Justice-Centered Leadership Through Ubuntu and Radical Hospitality: A Conceptual Model for Higher Education

Abstract

Deans are academic leaders who have academic, programmatic, managerial, and fiscal responsibilities. Deans verify the adequacy of instruction, monitor academic integrity, confer degrees, and are responsible for student recruitment, admission, and academic progress. As Universities re-imagine and reshape their offering for the future, Deans play a critical role in talent acquisition of faculty, students, and staff. In this paper, we examine how we applied an African principle of leadership that is foundational to our humanity and central to our mission at both a private institution and a public land-grant institution. In the College of Arts and Sciences at both Xavier University of Louisiana (an HBCU) and the University of Wyoming (an R1 Carnegie designated university) we implemented Radical Hospitality and Ubuntu, which pays honor and influences how we see ourselves, scholarship, and service. We used this approach to attract and retain the College workforce. This study contributes to the scholarship on higher education leadership by demonstrating how Ubuntu and Radical Hospitality function as transformative frameworks for cultivating institutional culture, inclusive leadership, and organizational resilience.