Showing results by author "Jeffrey Buller" in All Categories

When the president and dean of a small private college conspire to assign all the “faculty troublemakers” to a new unit and then dissolve the unit, their plan unexpectedly backfires. The resulting “Department of Eminent Scholars” manages to recruit just enough students to remain viable, and the academic year begins. As the semester unfolds, the students in the new department begin to sense that all is not what it seems in Chudwell Hall, the site of their unusual program, and a decades-long mystery starts to unravel.

This book is a highly personalized (and admittedly highly idiosyncratic) guide to a eighteen-day trip to Greece focusing on two things: antiquities and food. If your idea of a vacation in Greece is mostly cruising from island to island, going on long hikes to take in the scenery, and spending hours swimming or lying on the beach, then this book probably isn’t for you. What you’ll find in these pages instead is an extremely detailed account of the art and architecture of Greece, with attention paid primarily to the mainland where so much of ancient Greek history occurred. Each chapter ...

“Sometimes you have to leave home in order to find—or even earn—your way back. Odysseus discovered that. So did Dorothy Gale. Sometimes you get lost. And sometimes you get lost on purpose.” In the summer of 1971, a bored and callow sixteen-year-old boy embarks on a study tour that he hopes will expose him to ”The Comparative Cultures of Europe.” But what he learns instead are the truths you encounter when you’re far from home. From the glittering streets of Madrid and Paris to the ancient sites of Rome and Athens, Bird Without Wings explores the excitement and uncertainty of ...

In this sequel to Payvand Reed’s Curiosity Shoppe, Brad Johnston assumes his role as the store’s proprietor and decides to carry Mr. Reed’s mysterious idea in a new direction. In addition to selling occult paraphernalia, Brad now holds monthly séances where disembodied visitors are invited to make their presence known.To the shock of those in attendance, answers to some of history’s greatest puzzles are then solved. You never know who will be speaking to you through the spirit board when you enter Payvand Reed’s Cabinet of Mysteries.Will you dare to enter?

Every detective has that one case—the one that lingers in their mind, unresolved, unsettling. Maybe it was a case they never solved, one where justice slipped away on a technicality, or worse, one where they fear they got it all wrong. For D.T. Giovanni, now chief inspector of the Allemonde Grand-Ducal Police, that case was his very first. Four decades ago, when he was still a traffic cop, Chief Inspector Ansgar Ziegler brought him into the investigation of a suspicious death. Giovanni and Ziegler were certain the victim’s wife had poisoned him—but without proof, the case went cold. ...

“This is a shop where people rarely find what they desire. But they always leave with what they deserve.” –Payvand Reed Enter a strange little shop. Look. Over there. Behind the counter. Its owner is waiting for you. Who is Payvand Reed? And why does he keep inviting you into his nightmare? This shop is a place where strange events happen every day. Why does each item come with its own mysterious story? What is the source of Mr. Reed’s power? What do customers really buy here? Each person who enters Payvand Reed’s Curiosity Shoppe leaves with something–if they’re willing to ...

When the president and dean of a small private college conspire to assign all the “faculty troublemakers” to a new unit and then dissolve the unit, their plan unexpectedly backfires. The resulting “Department of Eminent Scholars” manages to recruit just enough students to remain viable, and the academic year begins. As the semester unfolds, the students in the new department begin to sense that all is not what it seems in Chudwell Hall, the site of their unusual program, and a decades-long mystery starts to unravel.

Based on ATLAS' popular workshop, Best Practices in Coaching and Mentoring, this guide provides academic leaders with the tools they need in order to provide effective guidance to faculty members and administrators. Preferring proven techniques to abstract theory, this guide explains what to do (and why) in a wide variety of coaching and mentoring situations. Filled with practical examples and hypothetical case studies based on scenarios in higher education, Best Practices in Coaching and Mentoring coaches you on how to be a better coach and mentors you so that you can be a better mentor. ...

Premeditated Spontaneity, the final volume in the trilogy The Secret Memoirs of Anton Krait, reveals how and why this unusual story came to be told. Krait, teaming up again with Raouf Awad and Ilse Voss, travels to Southeast Asia in order to play a final series of matches before the last existing Hollerith Machine is destroyed. But the sudden disappearance of Colonel Becker, the international commissioner for "The Game," means that the threat posed by the Vril is far from over.

Yesterday’s Tomorrow, the first volume in The Secret Memoirs of Anton Krait, introduces readers to a college professor whose favorite pastime is a complex intellectual game. Drawn into the search for a missing woman, Anton Krait travels to Egypt and finds himself pursued by members of a dangerous religious cult. As Krait and several companions conduct their investigation, they learn the cult is on the verge of an act of terrorism that could result in the loss of millions of lives. Using only his wits, Krait must defeat a formidable enemy in order to save himself and protect the future of ...

Accreditation. Merit salary systems. External rankings. Outcomes assessment. Program reviews. These strategies and many others were developed as ways of improving the quality of higher education. But as Jeffrey L. Buller—the author of such works as The Essential Department Chair, Positive Academic Leadership, and Change Leadership in Higher Education—argues in Reinventing College, they haven’t fulfilled their promise. At best, they’ve resulted in modest improvements that aren’t worth the time and cost they required. At worst, they harmed the quality of higher education by shifting...

Pamplemousse is a collection of poems about the things we hold onto—ticket stubs, half-finished apologies, voicemails we can't quite delete—and the quiet reckonings that shape a life. These poems speak in a voice that is by turns tender, self-aware, and gently ironic. They search for meaning in burned-out streetlamps, late-night emails, broken clocks, and memories that refuse to behave. With nods to the everyday and the existential, Pamplemousse explores love, loss, and the strange dignity of continuing. If you've ever stared into your refrigerator late at night waiting for answers, ...

Based on ATLAS’ popular workshop, Conflict Management for Academic Leaders, this guide explains the difference between constructive and destructive conflict and offers sound advice for how to minimize the harmful effects of destructive conflict. Conflict is inevitable in academic units, but it doesn’t have to be counterproductive. This valuable resource provides six field-tested approaches for dealing with negative forms of conflict and restoring a positive work environment. In addition, like all ATLAS guides, this book is specifically written for the higher education environment and ...

In this controversial new work, Jeffrey L. Buller, the author of Positive Academic Leadership and Change Leadership in Higher Education, argues that nearly every initiative undertaken to improve higher education in the last fifty years—merit pay systems, student course evaluations, faculty evaluation, outcomes assessment, program review, external college rankings, strategic planning, and the like—has actually had the opposite effect. In addition, he argues that current approaches to accreditation have failed, “administrative bloat” is not the leading cause of tuition increases at ...

When a tenor is murdered only days before the annual opera festival is scheduled to begin in the tiny European duchy of Allemonde, it’s up to Chief Inspector D.T. Giovanni to find the culprit. Unfortunately for Giovanni, everyone he meets seems to have a motive and no one thinks he’s up to the challenge. The result is an adventure that’s full of so many twists and turns it proves to be a mystery on an operatic scale.

Based on ATLAS' highly acclaimed workshop, Effective Communication in Higher Education, this guide addresses general principles for how academic leaders can express themselves (and help others in their programs express themselves) with greater success. It addresses the three questions every administrator should ask before trying to communicate with anyone, individual strategies for oral and written communication, the concept of framing, communicating in order to persuade others, communicating in order to resolve conflict, and much more. This resource is designed for academic leaders to use ...

In this sequel to Die, Meistersinger!, the annual opera festival returns to the tiny European duchy of Allemonde, this time accompanied by an airshow at the local university. Billionaire industrialist Hector Seville is in attendance, along with his wife, Barbara, after whom he’s named his latest dirigible. But, when Barbara Seville dies onstage during a performance of Rossini’s Semiramide, the question is raised: Was it suicide, an accident, or … murder? Missing paintings, stolen identities, and a host of other other complications combine to make Chief Inspector D.T. Giovanni’s ...

In this prequel to Die, Meistersinger! and The Barbara Seville, we learn new details about how Detective D.T. Giovanni met and married Zerlina Zeporella before rising to become the chief inspector of the Allemonde Grand-Ducal Police. It’s 2017, and a rash of car thefts throughout Europe is threatening the cancelation of the Great Allemonde Autoshow and Race, a new initiative that happens to overlap with the duchy’s annual opera festival. As one mystery arises after another, Giovanni will need every bit of his deductive skill if he is to unravel the baffling secret of the … Car Men

Tragedy comes to Allemonde when a bride dies only moments after she’s married. Is it suicide or is it, as her groom insists, murder? Either way, this tragedy strikes the Allemonde Grand Ducal Police all the harder since both bride and groom are closely linked to the department. As the local opera theatre mounts its spring production of Bedřich Smetana’s The Bartered Bride, deaths continue to occur in the duchy, and Chief Inspector D.T. Giovanni must overcome his own grief in order to lead the investigation. Twists, turns, and several surprise appearances make the Case of the Battered ...

Shocking deaths and equally shocking reappearances abound in the latest case challenging the Grand Duchy of Allemonde’s chief inspector, D.T. Giovanni. The grand duke decides that, in the aftermath of the global pandemic, what the world needs is a festival consisting exclusively of comic operas, operettas, and Broadway musicals. Meanwhile, a circus comes to town in an effort to bring even greater merriment to the duchy. But, despite these innovations, the festival nearly comes to a crashing halt when, once again, murders begin to intrude on the gaiety. Hired assassins, an international ...