Post-Master’s Certificate
in Leadership in Higher
Education

In this course, you’ll explore the differences between leadership, management, and supervision as a context for the entire Leadership in Higher Education (LHE) specialization. You’ll ground your exploration in historical leadership trends and the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion in higher education. You’ll learn to include theoretical and applied considerations throughout the course, and you’ll also examine the roles of shared governance, change, and conflict management.

There are many functions within the area of higher education student services. You’ll explore these functions across the student lifecycle in a variety of delivery modalities. Some of the functions you’ll explore include enrollment, advising, academic support, accommodations, modifications, and persistence and retention through graduation. You’ll have the opportunity to examine these functions generally within higher education and specifically as they relate to your personal interests.

Higher education institutions in the United States are bound by different legislation and regulation. There are also different types of institutional and programmatic accreditation that leaders must consider. In this course, you’ll explore the implications of these different accreditations, regulations, and legislation with specific attention to risk management, institutional self-studies, and issues of intellectual property across different types of institutions.

The facilitation of learning is the core function of all institutions of higher learning. As a leader in higher education, you need to know how this core function is designed and maintained. In this course, you’ll explore academic program planning and evaluation, theories and principles of curriculum development, assessment of student learning, and the value of open educational resources and co-curricular activities. You’ll be able to tailor your work in this course to your current or future institutional contexts and goals.

Financial considerations in higher education can be complex. While accounting departments may be responsible for most of the details, educational leaders need to understand the scope of financial considerations across the institution. In this course, you’ll examine the budget specifics, budget cycles, and fiscal accountability of higher education institutions. You’ll also explore sources of revenue, including financial aid, grants, fundraising, and the regulations that govern these fiscal activities within higher education institutions in the U.S.

The operational complexity of higher education institutions grows exponentially with the size of the institution. In this course, you’ll investigate the typical departments and processes of higher learning before examining more specific operational aspects, such as human resources, data-based decision making, institutional effectiveness, environmental scanning, strategic planning, and continuous improvement. Throughout the course, your explorations will also take your specific interest in topics and types of institutions into account.