Post-Master's Certificate in Higher Education Leadership and Management

Higher education is in a period of review as it responds to global issues and often shrinking resources. In this course, education professionals are provided with a foundational understanding of higher education and the origins of practices and problems of educational institutions. Education professionals investigate solutions to today's higher education issues and assess the relevance of current education models in relation to 21st-century needs.

The politics of education come into play as leaders work to implement innovation and change within higher education organizations. Issues such as access, funding, speed of change, priorities of diverse stakeholders, the relation of work to education, the impact of technological change, and mobility of students are examined. Leaders examine change theory. Education professionals also investigate how internal and external forces impact change and consider the global challenges in leading and managing change. 

Effective leaders are expected to be creative thinkers, able to anticipate and react quickly to the ever-changing landscape of higher education. Strategic planning and program evaluation are necessary components for leading and managing successful higher education institutions. In this course, principles of effective change process are emphasized from both the macro- and micro-level perspectives. Developing collaborative educators in the evaluation and transformational process of strategic planning is a key objective of this course, with emphasis on in-depth analysis of the paradigms, processes, and components of change. 

Managing resources—financial, technological, human, and intellectual—is one of the higher education leader's most significant concerns. Education professionals explore and apply principles that can help leaders in higher education effectively, plan, prioritize, allocate, and track the use of resources toward achieving learning-focused goals. Understanding efficiency, productivity, and sustainability in higher education is a key goal of the course as education professionals learn various ways to maximize resources across the institution. Activities include analysis of various budgeting, planning, and fundraising strategies and how these can be used to identify new and reallocated resources to enable growth and sustainability of quality programs.