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When assistant principals experience positive mentoring and professional development, they can obtain valuable knowledge and leadership skills from these learning opportunities. To better understand the formal and informal mechanisms assistant principals use to expand their knowledge and skills, the purpose of this paper is to examine important advice mentors provided for them and the professional learning activities that prepare them for their school leadership roles.

Semi-structured interviews with 69 elementary, middle, and high school assistant principals were conducted. Questions focused on the advice mentors have provided and significant learning experiences that have aided in their growth as school leaders.

Results reveal that assistant principals greatly appreciate insights from mentors about how to enhance decision-making skills, improve people and communication skills, reflect on their personal qualities and capabilities, and clarify their values and beliefs. Their preferred means for professional growth is to work with former and current administrators they trust and respect.

This study goes beyond examining the structural and procedural aspects of mentoring by describing highly valued advice provided by mentors affecting assistant principals’ professional development and growth. For mentoring to be effective, this study suggests that mentors should provide opportunities for assistant principals to develop their decision-making, people, and communication skills as well to clarify their personal capabilities, values, and beliefs.

Isolation is a word typically used to describe the role of the school principal. Although many in‐service training programmes for administrators strive to improve their leadership and management skills, few are aimed at reducing their isolation. However, Peer‐Assisted Leadership (PAL), a programme where principals shadow and interview peer partners, is intended to reduce isolation while improving observation and interview skills, building collegiality among peers and expanding leadership skills. An in‐depth description of PAL is provided, focusing on the researchbased origin of the programme, the training activities and the effects of the programme on participants. Principals who have participated in PAL remark that the programme validates many of their actions and attitudes, stimulates self‐reflective behaviour and creates an opportunity to try new ideas in a safe and non‐threatening environment. In addition, they report that their PAL experience continues to influence their actions and attitudes after their involvement in the programme ends. A thorough discussion of the key elements that contribute to the success of the programme is engaged in. These features include developing operational procedures and common language; creating a bond of trust between partners; providing a structure for reflecting on the programme′s process and content; and committing the necessary time for learning, applying and adapting new skills and thought processes.

The hectic and fast‐paced nature of principals′ jobs often prohibits them from learning directly from their on‐the‐job experiences. Nevertheless, having the opportunity to observe and interview a peer partner can allow principals to become more knowledgeable and reflective about their practice as school administrators. One such programme that encourages knowledge generation and reflection is peer‐assisted leadership (PAL), where principals shadow one another and conduct reflective interviews. The increased self‐knowledge and knowledge of the role of school administrators which principals gain as they engage in personal and vicarious experiential learning is described. In addition, the programme encourages the integration of theory and practice as principals compare a conceptual frame‐work of instructional leadership with the observed realities of their jobs. Principals′ reactions reveal their concern about being isolated from other administrators, their need for information that is immediately relevant, their desire to use alternative observation and feedback strategies with teachers, their frustration as instructional leaders, and their concern with being unfairly criticised by their superiors and others.

An important function of mentoring is to assist protégés in becoming autonomous professionals who reflect and solve problems as experts. The emerging literature on information processing, reflective practice, and expertise indicates: experts solve problems differently than novices; and learners who participate in a structured instructional programme can learn these higher‐order conceptual skills. Based on these findings, examines the principles and practices of cognitive coaching as a viable means for mentors to use in developing the reflective and problem‐solving expertise of their protégés. Provides practical suggestions for how mentor/coaches can utilize reflective questioning strategies, clarify and probe responses, and take a non‐judgemental stance. Concludes with an overview of a training model which would prepare and support mentors in their attempt to assist protégés in becoming self‐directed, expert problem solvers.

Presents a study that verified the effects of the peer‐assisted leadership programme (PAL) on communication networks and professional isolation of educational managers. The study used a one‐group pre‐test post‐test design to test its hypotheses. The subjects were 41 educational managers from two school districts of the province of Québec, Canada. A first PAL group, from a suburban school district (n = 16), followed the programme in 1993‐1994. A second group (n = 25), from a rural school district of the northern part of Québec, participated in PAL in 1994‐1995. The study used the ÉSUL a validated French version of the University of California at Los Angeles loneliness scale, to assess isolation. A sociometric questionnaire inspired by the ones used by previous researchers was used to assess subjects’ informal networks. The results indicate that PAL significantly reduces professional isolation without greatly enhancing the extent of communication networks of participants.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how Robbins ES has sustained high academic performance over almost 20 years despite several changes in principals.

The paper analyzed longitudinal data based on: state-level academic and demographic data; two earlier studies of the school; and recent interviews with teachers, the principal, and parent leaders.

The analyses of these longitudinal data revealed four ongoing factors were responsible for sustained academic performance: high expectations, distributed leadership, collective responsibility for student performance, and data-based decision making. However, challenges that persistently confront Robbins staff include limited resources (e.g. technology and library materials), high mobility rate, and some cases of unsupportive parents.

This study adds to understanding how high-need urban schools can sustain high academic performance in spite of changes in principals, shifting community demographics, and high student mobility.

The Minnesota State University System's Project for Automated Library Systems (MSUS/PALS) is a fully integrated library system that serves over 150,000 patrons on a network of 53 state university, community college, private college, and state agency libraries throughout Minnesota.

There are longstanding concerns about the sustainability of the US health care system. Payment reform has been seen over the last decade as a key strategy to reorienting the US health care system around value. Alternative payment models (APMs) that seek to accomplish this goal have become increasingly prevalent in the US, yet there is a perception that physicians are resistant to their use and that organizations have been slow to adopt such models. The reasons for the limited effectiveness of APM programs are multifactorial and include aspects related to the design and implementation of these programs and lack of alignment and coordination across different payers and health care sectors. Most importantly, however, is that the current organizational structures in US health care serve to dampen the direct impact of these incentives, often because health care delivery organizations face conflicting incentives themselves. Organizations filter and refine the incentives from multiple external payment contracts and develop internal incentive systems that best reflect the amalgamation of the incentives embedded across their contracts, and thus the fragmented nature of the US health care system serves to undermine efforts to transform care under value-based contracts. In addition to organizations having conflicting incentives, there also are fundamental problems with the design and implementation of APMs that hinder their acceptance among physicians and the organizations in which they work. Moreover, much remains to be learned about how organizations can best adapt to succeed under these models, and how organizational culture can be leveraged to transform care.

Environmental degradation, economic and political threats along with ideological extremism necessitate a global redirection toward sustainability and well-being. Since the survival of all species (humans, animals, and plants) is wholly dependent on a healthy planet, urgent action at the highest levels to address large-scale interconnected problems is needed to counter the thinking that perpetuates the “folly of a limitless world.” Paralleling critical societal roles played by universities – ancient, medieval, and modern – throughout the millennia, this chapter calls for all universities and higher education institutions (HEIs) generally – estimated at over 28,000 – to take a lead together in tackling the pressing complex and intractable challenges that face us. There are about 250 million students in tertiary education worldwide rising to about 600 million by 2040. Time is not on our side. While much of the groundwork has been done by the United Nations (UN) and civil society, concerns remain over the variable support given to the UN-2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially in light of the negative impact of global biodiversity loss on achieving the UN-2030 SDGs. Ten propositions for global sustainability, ranging from adopting the SDGs at national and local levels to ensuring peaceful uses of technology and UN reforms in line with global socioeconomic shifts, are provided for consideration by decisionmakers. Proposition #7 calls for the unifying One Health & Well-Being (OHWB) concept to become the cornerstone of our educational systems as well as societal institutions and to underpin the UN-2030 SDGs. Recognizing the need to change our worldview (belief systems) from human-centrism to eco-centrism, and re-building of trust in our institutions, the chapter argues for the re-conceptualization of the university/higher education purpose and scope focusing on the development of an interconnected ecological knowledge system with a concern for the whole Earth – and beyond. The 2019 novel coronavirus has made clear that the challenges facing our world cannot be solved by individual nations alone and that there is an urgency to committing to shared global values that reflect the OHWB concept and approach. By drawing on our collective experience and expertise informed by the UN-2030 SDGs, we will be in a much stronger position to shape and strengthen multilateral strategies to achieve the UN-2030 Transformative Vision – “ending poverty, hunger, inequality and protecting the Earth’s natural resources,” and thereby helping “to save the world from itself.”