Critical Administration: Negotiating Political Commitment and Managerial Practice in Contemporary Higher Educationexplores the challenges that higher education administrators face when negotiating political commitments in the day-to-day practice of university life. Jay Brower and W. Benjamin Myers have collected reflections from 12 administrators, all of whom identify as critical/cultural scholars, about how ideological commitments affect their identities as administrators and the work they conduct. Contributors reflect on how their academic training helps them understand their role as administrators in higher education in terms of central issues surrounding power, ethics, and identity, and how they entwine with managerial responsibilities. Each contributor focuses on specific experiences where their managerial duties intersect with political commitments. Ultimately, this collection provides opportunities to observe the challenges and opportunities of performing ethical leadership in contemporary higher education. Scholars of education, critical/cultural communication, and administration will find this book particularly useful.

Jay Brower is associate professor and chair of the Department of Communication and Media Arts at Western Connecticut State University.

W. Benjamin Myers is associate professor chair of the Department of Communication at the University of Toledo.

Chapter 1 Selling Out or Cashing In: Common Fears of and Advice for Critical/Cultural Scholar Administrators

Chapter 2 Black Male Authority as Oxymoron: Implications for Black Academic Middle Managers in Higher Education

Chapter 3 Chair Communication as Ethical Performance: Embodiment, Interruption, and Translation

Chapter 4 Failing to Communicate in a Communication Department: A Former Chair Calls her Spirit Back

Chapter 5 Minding the Gap: The Performativity of Administrative Identities

Chapter 6 Its Not Me, Its You

Chapter 7 An Anxious Administrator: Critical Administrative Practice and Public Failure

Chapter 8 Diversity and Cultural Leadership

Chapter 9 Whos Responsible for Salving the Wounds? On Ethics, Leadership, and Conflict in an Academic Department

Chapter 10 The Liminal Leader: Narrative Conscience and Critical Hermeneutic Leadership in the Neoliberal Academy

Chapter 11 Drawing the Boundary Between Faculty and Administration Through Concertive Control: Coming out of the Dark into the Light

Chapter 12 Feeling Compromised: Notes on Chairing