Nathaniel J. Bray

Assistant Professor, Higher Education
Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies
328A Graves Hall
(205)-348-1159
nbray@bamaed.ua.edu
Appointed in 2004

Research underscores the complexity of the faculty-administrator relationship
Faculty and administrators are two of the most important and dynamic stakeholder groups on college campuses. A wealth of literature posits the lack of trust between the two groups, but actual empirical examinations of the two groups and their expectations are few. Nathaniel Bray has been studying this relationship, focusing specifically on the administrative level of the dean, for several years as part of an ongoing research agenda on the topic.

Bray’s work in this area has focused predominantly on examining faculty expectations for deans’ behavior. Deans serve at a difficult position in higher education institutions. They are widely acknowledged as serving two vastly different worlds: in a formalized hierarchy, coinciding with the norms and expectations of administration, and with the horizontal culture of the faculty. Many authors, ranging from prior deans to current faculty, have written suggesting how deans should do their job, but few have assessed this issue empirically. Drawing on a sociological background and a Durkheimian consideration of norms, Bray’s studies have tested these expectations for deans, seeking to determine how widely shared the expectations are across tenure levels, disciplines, and institutional types. Relying on Biglan’s typologies, faculty from biology, chemistry, history, and sociology were selected for this and subsequent ongoing work. His initial study, currently in press with the Journal of Higher Education, was conducted across liberal arts and research institutions. A second work on this topic, considering how well the Mertonian norms of science to which many faculty ascribe are used as a lens through which faculty temper their expectations of deans, is currently under review.

Bray and his colleague Dr. Marietta Del Favero, currently at the University of New Orleans, have co-authored an article on this important relationship in Scholar-Practitioner Quarterly. In this work, they consider a Dispositional Contexts Model, whereby positioning on scales of faculty cohesion and relational attitudes directly impact the faculty-administration relationship on campus. The two are currently working on a proposal on a synthesis of the work on the faculty-administrator relationship to Higher Education: A Handbook of Theory and Research.

The most current iteration of this research is an ongoing study considering administrative perspectives of deans’ behavior at liberal arts and research institutions, as well as adding in community colleges. While results are preliminary, some clear differences between the two stakeholder groups in their expectations for how deans behave are becoming apparent. While this is an ongoing agenda, the work done so far paints a picture that tempers what has been written about the expectations some hold for the job. Many inappropriate behaviors scored low in the survey research conducted. Others showed significant differences, particularly along gender lines and institutional types. With the added preliminary finding of significant differences between faculty and administrator expectations for deans, the research indicates some of the tribulations deans face. But just as much as they raise some daunting prospects, the results can also given administrators, and perhaps even faculty, a better handle to understanding the complexity and intricacy of the deanship and its interpreters.

Recent Courses Taught:

AHE 500 – Perspectives on Higher Education
AHE 521 – Introduction to College Student Personnel
AHE 600 – College Student Development Theory I
AHE 610 – Academic Cultures and Learning in Academe
AHE 642 – Seminar on Institutional Research and Assessment

Areas of Research:

College student development and retention

Faculty – administrator relationship

Academic Degrees:

Ph.D., Vanderbilt University, 2003. Education and Human Development, specializing in Higher Education.

M.Ed., Peabody College of Vanderbilt University, 1996. Higher Education Administration.

B.A., Harvard College, Harvard University. 1993. Biology, cum laude in General Studies.

Professional Experiences:

Assistant Professor. Department of Educational Leadership, Technology, and Policy Studies. The University of Alabama. 2004 – Present.

Research Analyst. Department of Institutional Research and Planning Analysis. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. 2001 – 2004.

Teaching Associate. Department of Human and Organizational Development. Vanderbilt University. 1999 – 2001.

Master Teaching Fellow. Center for Teaching. Vanderbilt University. 1999 – 2000.

Selected Publications:

Bray, N. J. (In Press). Proscriptive norms for academic deans: Comparing faculty expectations across institutional and disciplinary boundaries. The Journal of Higher Education.

Major, C. H., & Bray, N. J. (In Press). Exam scams and classroom flimflams: Urban legends as an alternative lens for viewing the college classroom experience. Innovative Higher Education, 35 (5).

Bray, N. J., Harris, M., & Major, C. H. (2007). New verse or the same old chorus? Lessons from distance education. Research in Higher Education, 48 (7), 889-908.

Del Favero, M., & Bray, N. (2005). The faculty-administrator relationship: Partners in prospective governance? Scholar-Practitioner Quarterly, 3(1), 53-72.

Braxton, J. M., Bray, N. J., & Berger, J. B. (2000). Faculty instructional behaviors and their influence on the college student departure process. Journal of College Student Development, 41 (2), 215-227.

Bray, N. J., Braxton, J. M., & Sullivan, A. S. (1999). The influence of stress-related coping strategies on college student departure decisions. Journal of College Student Development, 40 (6), 645-657.

Selected Presentations:

Major, C. H., & Bray, N. J. (2006). Exam scams and classroom flimflams: Urban legends as an alternative lens for viewing the college classroom experience. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, April 7, 2006, San Francisco, CA.

Major, C. H., Bray, N. J., Dyer, B., & Harris, M. (2005). Core curricula for American higher education programs. Presentation at the annual meeting of the Council for the Advancement of Higher Education Programs, November 2005, Philadelphia, PA.

Bray, N. J. (2005). Faculty norms for academic deans’ behavior. Presentation at the annual meeting of the Southern Sociological Society, April 2005, Charlotte, NC.

Bray, N. J., Bush, K. H., Catley, D., Chenier, T., Gile, R., Hung, C., & Olsen, D. (2004). Budget cuts and public higher education: Direct and indirect effects on human resources, instructional infrastructure and student recruitment and retention. Paper presentation at the annual meeting of the Association for Institutional Research, Boston, MA.

Bray, N. J. (2002). Faculty members’ perceptions of administrative norms for academic deans. Paper presented at the 2002 annual meeting of the Association for the Study of Higher Education, Sacramento, CA.