Chronicle of Higher Education: Strategic Leadership Program
On August 4-5, I attended the Chronicle of Higher Education’s Strategic Leadership Program. With everything that has happened in the last three years or so, I have had sort of an on-again, off-again attraction to administration. Many people that I trust have advised me to stay away from it, and my unsuccessful interview for the Director of General Education position at HPU was a blessing in retrospect. Based on the way things have been developing, I would have been in over my head for sure. This opportunity with the Chronicle came up, however, and my Dean offered to support it. I registered for the “light” version which included four webinars: “National Trends in Higher Education,” “Hiring for Diversity: a Primer for Department Chairs,” “The Chair’s Role in Promoting Student Success,” and “Work-Life: Forget About Balance, How can Chairs Achieve Equilibrium?” The full program also included breakout groups, individual coaching, etc.
National Trends
Interestingly, HPU seems to be something of an outlier as regards several of the trends discussed: while our diversity is improving, we remain a very elite white institution, we don’t have a lot of returning adults (unless its in the health sciences), and we still embrace the “social construction” of higher-ed as a four-year, residential experience. The trends may be against all of these things, but we are making it work somehow. he three principal areas of the discussion involved student advocacy, faculty management, and work flow.
The watchword regarding students was “enroll more, keep more.” We were advised to “double down on student engagement,” valuing students as people, adopting student-friendly policies, and keeping track of which faculty were reaching out to students—which were promoting student success. I was especially glad to hear one of the presenters assert, “penalizing poor performance is bad for retention.”
As regards faculty, it was important to observe what fills their time. “Really good professionals work harder than they need to,” was a good reminder that administrators should be helping faculty work more efficiently, and with a renewed sense of purpose. The presenters also emphasized embracing best practices as the best way to “do right by” the faculty and students, and advocated faculty incentives where possible. I question the use of incentives in certain (well, most) cases, but I appreciated the point.
Finally, the watchword for administrators was “Categorize—Prioritize—Delegate.” Just as good faculty work harder than they have to, it was important to remember that we can’t do everything. In particular, they recommended reaching out to the service centers on campus (CITL, Institutional Research, Development, etc.) to outsource data collection, etc. Where money is involved, it was important to align the area’s goals with the institutional goals, make data-based decisions and arguments, and provide compelling evidence.
Hiring for Diversity
I especially appreciated what seemed to be the 360-degree view provided by the panel, and the responsibility of the chair to define and guide the process. A particular take-away was the idea that the chair and faculty should be involved in continuous recruitment (whether a search was on or not), by leveraging their professional networks, attending conferences to scout new talent, etc.
Philosophically, however, how does the area value diversity, and what specific activities demonstrate this value? In addition to considering what the department needs, it is also important to consider what the applicants might be looking for. Why would someone want to work in the area? Is the climate such that everyone can be successful (if not, you have a bigger diversity problem than you thought!)? What qualities do students look for in instructors?
The chair’s responsibilities toward ensuring that the search committee chair (and members!) are trained for diversity, that the language of the job post is sufficiently broad, and that the applicant pool is sufficiently diverse, cannot be overestimated.
Promoting Student Success
The overall theme for this webinar was “every student should receive what they need to be successful,” and the guiding question in student success shoudl be “what impediments can we remove?” I especially appreciated the nods to curriculum assessment, communities of practice, and integration with the larger university.
“The Chair sets the tone” was another refrain that I liked: the role of the chair is to communicate priorities to the faculty. The panel recommended process metrics as opposed to the traditional outcome metrics, and these included such measures as enrollment growth, course completion, DFW rates in critical courses, and graduation rates in the major. A key theme was finding the blockages: what courses seem to be the most predictive of success in the major? Are the pre-requisites sufficiently preparing the students for the course course work?
The management piece was also astute: provide the faculty with clear expectations and mentoring, and when problems arise, focus on the course, not the faculty member. That is, rather than writing off “impossible” faculty, be pro-active in finding development opportunities, creating communities of practice, etc. Younger faculty tend to be more sympathetic to innovation, and a good investment in terms of development funds.
The integration piece included strategies for growing the major as well as aligning with the co-curricular experience. Undeclared students should receive particular attention, and a strong outreach program with events that showcase what the major is about was especially valuable. The chair should also know (or call for) “gateway” courses that facilitate entry into the major. As regards the co-curriculum, there should be a sense of which clubs, activities, community service opportunities, etc. contribute to success. These can be pitched as ways for becoming the best possible major students, and they also connect the students’ academic work to life skills (and at HPU, this advice is solid gold).
Work-Life
This was perhaps the most uncomfortable session, but it was important to hear that we don’t actually work as hard as we think we do, but even still, we work too hard. I was fascinated by the idea that we are all chasing a vision of “excellence” that has never been clearly defined. Since we don’t know if we’re achieving excellence, or even how far away it is, we assume that effort will get us there and pile on more and more work. (I had a similar conversation with my boss in honors, who observed that our students equate volume/busy-ness with depth—we all end up spinning wheels!) . The presenter (Richard Pitt) argued strongly that, in higher ed, we have a greater degree of autonomy and flexibility than most professionals, and we need to take control of the work. Furthermore, as teachers, we should be building on previous work rather than “reinventing the wheel” every semester (guess who’s guilty of that?). Lay out the tasks, he recommended, an judge where the energy should go.
This point back to our personal missions: what is valuable to us? What is rewarding? Conversely, where do we feel that we aren’t getting results?
On the management side, the chair (again!) sets the tone for the department. The Chair should model a healthy relationship to work, and not put faculty into positions where they have to say “no”; the fiction of “this is what the job requires” needs to be expelled, and clear expectations set. Decide what a successful x, y, or z looks like and put limits on it, Dr. Pitt insisted, so that you can tell when you’ve achieved it. The Chair also needs to be thoughtful about accountability—keep track of who is working too hard and who isn’t, and then balance the scales where possible.
My favorite closing thoughts were:
Are we creating an environment where everyone (including the staff!) feels connected to the mission?
Don’t tell people, either implicitly or explicitly, that they don’t matter.
We need to “train” others to respect our boundaries.
Where can we bring joy into people’s lives?