Leadership as Service: A New Model for Higher Education in a New Century

Farnsworth argues that an imbalance of power exists in higher education that favors internal self-interests over student development and public service, an imbalance that has eroded the rigor and efficacy of the undergraduate curriculum. If higher education is to serve all who must benefit from its programs and services, presidents and senior administrators must restore this balance, and must effectively represent the interests of students and society as a whole. This book offers critical information for faculty and administrators alike, Leadership as Service reframes an agenda for higher education, challenging presidents to give voice to those who are now underserved, and restore the primacy of teaching and learning within the academy.

This provocative and readable discussion of leadership in higher education argues that leadership is essentially an act of service; that the more responsible the leadership position, the greater the responsibility to serve. Weaving together the Servant Leadership philosophy of Robert Greenleaf with the management principles of Mary Parker Follett, Kent Farnsworth, presents a model for 21st- century educational leadership that calls upon college administrators to see themselves as servants first. He argues that the voices and interests of many of education’s key stakeholders–students, employers, and society as a whole–have been marginalized by a consolidation of power in the faculty, requiring a bold new approach to leadership that refocuses service to these important, but underrepresented constituents.

Farnsworth argues that college and universities have yielded too much power to special interests within the academy. The result has been a shift in resources to elaborate facilities and overblown graduate and research agendas, eroding the rigor and integrity of the undergraduate curriculum. Leadership as Service outlines a new, service-driven agenda of higher education and describes the characteristics of those who will successfully lead in the new century.