Theses and Dissertations Collection

Innovation in higher education is often seen as coming through outside-in or top-down sources rather than from actors within the institution. However, faculty-led innovation and leadership holds promise for addressing a range of contemporary issues in higher education while increasing faculty commitment and satisfaction at their institutions. Effective faculty innovation and change depend on supportive academic leaders. Yet, leaders are often unprepared or unable to provide this support. This dissertation uses the principles of negentropy from thermodynamics applied to higher education to explore how academic leaders can build and sustain a faculty of negentropic actors who release energy for innovation and change into their institutions through new ideas, programs, and initiatives. I use a manuscript dissertation format to examine three phases of the faculty lifecycle in individual chapter manuscripts. I explore the role of the leader in supporting established faculty as innovators to their institutions. Then I examine leaders’ roles in the hiring and the early-career socialization process in building a faculty of negentropic actors. Finally, I study the role of doctoral education—particularly the shift to online doctoral education—in preparing and socializing future faculty members. The first two studies use a pragmatic qualitative study with interviews of high-performing higher education leaders. The third study employs an autoethnographic approach to understand my experience as a doctoral student given my choice for online doctoral education and the impacts of COVID-19.