Scholarship, Management, and Leadership in Academic Administration: The Case of Canadian University Presidents and Provosts

In the last three decades, Canadian universities have grown in size and complexity and undergone deep transformations. Meanwhile, who should be appointed as highest-ranking administrative officers and what they ought to be doing once appointed has remained hotly debated. This paper examines how Canadian universities' understanding and framing of their presidents and provosts in job advertisements has changed over this last thirty-year period. Our study analysed 153 job advertisements published between 1987 and 2017 to determine how these positions were portrayed over time. The analysis relied on a conceptualization of academic administration as a combination of scholarship, management, and leadership roles. Overall, the findings show an important shift in the symbolic language used to describe these positions, shifts which appear to be linked to Canadian universities' increasing use of recruiting firms. Presidents, first depicted as respected scholars, are now portrayed as charismatic heroes, while depictions of provosts have remained largely stable, focusing on their administrative support roles. Overall, the findings suggest that popular, if unrealistic, heroic depictions of Canadian university senior administrators are becoming prevalent in the crafting of job advertisements. Recognizing how these in turn shape how stakeholders understand these positions, greater attention should be given to the crafting of these key role signals.