Thoughts on “A Statement of Rights for College Administrators”
I am a professor, fully conscious and jealous of academic freedom, tenure, and other prerogatives painfully won for the professoriate. I also feel myself completely in sympathy with William C. McInnes's preceding article, "A Statement of Rights for College Administrators." It is a needed and timely contribution and one which should enjoy wide reading, discussion, pondering, and, hopefully, action. Although there have been notable examples of inept and sometimes unconscionable administrative leadership in colleges and universities, yet when one surveys the academic landscape for at least the past three or four decades, one cannot help but be impressed with the fact that when educational leadership and statesmanship have been exercised it has typically been done by outstanding presidents, deans, and occasionally department heads. It is a generally accepted historical truism that innovation and change in American higher education have rarely, if ever, come from faculty efforts, the majority of major innovations being the result of presidential thought and initiative. If administrators are to continue to be the primary source of leadership, innovation, and change, a number of the rights of