ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how increased political polarization may affect academic administration in general and specifically the administration of nonprofit programs and centers. In it, I describe how growing divisions within the democratic (liberal/progressive) political spectrum can divide faculty, administrators, and students. The goal of this chapter is not to pick sides in this existing debate. Instead, the chapter seeks to connect this political divide to tensions within academia on the proper role of institutions and to tensions between managerialist and critical theory perspectives to nonprofit management. The hope is that by articulating this framework for understanding these key tensions the chapter will provide academic administrators a heuristic for better understanding of their various constituencies. In addition, I suggest some tools that may prove useful to managers and directors navigating a tense and politically polarized world.
