Jupiter, FL (November 2, 2010) – Dr. Jeffrey Buller, Dean of the Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College of Florida Atlantic University, is a very busy dean indeed. While teaching several courses each year at the Honors College, being a collegial supporter of other programs at FAU, and advising universities both in the United States and abroad on techniques of effective administration, he has managed to find time to write a series of books about higher education: one for professors, a second for chairs, and a third for deans. More recently, he added to this series a book stemming from an idea that first occurred to him over thirty years ago.”
            I was appointed to be a department chair, with absolutely no training at all, at the age of 26.  I was hoping to find a guide on academic leadership that I could absorb in a few minutes each day because that’s all the time I had.  I needed to spend every free moment teaching, conducting my research, and engaging in service.  But all the books I could find were weighty tomes filled with lofty theories and very little that was immediately practical.  So, I was out of luck finding anything that was useful to me.”
            To remedy this lack of resources, Dr. Buller has now drawn on thirty years of advice and experiences to create the book titled Academic Leadership Day by Day: Small Steps That Lead to Great Success. This work introduces one practical and field-tested idea each day for an entire academic year, providing academic leaders with no-nonsense suggestions they can consider on even their busiest days. Administrators can experiment with the activities proposed each day, discover what works for them, and then build on their successes to benefit their institution and its programs.”
            Dr. Buller hopes that this book will be valuable and helpful to other administrators, particularly academic leaders who are just starting out and unsure of what they should be doing. He said, “I’d also like it to serve as an antidote to the idea, believed by too many administrators, that unless you’re constantly changing everything in sight as part of a pursuit of a ‘big idea,’ you’re not doing your job.  I think that, to the contrary, there are plenty of little things any administrator can do every day to make their programs better, their faculty members understand how much they’re appreciated, and their students full participants in a rich, rewarding academic experience.”
            Dr. Buller credits his experience at the Honors College with assisting him in the creation of Academic Leadership Day by Day. “Work at the Honors College has given me daily contact with a fantastic group of faculty members and the best students any dean could possibly hope for.  I think I learn 100 times more from others than they will ever learn from me, and much of this book is the fruit of my experience at the Honors College in particular and at FAU generally.”
            Not only have Dr. Jeffrey Buller’s experiences and endeavors enabled him to contribute to his college and university, but also to provide insight to the world at large.  He travels several times each year to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as the lead consultant to the Ministry of Higher Education on the development of a new Academic Leadership Center, conducts training programs for the Sistema Universitario Ana G. Méndez in Puerto Rico, and is frequently contacted by other university systems on questions related to professional development, administrative enhancement, and interpersonal relations.  In an environment where faculty and student research is so important, it seems appropriate that at FAU’s Honors College administrative research is taken seriously as well.

byline: Tamara Howard