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Reviewed by:
  • The College Administrator's Survival Guide
  • Belinda S. Miles (bio)
C. K. Gusalus. The College Administrator's Survival Guide. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006. 256 pp. Cloth: $21.95. ISBN: 0-674-02315-3.

The title of this book, The College Administrator's Survival Guide, instantly suggests that strategies [End Page 209] and tactics are necessary for individuals serving as college administrators. The book provides just that in its lengthy 225-page narrative format. Likely written for administrators who lack adequate, if any, preparation for administrative careers, many will find valuable the book's basic approach of "do's and don'ts" for college administrators.

An initial caveat regarding the title is that "College Administrators" sounds like a generic role. The book is actually most appropriate for academic administrators in universities. Most of the examples emphasize a research environment and may be less pertinent for administrators from non-academic departments and community colleges.

C. K. Gusalus is a former university provost and attorney whose perspective is that of someone who has "walked in these shoes." The information presented is based on her real-world experience and is presented primarily in a conversational tone.

The book is organized into eight somewhat disjointed chapters. In Chapter 1 ("Embrace Your Fate"), Gusalus stresses accepting the authority that comes with leadership and conducting a private inventory of personal characteristics that can impact judgment and decision making. Individual insight yields to institutional knowledge in Chapter 2 ("Know Your Colleagues"), which focuses on understanding selected factors common to academia, such as academic "stars," and conditions such as academic freedom, tenure, and collegiality.

Chapter 3 ("Negotiation") shifts the context to a specific administrative skill and provides one of the few examples of an actual rubric. Chapter 4 ("Complaints") shifts yet again, focusing on an overly broad category of administrative concern and is followed by "Bullies," limited to a single, though potentially pervasive and often demoralizing type of individual.

Chapter 6 ("When Not to Improvise") discusses in a "do's and don'ts" format organizational policies and procedures and how to use the human resources and legal departments as resources for consistent practice and for individual and institution protection. Chapter 7 ("Violations") returns the emphasis to a broad administrative category and, like previous chapters, emphasizes knowing how to categorize issues, which rules apply, and who to involve in resolution. The eighth and final chapter ("Centering") provides useful points on balancing empathy and firmness when communicating but fails to deliver a specific definition and set of behaviors for the term "centering."

Much like actual academic administration, this book provides neither clear roadmaps nor simple solutions to administrative dilemmas. Rather, the text requires the reader to muddle through to discern usable information that may be applied to situations he or she encounters in his or her own leadership role.

Despite some organization within chapters, the overly anecdotal nature of the writing makes it difficult to codify issues or tactics presented. Each chapter begins with a case study. Following each vignette, the author inelegantly transitions the reader to loosely organized discourse and insights about the chapter topic. Gunsales's unfortunate overuse of phrases akin to "we'll talk more about that later" or "more on this later" results in feelings of incompleteness and annoyance. Rarely was a direct connection to earlier references obvious on reading subsequent chapters. Ultimately and mercifully, the chapters end with suggestions for how to handle the situation; but much of the discourse rambles, challenging the reader to wade through voluminous prose to tease out the nuggets. For example, the author wisely counsels readers to understand and use institutional regulations and support systems. Emphases on developing judgment, managing the complexities of administrative situations, and determining courses of action are also helpful.

As a "survival guide," this text could have been improved by including summative tools. The addition of checklists, charts, and tables would have made the guide easier to use. The lack of an index was not surprising, given the exertion required to codify the information presented. Still, an index would have been a more effective tool for guiding readers.

The author provides a bibliography directing the reader to additional information about various topics addressed...

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