Acting on Promise: Reflections of a University President (Polyglot Press Academic Edition)

Features

• Cover Type: Hard Cover with 300 pages
• Published by: Polyglot Press, Inc.
• Edition: 1st Edition May 1, 2008
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 1411599837
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-1411599833
• Book Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1 inches
• Weighs: 1.2 pounds

Product Review
A university president wields an extraordinarily broad range of power. To do so effectively means to maintain trust with faculty, administrators, and students while exercising wide discretionary authority. A president must solve problems without being bogged down in minutiae. At the same time he must set his own agenda and pursue it with single-mindedness, while avoiding the pitfall of stubborn adherence to formulaic preconceptions. Acting on Promise tells the story of Bob Bruce s transformative presidency at Widener University, where he struck a balance between openness to debate and firmness of resolve. The faculty and the staff accorded him unprecedented support because he earned it. --Lawrence P. Buck, Provost Emeritus and Professor of History, Widener University

Bob Bruce has the special qualities that every president requirements to be successful. He is engaging, enthusiastic, analytical, and politically astute. President Bruce shaped the history and future of Widener University in a new and dramatic way but he will perhaps be best remembered in American higher education for his passion and eloquence at the regional, state and national levels. Bob is the board member with whom you would most wish to serve. His representation of private higher education, his ability to understand the issues affecting public higher education, and his determination to keep access and choice available to students are legendary and laudable. For those of us who follow him, Bob Bruce is the president the rest of us hope someday to become. --Brian C. Mitchell, President, Bucknell University

Bob Bruce has written a very important book for those who currently hold positions of leadership or aspire to such positions within the academy a segment of society that, fortunately, draws to its ranks individuals who are intellectually gifted and committed to the advancement of knowledge, but who, unfortunately, tend to be fiercely independent, narrowly focused and not easily led to change. Styled as his reflections, Bob has woven into his narrative numerous opportunities for the discerning reader to gain valuable insight into the attributes necessary for effective and creative leadership that, in the case of Widener University, inspired students, faculty, staff and board members to follow Bob as he transformed the very culture of the institution. Indeed, there are lessons for those who aspire to become leaders outside the academy. --Anthony J. Santoro, President Emeritus and Professor of Law, Roger Williams University

Product Description
In Acting on Promise, the author, a seasoned higher education administrator, offers insight into the workings of universities in general and in particular the transformation of one where he was president for twenty years. Under his leadership, Widener University became a comprehensive university respected for its academic quality and entrepreneurial approach to higher education. With the knowledge of one who has been there, the writer shares his perceptions on, among other things, trustees, students, family life in a glass house and the role of athletics in higher education. His reflection on the external and internal forces that make higher education so fascinating is done with humor and candor. Above all, he shares how they all came together at Widener. While not a how to book, there is much that new and aspiring college presidents could find beneficial in this journey from small college to three-campus University. The personal observations on faculty and from inside the NCAA and other national accrediting bodies are quite revealing. For all, it is an interesting look at how one institution redefined its role and place in the higher education universe.

Reader Reviews
This is a well written book that will be of interest to any prospective college student and their parents. Read this book and learn what really goes on in a successful university, one that will provide you a useful education. There are important decisions to be made by the administration of any university and this book tells a success story. Not every one will attend Princeton or Harvard and this book will help the rest make a wise choice. Anyone in a decision making position can learn from Dr. Bruce's thoughtful rendition of his experience and success!