A Day in the Life of Berkeley Superintendent Dick Foster: An Event Analysis

This paper describes and analyzes all of the activities of the Berkeley, California school superintendent on September 20, 1973, a fairly typical workday. Included is a chronological log of each event and personal encounter during the day. All incoming and outgoing correspondence and phone calls for the day are also listed. Altogether the suprintendent had 138 encounters involving 80 different people. Fifteen different roles that were filled by the superintendent during the day are examined, and his interpersonal relationships and professional awareness, knowledge, and skills are analyzed. In a final section, the author discusses implications of the study for various issues including theory-based administration, administrative style, survival vs. leadership, urban complexity, leadership acquisition, behavior modeling, and collaboration between researchers and practitioners. (JG)