What’s AHEAD Poll # 5: Higher Education Leaders: What Institutional Decisions Do They Influence?

This report summarizes the results of a poll administered to the alumni of the Executive Doctorate program in Higher Education Management at the University of Pennsylvania who are currently working in a college or university (n = 195). 121 alumni responded during the 9-day period in which the poll was open (February 17 to February 25, 2015). In a departure from prior approaches, the current What’s AHEAD poll is designed to take advantage of an opportunity to connect findings to a cross-national survey of higher education management being led by researchers in Japan, with the support of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. Professor Tatsuo Kawashima of the Institute for Academic Initiatives at Osaka University is principal investigator for the project, in collaboration with other leading researchers from universities in Japan. Findings from the cross-national poll will be released later in the year. The poll included four questions related to perceptions of higher education leaders and ten questions on the demographic characteristics and current employment of the respondent. For this poll, we included only responses to the first question on higher education leadership. The complete poll was estimated to require no more than 15 minutes to complete. Additional commentary is available at http://www.ahead-penn.org/whats-ahead-commentary-poll-5