Myles Brand: A Leader Deeply Committed to Diversity, Inclusiveness, and Social Justice

Myles Brand: A Leader Deeply Committed to Diversity, Inclusiveness, and Social Justice Myles Brand will probably always best be remembered as the Indiana University president who fired legendary basketball coach Bobby Knight. It is unfortunate since Brand, as a scholar, president of two major universities, and Executive Director of the NCAA, accomplished a great many things on behalf of students and as an enthusiastic proponent of the educational value of intercollegiate athletics and sport more generally. At all times and in everything he did, Brand exhibited as a leader a deep commitment to diversity, inclusiveness, and social justice. It was especially noticeable and on full display during his time as Executive Director of the NCAA, a position he held from 2002 until his untimely death from cancer in 2009. As this essay illustrates, Brand’s commitment to diversity, inclusiveness, and social justice was made clear through the academic reform movement he helped initiate and in fights to eliminate Native American mascots and other disparaging images, secure more head coaching positions for Blacks, and maintain original Title IX guidelines that had allowed women increasing opportunities to participate in highly competitive athletics. Although not always successful in these efforts, especially in seeing more Blacks hired as head coaches, Brand was largely effective in leading the effort to implement academic reform measures, rid sport of insulting Native American imagery, and guard against those who were

Exploring Heritage Archaeology at Indiana University

This article is an overview of a collaborative Indiana University (IU) Bicentennial Project designed to explore and raise awareness of the cultural heritage on IU’s historic Bloomington campus, protect the university’s archaeological resources, contribute to its teaching and research mission, and enhance documentation and interpretation of its historic house museum. The primary project partners were IU’s Glenn A. Black Laboratory of Archaeology and the Wylie House Museum, a unit of IU Libraries. Using state-of-the art remote sensing methods and traditional archaeological excavations, the project sought to locate the buried subterranean greenhouses at the home of first university president, Andrew Wylie. Historical research focused on the position of the Wylies and IU in the development of the city of Bloomington, particularly on the transition from subsistence farming in the mid-19th century to the development of leisurely gardening and floriculture later in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Through campus archaeological field school opportunities, internships, talks, exhibits, presentations on campus, and outreach opportunities throughout the university and Bloomington communities, the project contributed to the IU curriculum and promoted a better understanding of IU’s cultural heritage. Importantly, this campus archaeology project provided a unique opportunity to pursue place-based education and experiential learning that connected students, university, and community stakeholders to their local heritage.

Presidential Influence: How a University President Handles Crisis and Cultivates Campus Culture for an Online Learning Community

The President of Southern Plains University is dealing with coronavirus disease 2019 on-campus that has forced the university to move most of its courses online. Alongside this issue, the country is in a state of social unrest as multiple unarmed African American citizens were killed by local police and White citizens. During these divisive times, university constituents have expressed that the virtual learning environment has failed to provide an adequately safe online learning community for the diverse student population. In response to racially insensitive comments that were made in online courses, a frustrated faculty, and ongoing challenges due to the pandemic and the fight for racial justice, this university president looks to reassure constituents by cultivating an online culture that values diversity and inclusion.

University Students’ Perception of Transformational Leadership of the University President in Korea: The Role of Students’ Personality, Affect, and Affective Commitment to the University

This study explores how university students’ personality and positive or negative affect influence their perception of transformational leadership of the university president. It further examines how the level of students’ affective commitment to the university moderates the relationship. Survey data were collected from 141 undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in a large public university in South Korea. The students answered survey questions to measure their big-five personalities, positive and negative affect, affective commitment to the university, and their perception of the university president’s transformational leadership. The results of hierarchical regression analyses show that (a) students’ positive affect is positively related to their perception of the university president’s transformational leadership, after controlling for the effect of the students’ personality and that (b) students’ affective commitment to the university moderates the relationship between negative affect and perception of transformational leadership of the university president. This study sheds light on the dynamic, reciprocal process of the social construction of university leadership with an emphasis on students’ affective state and personality traits as critical factors in understanding distant leadership.

“I Didn't Expect YOU to Be the University President!”

After decades of being male dominated in nearly every respect, Canadian universities made significant progress toward gender equity in 1980s and ‘90s. That momentum stalled for the most part for almost two decades, and only in the past few years has an awareness of the lack of progress—as well as the importance of overtly promoting gender equity and women's leadership—re-emerged as an urgent priority both for faculty members and for the institutions where they work. In this chapter, the past three decades of women's advancement and leadership in Canadian academia are described and analyzed through the reflections and experiences of one woman.