The fall semester is finally here, as yesterday was the first day of classes at UW-P! I love first days of the semesters, as they feature unique energy created by the students’ excitement about new classes, twinged with just a little bit of fear and anxiety. It was fun walking around “the bridge,” a skyway that connects many of the buildings on campus. I missed an opportunity to connect with students, however, when one person in a group of three complimented me on my suit. I thanked her, but kept walking, as my natural inclination is to chat only when (a) I know the person; or (b) I’m intentionally out to make connections, as was the case later in the day yesterday when I went over to the Office of Multicultural Student Affairs. I’ll need to get into the habit of making time to chat in a wider range of situations…
academic administration
For the past 20 years the Tuesday after Labor Day has been the start of the fall semester for me. Today, though, is different, as classes don’t start until tomorrow at UW-Parkside. Students were on campus, so it was busier than any time during my preceding two summer months, but the numbers were limited, as new students were losing steam at the end of three days of voluntary orientation activities. Each college was asked to organize an orientation session were new students met with the dean for an hour, and then went to speak with department representatives for a second hour about majors and classes. I can’t speechify for more than 15 minutes, so I organized a twist where each department head co-presented with me about general aspects of the college and the departments, and then students went to breakout sessions with the department heads for more specific department information. That was fun, but I’m really looking forward to the real energy and excitement generated by a full complement of students on campus for day one!
P.S. At the end of the college/department hybrid session we also watched the first five minutes of the TV show Undeclared, and then the department heads started their breakout sessions with a discussion of the clip. I waited outside of the main lecture room to direct late students to the breakout rooms, but wished that I could have heard the discussions…
Today I attended the 2013 UW-Parkside convocation. While it was nice to see folks from many different sectors of the university gather to celebrate successes and learn about new initiatives, I’m a bit disappointed that we don’t have the type of convocation I’m used to attending, a gathering for new students where they hear a few short speeches, learn some of the traditions of the university, and are motivated to start the year strongly. Last week I spoke with the Dean of Students to suggest that we should co-chair a committee to explore possibilities for establishing a campus signature event; I’ll have to see if she also wants to add a new student convocation to the planning agenda. If so, we’ll definitely need to look into including a dynamic sophomore speaker like the one this year at Georgia Tech!
The song “The Unpossible” by Kaleidoscope Jukebox begins with a discussion of the limitations of the word “impossible”:
Our language…you might say our language lacks a word.
We have the word impossible, but we need to differentiate between two sorts of things.
The impossible is that which by definition can never be done.
We need another word: unpossible.
That which can’t be done just yet.
This song popped into my head today while thinking of times over my first two months as a dean when I’ve been told “we can’t do that here.” Luckily, there have only been two occurrences where that could not be overcome. The first time was when I requested wrjacobs@uwp.edu as my email address to match the wrjacobs@x construction I’ve had for the past 20 years. After six years with wrjacobs@indiana.edu I requested wrjacobs@umn.edu at the U of Minnesota and was initially denied, but an administrative assistant eventually tracked down someone who could do it, so I thought that the same thing could happen at UW-Parkside given an initial “our system can’t generate that” response, but no dice. The second instance was a request to let my administrative assistant use my designated dean’s parking space since I’d be parking at an on-campus apartment building. The “we can’t do that here” response was driven by fear of a precedent being set. Umm, I don’t really see future deans lining up to live in the student apartment complex and asking for others to use their reserved parking spaces, but whatevs.
In my meetings with department heads post I outlined consultative structures that I hope will facilitate the generation of ideas about alternative ways of business. Proposals will probably focus on practical problems, and rightfully so! I think that I’ll form another advisory group, one composed of faculty, staff, and students who are specifically interested in brainstorming unpossible ideas. I’ll call this the UnBox committee. Stay tuned for more details!
Today I had the initial meeting with the person who will be the interim associate dean for 2013-2014. I wanted to make the meeting short, since he is technically not on contract until next Monday, but we ended up talking for two hours! I hope this doesn’t come back to bite me, as after the second meeting of department heads last month one person gave me a gentle reminder that they were not on contract until the end August, so I should not be holding so many meetings. I think I’ll be fine, as the new associate dean was formerly a department head, but he was not the one who made the comment. I did make a promise to the heads that I would try to not schedule any all-group meetings in August, and it looks like I’ll be able to keep it!
We’ll go into a heavy meeting rotation in September, however, as each department head (some are chairs, other are directors) will usually attend three meetings: a meeting of chairs, directors, and the dean group (CDDG); a council of heads (CoH) meeting that does not include the dean, associate dean, and dean’s assistant; and an individual meeting of the department head with the dean. What happens in each structure? In the CoH the heads will discuss the dean’s requests, create initiatives to present to the dean group, and share best practices; they’ll have a space where they can brainstorm without having to worry about the dean’s reaction before solid proposals can be created. In CDDG meetings the department heads, dean, associate dean, and dean’s assistant will discuss dean group ideas, discuss CoH suggestions, discuss central administration initiatives, and engage other business. In the head-dean meetings departmental concerns and ideas will be addressed, and two-way mentoring will happen. In sum, I want to have lots of spaces for consultation, which includes ideas brought to me in addition to ideas that I have to share. Hopefully the open atmosphere of the two initial CDDG meetings will carry over to all of the other meetings. Bring on September!
In 2008 I was invited to participate in a panel discussion organized by graduate students in sociology at Indiana University, my graduate alma mater. My main contribution to “Building Bridges: Developing a Language for Discussing Race” was to outline my “Quarterback Theory of Diversity in Higher Education.” After returning to the University of Minnesota I shared it with the Chief Diversity Officer, and we mused about writing an article about it. We never got around to that, but I’ll share it here, as the theory popped back into my head as part of a decision process about joining country clubs.
First, for readers not familiar with American football I’ll note that the quarterback is the person who is often the face of the team, and receives the bulk of media attention, be it good, bad, and/or ugly. In higher education faculty of color are the “quaterbacks” of diversity efforts, and will be highly visible. A quarterback will receive attention even if not wanted (and/or warranted), but there are ways to mitigate this attention, on institutional, departmental, and individual levels.
On an institutional level in American football, the league can have rules to protect the quarterback from unnecessary wear and tear, such as a rule to make it illegal to knock down the quarterback if the defender is more than two steps away after the ball is released on a pass attempt. On an institutional level in higher education, tenure-track faculty of color can be explicitly rewarded in promotion and tenure documents for the service they are called upon to do to serve students of color, and/or excused from other types of service.
On a departmental level in American football, the team’s head coach can call for more handoffs to the running back if the quarterback has been overwhelmed by the pass rush. On an departmental level in higher education, the department chair can notice that her assistant professor of color has been asked to join every student advisory group, so she could work with chairs of other departments to find other volunteers to lessen the new professor’s load.
On an individual level in American football, the quaterback can decide that it’s not worth the punishment to try to gain an extra yard in an attempt to run over a defender at the end of a play, and just step out of bounds. Similarly, on an individual level in higher education a faculty member of color can decide that jumping into a new battle would lesson her effectiveness in other activities.
In sum, the Quarterback Theory of Diversity in Higher Education suggests that there are institutional, department, and individual strategies that help faculty of color effectively deal with demands on their time to improve multicultural climates. Maybe I should try to develop this idea more and get it out there in an article….
If you are a reader who is not a dean but you are thinking about becoming one, a question I’d pose is this: “do you like meetings?” If not, you may want to drop a deanship from the list of possibilities, as we attend a ton of them. I have to admit that I not only like meetings, I love them! Well, the ones that are productive anyway, which is usually the case for the vast majority, luckily. There is a certain energy generated by connecting with others to explore ideas and check off items from to-do lists!
Today I have my first “Chairs, Directors, and Dean Group” (CDDG) meeting, where the dean’s assistant and I will meet with all of the department and program heads. When an associate dean is selected s/he will be present at these meetings too. At today’s initial meeting I’ll also strongly suggest the formation of a “Council of Heads” (CoH), where the heads will meet monthly without the deans. While a department chair at the University of Minnesota I attended monthly meetings with the deans, and monthly meetings with just the other chairs, so I’ll try to replicate that structure here at UW-P. Both types of meetings can be valuable, as in the CoH meetings the heads can discuss requests from the dean group, create initiatives to present to the dean group, and share best practices about unit administration, and in CDDG meetings we will discuss dean group ideas, engage initiatives from central administration, and discuss CoH suggestions. I’ll also meet at least once a month with each head to hear unit concerns and ideas, and engage in two-way mentoring: I’ll learn as much from them as they do from me!
Interestingly, one type of meeting format that I do not like much is the retreat. I don’t know exactly why…maybe because too much is usually crammed into them, and the temptation is to try to solve everything in one shot vs. beginning an on-going conversation? So today’s initial CDDG gathering is a 3-hour mini-retreat where we have some action items to decide immediately, but it also includes many other kickoff processes that we’ll engage over the academic year. The meeting is on campus, which also decreases the chances of it being viewed as a special activity. I’ll probably have to do a “real” retreat sometime in the future, but I’m confident that the mini-retreat will kickstart productive CDDG meetings.
Speaking of kickstarting, one topic on today’s agenda is the possibility of launching a kickstarter campaign to fund an idea. Stay tuned for more 411!
This week I am attending a seminar for new deans, conducted by the Council of Colleges of Arts and Sciences. 48 new deans and associate deans are learning practical strategies from experienced leaders. I’m looking forward to implementing new ideas when I return to Parkside!
While I was a faculty member at the University of Minnesota I rarely dressed up beyond dress pants and button-down shirts (worn untucked). In fact, I wore a business suit only on five or six occasions in 14 years on the faculty. As a dean, however, the biggest role transition might be to wearing suits much more often. I wore one this morning to a meeting with small business owners; it’s officially day 8 on the job. (It really is day 11, however, as a dean works every day, including on holidays like the 4th of July). I’ll have to break it out again in two weeks when I accompany the chancellor to a reception for a new school superintendent. As more meetings with folks external to the university get added to the schedule I’ll probably have to ditch the shirts and slacks for full-on suits. Men’s Wearhouse, here I come…
Today I was called into the Human Resources (HR) office to receive training about “Manager Self Service.” I was informed that “supervisors will learn how to enter their own leave electronically as well as learn how to approve leave and/or timesheets for employees (this does not include students) they supervise.” This seems like a very worthwhile activity, and the hour over in HR for the training was well organized. I never did anything like this while a department chair at the University of Minnesota, however, either for myself or for folks I supervised. At a leadership seminar a few years ago one of the presenters noted something like this: “if you move from a flagship institution to some other type of institution you may find that you’ll have to sweat the small stuff that is not monitored very closely at elite levels.” UW-P recently switched to an online time reporting/monitoring system, so this new duty should not be too onerous. Also, perhaps, institutions tagged “elite” can avoid some types of problems by more closely “sweating the small stuff”? Hhhmmm.
For the past 20 years the Tuesday after Labor Day has been the start of the fall semester for me. Today, though, is different, as classes don’t start until tomorrow at UW-Parkside. Students were on campus, so it was busier than any time during my preceding two summer months, but the numbers were limited, as new students were losing steam at the end of three days of voluntary orientation activities. Each college was asked to organize an orientation session were new students met with the dean for an hour, and then went to speak with department representatives for a second hour about majors and classes. I can’t speechify for more than 15 minutes, so I organized a twist where each department head co-presented with me about general aspects of the college and the departments, and then students went to breakout sessions with the department heads for more specific department information. That was fun, but I’m really looking forward to the real energy and excitement generated by a full complement of students on campus for day one!
P.S. At the end of the college/department hybrid session we also watched the first five minutes of the TV show Undeclared, and then the department heads started their breakout sessions with a discussion of the clip. I waited outside of the main lecture room to direct late students to the breakout rooms, but wished that I could have heard the discussions…
Today I attended the 2013 UW-Parkside convocation. While it was nice to see folks from many different sectors of the university gather to celebrate successes and learn about new initiatives, I’m a bit disappointed that we don’t have the type of convocation I’m used to attending, a gathering for new students where they hear a few short speeches, learn some of the traditions of the university, and are motivated to start the year strongly. Last week I spoke with the Dean of Students to suggest that we should co-chair a committee to explore possibilities for establishing a campus signature event; I’ll have to see if she also wants to add a new student convocation to the planning agenda. If so, we’ll definitely need to look into including a dynamic sophomore speaker like the one this year at Georgia Tech!
The song “The Unpossible” by Kaleidoscope Jukebox begins with a discussion of the limitations of the word “impossible”:
Our language…you might say our language lacks a word.
We have the word impossible, but we need to differentiate between two sorts of things.
The impossible is that which by definition can never be done.
We need another word: unpossible.
That which can’t be done just yet.
This song popped into my head today while thinking of times over my first two months as a dean when I’ve been told “we can’t do that here.” Luckily, there have only been two occurrences where that could not be overcome. The first time was when I requested wrjacobs@uwp.edu as my email address to match the wrjacobs@x construction I’ve had for the past 20 years. After six years with wrjacobs@indiana.edu I requested wrjacobs@umn.edu at the U of Minnesota and was initially denied, but an administrative assistant eventually tracked down someone who could do it, so I thought that the same thing could happen at UW-Parkside given an initial “our system can’t generate that” response, but no dice. The second instance was a request to let my administrative assistant use my designated dean’s parking space since I’d be parking at an on-campus apartment building. The “we can’t do that here” response was driven by fear of a precedent being set. Umm, I don’t really see future deans lining up to live in the student apartment complex and asking for others to use their reserved parking spaces, but whatevs.
In my meetings with department heads post I outlined consultative structures that I hope will facilitate the generation of ideas about alternative ways of business. Proposals will probably focus on practical problems, and rightfully so! I think that I’ll form another advisory group, one composed of faculty, staff, and students who are specifically interested in brainstorming unpossible ideas. I’ll call this the UnBox committee. Stay tuned for more details!
Today I had the initial meeting with the person who will be the interim associate dean for 2013-2014. I wanted to make the meeting short, since he is technically not on contract until next Monday, but we ended up talking for two hours! I hope this doesn’t come back to bite me, as after the second meeting of department heads last month one person gave me a gentle reminder that they were not on contract until the end August, so I should not be holding so many meetings. I think I’ll be fine, as the new associate dean was formerly a department head, but he was not the one who made the comment. I did make a promise to the heads that I would try to not schedule any all-group meetings in August, and it looks like I’ll be able to keep it!
We’ll go into a heavy meeting rotation in September, however, as each department head (some are chairs, other are directors) will usually attend three meetings: a meeting of chairs, directors, and the dean group (CDDG); a council of heads (CoH) meeting that does not include the dean, associate dean, and dean’s assistant; and an individual meeting of the department head with the dean. What happens in each structure? In the CoH the heads will discuss the dean’s requests, create initiatives to present to the dean group, and share best practices; they’ll have a space where they can brainstorm without having to worry about the dean’s reaction before solid proposals can be created. In CDDG meetings the department heads, dean, associate dean, and dean’s assistant will discuss dean group ideas, discuss CoH suggestions, discuss central administration initiatives, and engage other business. In the head-dean meetings departmental concerns and ideas will be addressed, and two-way mentoring will happen. In sum, I want to have lots of spaces for consultation, which includes ideas brought to me in addition to ideas that I have to share. Hopefully the open atmosphere of the two initial CDDG meetings will carry over to all of the other meetings. Bring on September!
In 2008 I was invited to participate in a panel discussion organized by graduate students in sociology at Indiana University, my graduate alma mater. My main contribution to “Building Bridges: Developing a Language for Discussing Race” was to outline my “Quarterback Theory of Diversity in Higher Education.” After returning to the University of Minnesota I shared it with the Chief Diversity Officer, and we mused about writing an article about it. We never got around to that, but I’ll share it here, as the theory popped back into my head as part of a decision process about joining country clubs.
First, for readers not familiar with American football I’ll note that the quarterback is the person who is often the face of the team, and receives the bulk of media attention, be it good, bad, and/or ugly. In higher education faculty of color are the “quaterbacks” of diversity efforts, and will be highly visible. A quarterback will receive attention even if not wanted (and/or warranted), but there are ways to mitigate this attention, on institutional, departmental, and individual levels.
On an institutional level in American football, the league can have rules to protect the quarterback from unnecessary wear and tear, such as a rule to make it illegal to knock down the quarterback if the defender is more than two steps away after the ball is released on a pass attempt. On an institutional level in higher education, tenure-track faculty of color can be explicitly rewarded in promotion and tenure documents for the service they are called upon to do to serve students of color, and/or excused from other types of service.
On a departmental level in American football, the team’s head coach can call for more handoffs to the running back if the quarterback has been overwhelmed by the pass rush. On an departmental level in higher education, the department chair can notice that her assistant professor of color has been asked to join every student advisory group, so she could work with chairs of other departments to find other volunteers to lessen the new professor’s load.
On an individual level in American football, the quaterback can decide that it’s not worth the punishment to try to gain an extra yard in an attempt to run over a defender at the end of a play, and just step out of bounds. Similarly, on an individual level in higher education a faculty member of color can decide that jumping into a new battle would lesson her effectiveness in other activities.
In sum, the Quarterback Theory of Diversity in Higher Education suggests that there are institutional, department, and individual strategies that help faculty of color effectively deal with demands on their time to improve multicultural climates. Maybe I should try to develop this idea more and get it out there in an article….
If you are a reader who is not a dean but you are thinking about becoming one, a question I’d pose is this: “do you like meetings?” If not, you may want to drop a deanship from the list of possibilities, as we attend a ton of them. I have to admit that I not only like meetings, I love them! Well, the ones that are productive anyway, which is usually the case for the vast majority, luckily. There is a certain energy generated by connecting with others to explore ideas and check off items from to-do lists!
Today I have my first “Chairs, Directors, and Dean Group” (CDDG) meeting, where the dean’s assistant and I will meet with all of the department and program heads. When an associate dean is selected s/he will be present at these meetings too. At today’s initial meeting I’ll also strongly suggest the formation of a “Council of Heads” (CoH), where the heads will meet monthly without the deans. While a department chair at the University of Minnesota I attended monthly meetings with the deans, and monthly meetings with just the other chairs, so I’ll try to replicate that structure here at UW-P. Both types of meetings can be valuable, as in the CoH meetings the heads can discuss requests from the dean group, create initiatives to present to the dean group, and share best practices about unit administration, and in CDDG meetings we will discuss dean group ideas, engage initiatives from central administration, and discuss CoH suggestions. I’ll also meet at least once a month with each head to hear unit concerns and ideas, and engage in two-way mentoring: I’ll learn as much from them as they do from me!
Interestingly, one type of meeting format that I do not like much is the retreat. I don’t know exactly why…maybe because too much is usually crammed into them, and the temptation is to try to solve everything in one shot vs. beginning an on-going conversation? So today’s initial CDDG gathering is a 3-hour mini-retreat where we have some action items to decide immediately, but it also includes many other kickoff processes that we’ll engage over the academic year. The meeting is on campus, which also decreases the chances of it being viewed as a special activity. I’ll probably have to do a “real” retreat sometime in the future, but I’m confident that the mini-retreat will kickstart productive CDDG meetings.
Speaking of kickstarting, one topic on today’s agenda is the possibility of launching a kickstarter campaign to fund an idea. Stay tuned for more 411!
This week I am attending a seminar for new deans, conducted by the Council of Colleges of Arts and Sciences. 48 new deans and associate deans are learning practical strategies from experienced leaders. I’m looking forward to implementing new ideas when I return to Parkside!
While I was a faculty member at the University of Minnesota I rarely dressed up beyond dress pants and button-down shirts (worn untucked). In fact, I wore a business suit only on five or six occasions in 14 years on the faculty. As a dean, however, the biggest role transition might be to wearing suits much more often. I wore one this morning to a meeting with small business owners; it’s officially day 8 on the job. (It really is day 11, however, as a dean works every day, including on holidays like the 4th of July). I’ll have to break it out again in two weeks when I accompany the chancellor to a reception for a new school superintendent. As more meetings with folks external to the university get added to the schedule I’ll probably have to ditch the shirts and slacks for full-on suits. Men’s Wearhouse, here I come…
Today I was called into the Human Resources (HR) office to receive training about “Manager Self Service.” I was informed that “supervisors will learn how to enter their own leave electronically as well as learn how to approve leave and/or timesheets for employees (this does not include students) they supervise.” This seems like a very worthwhile activity, and the hour over in HR for the training was well organized. I never did anything like this while a department chair at the University of Minnesota, however, either for myself or for folks I supervised. At a leadership seminar a few years ago one of the presenters noted something like this: “if you move from a flagship institution to some other type of institution you may find that you’ll have to sweat the small stuff that is not monitored very closely at elite levels.” UW-P recently switched to an online time reporting/monitoring system, so this new duty should not be too onerous. Also, perhaps, institutions tagged “elite” can avoid some types of problems by more closely “sweating the small stuff”? Hhhmmm.