Politics is a reality of institutional life. Advancement professionals who accept and embrace this fact are likely to improve their chances for career success. This book by Larry Lauer offers practical, seasoned advice on how to incorporate politics as another skill in your professional toolkit and how to use political tools to promote advancement on campus. Learning to Love the Politics is not a how-to manual about raising money or launching new alumni initiatives or using the newest technology or designing an integrated marketing program. Rather, it is about how to make all those efforts work in an academic institution while building internal support for doing the job right. Lauer shows how a savvy professional can manage an advancement career and deal with the institutional and academic politics that goes with the job. His insights and advice, based on his 40 years of experience in all areas of academia, cover these topics and more: The unique nature of colleges and universities as a work environment, The faculty life cycle, The dynamics of academic institutions, Leadership styles and how to deal with them, What organizations can to do people and What political tools are available and how to master them. Advancement is moving front and center to help institutions cope with dramatic changes from student recruitment to fundraising in the higher education marketplace. Meeting these challenges requires political savvy, but political success requires educating the people you must count on about what it is that you do, writes Lauer. You d better learn to love the politics, because it will always be a major part of your job.

Learning to Love the Politics: How to Develop Institutional Support for Advancement

Larry D. Lauer

Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE)

In this small book about big possibilities, Larry Lauer offers advancement professionals a primer for rethinking what to do and how best to do it, and for considering the exciting new career possibilities now possible with the revolutionary changes in the higher education sector. Disruptive changes in the core business model require all areas of educational advancement to help lead the way forward. But to seize this potential Lauer argues, advancement professionals must resist previous tendencies to work in isolation from within internal silos. To make the most of these opportunities advancement leaders must keep the following factors in mind: Big change is inevitable, with both good and bad effects for education Media revolutions change everything but in surprising ways Cutbacks by governments require a rethinking of institutional core business Advancement must become better integrated to lead the academy forward Clarifying the institution s competitive advantage is vital to its future success The right organizational structure is crucial, but there is not one ideal model Becoming an effective leader requires passion, political savvy and preparation Effective strategic communication is an essential first step.

The Transition Academy: Seizing Opportunity in the Age of Disruption

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Larry D. Lauer. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Larry D. Lauer

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Larry D. Lauer. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Learning to Love the Politics: How to Develop Institutional Support for Advancement

The Transition Academy: Seizing Opportunity in the Age of Disruption