As the Chair of the Cameron University Department of Technology, I performed multiple tasks that fulfilled different aspects of Supervision, Administration and Management in Higher Education.

Supervision:  I supervised nine professional educators who hold advanced degrees in diverse academic disciplines: Technology, Computer Science, Engineering Design, Electronics and Education.  The role of supervisor included performing tasks that fulfill the needs of the institution—insuring proper forms and reports are accurately completed and in the appropriate files, instructing subordinates in institutional processes and monitoring the mandated actions to achieve compliance.  Supervision included the act of evaluating the professional educators, clerical staff, student workers and student researchers.  The university has defined evaluation components and assigned percentages to the components all educators must accomplish: Teaching, Service and Scholarly Activity.  At Cameron University, the base percentages are 50%, 10% and 10% respectively which leaves 30% up to the Chair to allocate to individual faculty.  The faculty in the Department of Technology have always focused more on teaching and service than on research.  Nevertheless, the new scales for evaluating faculty include 10% for research and all faculty—irregardless of their academic disciplines—must fulfill that 10% rule.  Supervision, for me, included performing the actions needed to effect the changes that senior administrators have identified, within the time allocated.  Paperwork, people, processes and products: Those are the deliverables of Supervision.  The acts of motivating employees, identifying task-relevant maturity competencies and remediation of the absence of task-relevant skills in employees, and of providing an avenue through which professional can express concerns without retaliation, demand professional maturity and competence at the highest level in higher education. 

Administration: The department offers multiple degree concentrations—soon to be multiple, separate degree programs—and two levels of academic completion:  Bacheloreate and Associate.  With approximately 450 majors and 1,200 non-majors attending classes offered by the Department, the role of the administrator is to ensure adequate resources are provided to support the teaching efforts of the faculty.  Resources include Personnel, Facility, Equipment, Supplies and Funds for Skill-enhancement.  Personnel, in this department, must have earned their living doing those tasks in business or industry that they are teaching to the students.  Personnel must be sought (recruitment), obtained (negotiation) and retained (mentored toward promotion and tenure) or terminated (inadequate work or insufficient competencies discovered after employment).  Long-term personnel must be offered opportunities to acquire new, unforeseen skills that have to be integrated into classes so that graduates acquire the necessary work competencies for employability.  Administration of academic programs included authoring reports for a variety of audiences—Accreditation groups, State regents, University administrators and other interested parties.  The most valuable assets I bring to the table are time management skills I learned while I was in government service and private industry.  Allocating sufficient time to perform all of the tasks required of a front line administrator, while concurrently performing the duties of a professional educator, was the most challenging aspect of being the Chair an academic department.


Management:  I managed teams and projects.  I was trained in Self-Directed Work Teams (SDWT) and have successfully created and managed multiple SDWTs as they worked toward accomplishing diverse goal acquisition projects.  I have found SDWTs to be the epitome of appropriate management at the university level where professionals are focused on goal attainment.  Teams, unlike committees, have time lines that have distinct milestones with clear indications of project completion potentials.  SDWTs work independently of the manager and create their own set of tasks to accomplish an assigned goal.  In higher education, SDWTs are a powerful force that brings to bear upon an issue or challenge the full mental capabilities of highly skilled people holding advanced degrees which indicate a research competency at very high levels of achievement.  As projects emerge that need to be managed, my use of SDWTs have provided a model for action without direct supervision.  Management is founded upon good budget and fund accounting skills.  I manage multiple budgets—including forms, records, and reports—in such a way that I have never received a negative comment from any auditor.  

Supervision skills, Administrative competencies and Managerial techniques have been founded on both academic preparations and higher education experiences.  My doctorate in Supervision of Curriculum and Instruction in Higher Education, from Texas A&M University—Commerce, Texas, along with one of the emphasis areas of my Master of Liberal Studies Degree from the University of Oklahoma (the “management” component), work within my experiential framework that was gleaned from two decades of church leadership and multiple experiences as an academic leader—in public school, community college and regional university—to provide my employer with a capable, seasoned professional. 

Special preparations to handle very unique work issues include Violence Research, a study in the Termination of Tenured Faculty, and a qualitative research thesis wherein I studied the managerial styles of two, competing, groups of people during the take-over of a large, non-profit entity.  My violence research is presented elsewhere on this web site and the thesis is in the library at the University of Oklahoma.  If I can help you to enhance the supervisory skills, administrative competencies or managerial techniques of your employees, please contact me to discuss your issues.