance universities are ITLP graduates.