One Year as Vice President
In January 2019 I started working as the Vice President for Institutional Effectiveness and Quality Assurance at a higher education institution in a country in which I’d never lived. One year on, I share my personal reflections. The views expressed here are entirely personal and in no way reflect the views of the institution, its people, nor any judgement on any of the people working or studying here.
Avoid Isolation….
The role of college administrator can be thankless and lonely. Without making the effort to go out and engage with our college community, my work can be very solitary. When I worked as a teacher, I received instant, mid-term, and longer-term feedback of my work, in the energy of my lessons, the progress of my students, and their achievements. By contrast, the consequences of my decisions as administrator may take months or years to take effect — I may never experience them myself. My predecessor departed 1.5 years ago and I feel the effects of her work daily. Last year I tweaked templates that numerous faculty will be required to use over the coming years. I aimed to simplify, to provide as much inputs as possible so that faculty don’t have to hunt for them, and to provide ongoing support on how to use it. I guesstimate that these efforts saved each faculty member 2 or 3 hours of work… but no one knows the work they are saved from doing, only the task in front of them and the person asking them to do it.
….By Reaching Out
What I am most proud of last year was that I listened. I listened to faculty, I listened to staff, I listened to the security guards, the maintenance guys (and their cats), the agents at the Cooperative Research Extension, and most importantly, I listened to students. After I thought I’d made a good enough start of listening within the college community, I suggested I venture out into the broader communities we serve to start listening there too. That idea was shut down; apparently college membership of the Rotary club and the quarterly community meetings after our board meetings are sufficient. I do not believe that this is the way to effectively communicate with our communities. One mass of community members facing another mass of college leadership is not conducive to genuine dialogue; most (including me) are nervous to speak out honestly in front of a crowd. It is the responsibility of our college to create the time and space, regularly, frequently, ongoing — to go out to listen, to learn, to share, to develop together. Listening is the first step to understanding. Understanding is a precursor to sensible action.
Overload is Overload
When there is too much work and too few people, work will not get done, or will get done poorly. Everywhere I look, people are shouldering the work of two, three, four or more people. There used to be a Dean of Assessment — in October 2017, that role was “absorbed” within the responsibilities of my predecessor and one other staff member. Simultaneously, the Director of the Office of Institutional Effectiveness was also “absorbed” by my predecessor and the Office’s one remaining full-time staff member. Forgive me that I have been struggling to understand where to focus my attention now that I have the responsibilities of what used to be three full-time positions. I do my best to manage priorities but there is so much work to be done and not enough people to do it. There are numerous vacancies across all six of our campuses, some of which have been vacant for a long, long time. Anecdotally, this seems to be the case across the country. I speculate that one cause may be the structures of hierarchy copy-pasted over from the West (USA) into this context. It seems like everyone is chairing a committee here, treasurer for this group there, part of the delegation to this that and the other, and all this on top of their work obligations….. let’s not forget the heavy obligations to extended family, church, and community. Starting projects, launching initiatives, and kickstarting innovation are so often celebrated in the workplace. But far less popular is to recognize the value of taking things off the plate, of stopping projects, and avoiding initiatives that, while offering exciting potential, would simply add to an already overflowing to-do list. People forget that every sunrise has a sunset — what have you stopped recently?
Have or Have Not?
I see disparity of spending, particularly with regard to travel. 20 members of the college community sat around a large table for less than four hours in Guam near the end of 2019. The cost of my travel was over $1600 (return flight plus four nights per diem at $196). Meanwhile, faculty tell students to be careful with the surgical gloves because these are expensive and students risk failing class if they break the mannequin on which they are learning first aid CPR. Car hire while travelling is commonly $70 a day, which means the cost of transporting one person from A to B on a two-week campus visit surpasses the cost of that mannequin.
What next?
If there is one thing we need more of, it’s creativity. This context is so unique with so many challenges, a creative mindset is absolutely necessary. So in January 2020 I decided to start my personal YouTube channel with the intention to broadcast sunshine every day. We all need sunshine in our lives and so far, over 360 moments of sunshine have been shared. It is my hope that besides sharing sunshine, creativity will foster creativity — who knows what spark may light a fire. I am also experimenting with podcasting with diverse members of our college community to not only listen but to share their voices more broadly.
I am here to serve the college community as best as I can. Getting better in my work takes time. It also takes guidance and probably a good amount of mistake-making. I apologize in advance for the mistakes I will inevitably make, for the suffering I may cause others. But are we not in the business of learning? Is this not the message we should be sharing with our students — we are all learning here together, it is ok to make mistakes when we treat them as gifts we can learn from. Going solidly on the mantra, done is better than perfect — I create, I listen, and each day take another step to to be the best I can be.
