McClure, Kevin Richard

Department Chair

positions

Department Chair, Educational Leadership , Watson College of Education

Dr. Kevin R. McClure is a Professor of Higher Education and Chair of the Department of Educational Leadership at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. He also serves as Co-Director of the Alliance for Research on Regional Colleges. Dr. McClure is a distinguished scholar of college leadership and organizational change. An award-winning public scholar, he has most recently served as a regular columnist at The Chronicle of Higher Education. Dr. McClure’s best-selling book, The Caring University: Reimagining the Higher Education Workplace after the Great Resignation, was released with Johns Hopkins University Press in 2025.

McClure, Kevin Richard

Contact Info

mcclurek@uncw.edu

910.962.7819

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Selected Publications

Academic Article
- Higher ed is adrift. The Chronicle of Higher Education. 2025-05-01
- Higher ed's paltry investment in training its own leaders. The Chronicle of Higher Education. 2025-04-01
- Feeling unappreciated? You're not alone. The Chronicle of Higher Education. 2025-02-01
- Research-based approaches to support and retain higher education staff. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning. 57:46-55. 2025-01-01
- Sick and still on the job. The Chronicle of Higher Education. 2024-11-01
- Colleges are still failing their employees. The Chronicle of Higher Education. 2024-10-01
- How college leaders can stand up for DEI workers and programs. The Chronicle of Higher Education. 2024-05-01
- Your pay is terrible? You’re not alone. The Chronicle of Higher Education. 2024-03-01
- New public management in U.S. higher education: Is privatization associated with lower costs?. Public Management Review. 26:1915-1940. 2023-01-01
- Privatization and cost inefficiency at U.S. public research universities. Studies in Higher Education. 48:1498-1515. 2023-01-01
- The hollowing out of higher education. The Chronicle of Higher Education. 2023-01-01
- An expanded vision of value in postsecondary education: Regional public universities as broadly accessible anchor institutions. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning. 54:26-32. 2022-01-01
- Don’t blame the pandemic for worker discontent. The Chronicle of Higher Education. 2022-01-01
- Educators are disengaged and distracted. Better workplace culture could win them back. EdSurge. 2022-01-01
- Having trouble hiring at your college? Try improving the jobs. EdSurge. 2022-01-01
- Higher ed is a land of dead-end jobs. The Chronicle of Higher Education. 2022-01-01
- The future of work is flexible. Will higher ed stay stuck in the past?. EdSurge. 2022-01-01
- The great faculty disengagement. The Chronicle of Higher Education. 2022-01-01
- Colleges are hiring. Does anyone want to work there?. The Chronicle of Higher Education. 2021-01-01
- Higher ed, we’ve got a morale problem—and a free t-shirt won’t fix it. EdSurge. 2021-01-01
- Regional public universities don’t need rescuing. The Chronicle of Higher Education. 2021-01-01
- Why we should care about college leaders’ morale, too. EdSurge. 2021-01-01
- Advice from college presidents on building trust to weather a crisis. EdSurge. 2020-01-01
- An uneven playing field: Fundraising at public regional universities in the aftermath of the Great Recession. Philanthropy & Education. 3:1-26. 2020-01-01
- Burnout is coming to campus. Are college leaders ready?. EdSurge. 2020-01-01
- College leaders make mistakes. Here’s why they should apologize for them. . 2020-01-01
- College leaders must explain why—not just how—to return to campus. EdSurge. 2020-01-01
- Proximity to power: The challenges and strategies of interviewing elites in higher education research. The Qualitative Report. 2020-01-01
- Putting people first: How colleges can communicate effectively about COVID-19. EdSurge. 2020-01-01
- Assessing campus climate for affordability to promote college student success. NASPA Knowledge Community Publication. 68-70. 2019-02-01
- All public universities get private money, but some get much more than the rest. The Conversation. 2019-01-01
- Amenities in higher education: Shifting from rhetoric to research. College Student Affairs Journal. 37:129-143. 2019-01-01
- Rural anchor institution: Examining a regional comprehensive university’s efforts to serve its rural region. Journal of Research in Rural Education. 35:1-19. 2019-01-01
- The cost of belonging: How spending money influences social relationships in college. Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice. 55(2):196-209. 2018-04-01
- Economies of scale and scope at public master’s institutions: Evidence accounting for spatial interdependency. Education Economics. 26:516-533. 2018-01-01
- Institutions of opportunity: Using presidents’ narratives to re-tell the story of public regional universities. Journal for the Study of Postsecondary and Tertiary Education. 3:117-134. 2018-01-01
- Spending up the ranks? The relationship between institutional striving for prestige and administrative expenditures at public research universities. Journal of Higher Education. 89:961-987. 2018-01-01
- The problem with calling UMBC a Cinderella. The Chronicle of Higher Education. 2018-01-01
- It all adds up: Examining and enhancing campus climate for affordability at a four-year university. Journal of Student Financial Aid. 47(2). 2017-08-01
- Public-private partnerships in college student housing: Lessons from three institutions. Journal of College and University Student Housing. 43(2):72-92. 2017-04-01
- Patterns in giving by philanthropic foundations to higher education institutions: A state-level social network analysis. Philanthropy & Education. 1:1-28. 2017-01-01
- Are public master’s universities cost efficient? A stochastic frontier and spatial analysis. Research in Higher Education. 58:469-96. 2016-01-01
- Building the innovative and entrepreneurial university: An institutional case study of administrative academic capitalism. Journal of Higher Education. 87:516-543. 2016-01-01
- Leading schools of education in the context of academic capitalism: How deans respond to state policy changes. Policy Futures in Education. 14:793-809. 2016-01-01
- The next generation of higher education management fads. Academe. 102. 2016-01-01
- Exploring curricular transformation to promote innovation and entrepreneurship: An institutional case study. Innovative Higher Education. 40:429-442. 2015-01-01
- How one building reveals what’s wrong with higher education. Chronicle of Higher Education. 2015-01-01
- Albert Einstein, Alt-Ac Pioneer. Vitae: A Service of The Chronicle of Higher Education. 2014-01-01
- Education for economic growth or human development? The capabilities approach and the World Bank's Basic Education Project in Turkey. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education. 44:472-492. 2013-01-01
- Higher education’s reform-industrial complex. The Chronicle of Higher Education. 2013-01-01
- We just don't have the possibility yet: U.S. Latina/o narratives on study abroad. Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice. 47:367-386. 2010-01-01
- Madrasas and Pakistan's education agenda: Western media misrepresentation and policy recommendations. International Journal of Educational Development. 29:334-341. 2009-01-01
- Arbiters of effectiveness and efficiency: The frames and strategies of management consulting firms in U.S. higher education reform. Journal of Higher Education Policy & Management. 39:575-89.
Book
- Unlocking opportunity through broadly accessible institutions. Routledge.. 2021-01-01
Chapter
- Introduction: Broadly accessible colleges and universities -- Unlocking opportunity through broadly accessible institutions. Routledge. 2021-01-01
- Presidential leadership at broad-access institutions: Analyzing literature for current applications and future research -- Unlocking opportunity through broadly accessible institutions. Routledge. 2021-01-01
- Unlocking opportunity: Towards a counter-narrative of broadly accessible colleges and universities -- Unlocking opportunity through broadly accessible institutions. Routledge. 2021-01-01
- Conclusion: Appraising asset-based themes for policy and practice -- Regional public universities: Addressing misconceptions and analyzing contributions. New Directions for Higher Education. 2020-01-01
- Leading schools of education in the context of academic capitalism: How deans respond to state policy changes (Reprint) -- Critical issues in democratic schooling: Curriculum, teaching, and socio-political realities.. Routledge. 2020-01-01
- Privatization as the new normal in higher education research: Synthesizing literature and reinvigorating research through a multi-level framework -- Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research. . 2020-01-01
- Vulnerable, fragile, and endangered? financial rhetoric and reality at regional public universities -- Regional public universities: Addressing misconceptions and analyzing contributions. New Directions for Higher Education. 2020-01-01
- Reframing the national narrative: Curricula reform and history textbooks in Turkey's EU era. Sense. 2016-01-01
- Reframing the national narrative: Curricula reform and history textbooks in Turkey’s EU era -- (Re)Constructing memory: School textbooks, identity, and the pedagogies and politics of imagining community: Vol. II. Textbooks, identity, nation and state. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. 2016-01-01
Document
- Understanding states’ dismantling of higher education. Academe. 2025-04-01
- Regional public universities: Addressing misconceptions and analyzing contributions -- New Directions for Higher Education. Jossey-Bass.. 2020-01-01
- Selling hope and college: Merit, markets, and recruitment in an unranked school by Alex Posecznick -- Teachers College Record. Teachers College Record. 2017-01-01
- Developments in Higher Education's Entrepreneurial Turn. Privatisation in Education Research Initiative. 2013-01-01
- Turkey’s eastern question: Educational disparities and EU accession. The Washington Review of Turkish and Eurasian Affairs. 2011-01-01
Report
- Competencies for the college presidency: A national study of effective leadership in higher education. Academic Search. 2024-01-01
- The role of organizational culture in crafting an employee value proposition. TIAA Institute. 2024-01-01
- Equity-minded principles for presidential searches in higher education. American Council on Education.. 2022-01-01
- Introducing our nation’s rural-serving postsecondary institutions: Moving toward greater visibility and appreciation. Alliance for Research on Regional Colleges.. 2022-01-01
- Recommitting to stewardship of place: Creating and sustaining thriving communities for the decades ahead. American Association of State Colleges and Universities.. 2022-01-01
- The impact of COVID-19 on faculty, staff, and students: Using research to help higher education heal through the pandemic and beyond. Association for the Study of Higher Education.. 2022-01-01
- Strengthening rural anchor institutions: Federal policy solutions for rural public colleges and the communities they serve. Alliance for Research on Regional Colleges.. 2021-01-01

Presentations

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