Arguing that higher education can play a unique role in addressing the fundamental divisions in our society and economy by supporting individuals in reaching their full potential, the authors have developed a provocative guide for higher education leaders who want to promote healthy and productive campus communities.

A practical and hopeful examination of how colleges and universities can create the best possible experience for students and faculty. There are few higher education leaders today that command more national respect and admiration than Freeman A. Hrabowski III, the outspoken president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Named one of America's Best Leaders by US News & World Report and one of Time's 100 Most Influential People in the World, Hrabowski has led a community transformation of UMBC from a young, regional institution to one of the nation's most innovative research universities. In The Empowered University, Hrabowski and coauthors Philip J. Rous and Peter H. Henderson probe the way senior leaders, administrators, staff, faculty, and students facilitate academic success by cultivating an empowering institutional culture and broad leadership for innovation. They examine how shared leadership enables an empowered campus to tackle tough issues by taking a hard look in the mirror, noting strengths and weaknesses while assessing opportunities and challenges. The authors dig deeply into these tough issues in higher education ranging from course redesign to group-based and experiential learning, entrepreneurship and civic engagement, academic inclusion, and faculty diversity. The authors champion a holistic approach to student success, focusing on teaching and learning while offering an array of financial, social, and academic supports for students of all backgrounds. Throughout the book, the authors emphasize the important role of analytics in decision-making. They also explore how community members and senior leaders can work together to create an inclusive campus through a more welcoming and supportive racial climate, improved Title IX processes, and career support for faculty of all backgrounds. Ultimately, The Empowered University is as much a case study of the authors' work as it is an examination of institutional change, inclusive excellence, and campus-community partnerships. Arguing that higher education can play a unique role in addressing the fundamental divisions in our society and economy by supporting individuals in reaching their full potential, the authors have developed a provocative guide for higher education leaders who want to promote healthy and productive campus communities.

On weekday afternoons, dismissal bells signal not just the end of the school day but also the beginning of another important activity: the federally funded after-school programs that offer tutoring, homework help, and basic supervision to millions of American children. Nearly one in four low-income families enroll a child in an after-school program. Beyond sharpening students’ math and reading skills, these programs also have a profound impact on parents. In a surprising turn—especially given the long history of social policies that leave recipients feeling policed, distrusted, and alienated—government-funded after-school programs have quietly become powerful forces for political and civic engagement by shifting power away from bureaucrats and putting it back into the hands of parents. In State of Empowerment Carolyn Barnes uses ethnographic accounts of three organizations to reveal how interacting with government-funded after-school programs can enhance the civic and political lives of low-income citizens.

All children deserve the opportunity to practice freedom of thought, voice, and movement in school. Giving students the opportunity to practice freedom--to teach them how to be autonomous, responsible, cooperative and critically literate--should be done in communities and schools across the country, and this book shows how. The key ability of the human brain that cannot be digitized or mechanized is its ability to interpret—that is, to cope with the intentions of another, to understand what was said and what was meant. Humans have the ability to work together as a team toward a common goal (i.e. cooperate), to be altruistic and make sacrifices to help others, to build trust, and to feel empathy or sympathy—and robots do not. Developing and using these interpretive and cooperative skills is essential to having a nation of thoughtful citizens who are capable of seeing themselves as solutions to the problems and issues we face. Empowered Students: Educating Flexible Minds for a Flexible Future is a theory-to-practice story of how students at a segregated and failing New York City high school were released from years of oppressive schooling practices and learned how to practice freedom, told through the voices and the people who built it: the school leaders, teachers and students.

The Empowered Principal is for the new principal who feels overwhelmed by the responsibility they have taken on as a school leader. It’s no surprise principals feel overwhelmed and exhausted. Every day, they deal with federal and state regulations, district policies, and parental pressures. The expectations on educators are higher than ever, tempting many principals to consider alternate livelihoods. Former school leader and teacher Angela Kelly Robeck helps principals who feel discouraged at the lack of control they feel over their job and personal life, allowing them to find a new perspective on working to exhaustion, saying yes when they don’t want to, and completely dreading going to work each day. The Empowered Principal provides relief for readers by pointing out that they have the power and ability to manage the results in their life by adjusting their approach and being mindful of their thoughts and emotional state—regardless of whether they choose to stay in their job or even pursue an alternate career. Angela shares how to manage feelings of overwhelm, reasons why school leaders stay in their jobs, how to confidently stay or peacefully go (and how to choose, and why educators are afraid to speak up. The Empowered Principal guides principals to reform the way they live and work as an educational leader and allows them to work each day with joy and accomplishment.

A community-empowered school is one in which administrators, teachers, staff, students, parents, and members of the community at large feel that they have a stake in the success of that school. Despite common reservations about the involvement of parents and volunteers in the classroom, this book makes clear the long-term advantages of onsite parent centers offering ESL classes, computer literacy/job-training classes, and classes in how to help students learn at home. The sources of financial and other help need not be limited to local businesses. District personnel, legislators, nonprofit agencies, and corporations can discover that they will benefit as a school succeeds. Chapter 1 examines what attracts community involvement, providing specific plans for volunteer programs and resource development. Chapter 2 identifies the stakeholders and what they can offer a school. Chapter 3 describes policies and procedures for program monitoring. Chapter 4 offers specific material for a workshop to train teachers in the use of tutors and mentors in the classroom, including overheads, worksheets, and memos. Chapter 5 outlines strategies using volunteers that increase literacy for students and their families. Chapter 6 addresses sources of funding. Chapter 7 explains the cost-effective nature of community support, and Chapter 8 shows how all the stockholders can affect public policy to increase the number of community-empowered schools. (Contains 43 references.) (RKJ)

'Dynamic and transformative... a roadmap for following your dreams.' Malala Yousafzai 'Touching, deeply inspiring and thought-provoking.' Jack Edwards, YouTuber and author of The Uni-Verse: The Ultimate University Survival Guide From experiencing grief and leaving her home country of Zimbabwe for the UK, to attending disruptive state schools and working long hours to support herself and her mother, Vee Kativhu has faced much adversity. But through personal hardship, she has triumphed, using her experience to help people from all over the world recognise their own talent and achieve their goals. From attaining a bachelor's degree from Oxford and a Master's from Harvard to spreading her message of education, equal access and opportunity and empowerment to a global audience of over 300,000, Vee's incredible journey has inspired young people around the world in need of a boost of confidence, motivation and practical life advice. In Empowered, Vee draws from her own journey to teach you how to: - Set your life goals, career aspirations and actually achieve them - Stay motivated in the face of rejection and hardship - Learn from your mistakes - Take chances, live your best life and don't let hardship define you - Cultivate feelings of self-love and self-empowerment This book will inspire you how to live a more fulfilled, motivated and empowered life in everything you do.