Every now and then I hear our song

Colleagues on campus who foolishly ask what I'm up to are likely to receive a lengthy explanation of how I've never really had an academic summer. If I recall correctly, I taught a summer course my first or second year at UCA, and then went straight into an administrative position that offered 10.5 month employment for a few years, followed by a long stretch of 12-month administrative contracts. That ended in summer 2013 with a summer sabbatical, the only kind available to administrators. I took two week-long research trips that summer and spent every remaining day researching, conducting phone interviews, traveling within the state, correcting transcripts, and scrambling to be ready to start writing my book. But during this sabbatical, my dean pressed me for a commitment on whether I would continue in administration, and I declined to do so. The summer of 2012, then, would be the last I would spend working full time.

Turns out I would continue to do phone and local interviews into the early months of 2014; the only part of the book with a complete draft by the time classes ended that spring was the introduction. So I spent every day of summer 2014 writing. By the end of August, with classes already underway, I had six chapters done, with four more to go before my Christmas deadline. As I wrote in a January post, that summer I wrote a chapter every 2.4 weeks.

I got a very helpful reader report from my editor on March 2 of this year, and immediately began revisions. Once classes ended in early May, I was in the office full time every day doing additional research, editing, and rewriting. I turned in a revised manuscript on June 10.

And since then, it has been Summer. The kind where I don't have to come to the office, where no one is expecting me. I have work to do -- classes for fall to prepare (including a new one), some assessment (done), some faculty reports (done), and then the research and dreaming and thinking about the next scholarly projects -- but it's completely up to me when I want to make progress on that and when I want to do Summer Things. That's the life a lot of faculty live. Yes, many of them teach summer classes or take other temporary work (scoring standardized tests, teaching at summer programs), but many just have a Summer. Like the one I'm finally having.

I come to the office most days. I have research I want to move forward, and interlibrary loan books that I can only keep for a short time. Reading and thinking is a pleasurable occupation, especially compared to the stress of rewriting and cutting and checking citation formatting on a deadline. I give myself plenty of leeway to follow my train of thought wherever it leads, chasing down information on a stray inquiry if it grabs my interest. 

But I also take a walk every morning before the heat and humidity build to unbearable levels. Today I listened to podcasts, but most days I just think for half an hour. Yesterday I took the kids to a nearby state park and hiked a trail along the river. Now that Summer is here, I am going to do more of that.

Summer seems very short when the first six weeks of it are eaten up by deadline work. In July the kids have camps and Noel has trips; my days will not be my own, like they are now. In August the new semester will be on the doorstep. But Summer seems so long, so luxuriously empty, on a day like today. 

Commencement

You can't say that the end of summer sneaked up on me. I've had an eye on the calendar ever since the beginning of July, when I came home from my second research trip and took stock of the last half of my sabbatical. The kids bought their school supplies two weeks ago. U-Hauls are stacked up in front of the dorms at my campus across the street, and tomorrow the flood of new first-years will be arriving.

I walked through the Jewel Moore Nature Reserve with Archer and Cady Gray this afternoon, taking advantage of the incredibly cool weather we've had this summer; where normally temperatures would be pushing or exceeding 100 in August, it's in the low 80's at the moment. As I strolled along and listened to them discuss Pokemon and the deer and rabbit tracks they saw on the trail, I was suddenly struck by a contrast. Frequently last year I came to the Nature Reserve in a desperate attempt to de-stress. The knots in my back and shoulders, the uncertainty, the sense of my life being beyond my control -- I returned to this place again and again, searching for an escape.

Today on the eve of the new academic year beginning, I felt no stress. The magic I was looking for, I found in time away from my administrative load, and time spent thinking deeply about theology. Having made the decision to return to full-time teaching and research, I shed my last remaining doubts more quickly than I expected. Almost without my noticing, my future acquired a shape I recognized. The vague vertigo of an escalator carrying me somewhere I didn't want to go -- it was gone, replaced by a confidence that whatever happened next, I could handle it.

It's amazing how that shift has carried over into other parts of my life. The kids are growing up, and there are plenty of things to worry about there. But I've never been so confident that they're well equipped and poised for success. I know they have challenges coming. But when those hurdles aren't added on to obstacles in my own life, they seem far less terrifying.

When I stop to think about it too long, I can find plenty to fret about. I'm a natural at worrying. But one thing that doesn't concern me is whether I've made the right choice. This summer hasn't just changed my career trajectory. It's changed -- or reset -- my definition of doing well. Success doesn't mean more money and more titles and more people to supervise. It means converting a lifetime of the learning I care about into the lessons that give students more power over their pasts, presents, and futures.

I can't wait to get started.

Changing course

I am halfway through so many things. Halfway through my sabbatical. Halfway through my academic career. Halfway through my life (if I am fortunate). Halfway through raising my children.

Our family has always rendered the old saying this way: Don't change horses in midstream. I don't know if that's the original or some muddle of horses and boats. But I know what it means. If you get cold feet about whether your original strategy is working out, think twice before trying to change it, lest you wind up in the drink.

But like all such bits of folksy advice, it's difficult to know when it applies. Sticking to the wrong methodology just because you fear it might be too late to make a change -- that's not a good idea either. There's wisdom in recognizing when you have made a wrong start, even if you are already halfway through the course.

There's a lot to be said for administration. A good administrator is a tremendous benefit to an organization. Administrators at their best can build structures where wonderful things happen, can reward people who do them, can obtain resources for them, can clarify procedures and expectations so that people know how to get things done, can provide evidence to demonstrate the wonderful things happening.

I know that I want to work for good administrators, and I know that I've been very fortunate to work for them and learn from them. (The bad ones have taught me some important lessons, too.)  But at least where I am now, here at the halfway point, I want to get off the administrative horse.

It's carrying me farther away from teaching, farther away from being a productive scholar. What it's carrying me towards is something that needs to be done, but it's not something I need to do. As a person who likes to be in full control of everything, whether it's any of my business of not, recognizing the difference between "a job that needs to be done well" and "my job" has always been difficult for me. Here halfway through, I have to remind myself that caring about something does not require managing or leading it.

I've received a lot of great advice about this halfway point from relative strangers and from people who know me well. Most of it is simple and obvious, but rings almost heartbreakingly true. Just because you are good at something does not mean it's what you ought to do. You can't be there for the people you care about unless you take care of yourself. Arrange your life to spend the bulk of your time on what's most important.

It's been hard to accept the conclusions that are inescapable when I follow that advice, because I've spend so much time riding this horse to the middle of the stream. But it would be more foolish to stay on this horse than to attempt a change, however risky.

When I entered academia, I wanted to help students mature in their thinking about religion. I've done less and less of that each year. It's no less needed than fifteen years ago; quite the opposite. It would be a personal failure, and a terrible shame, if I let go of that goal when I have the ability and the position to accomplish it. And focusing on what's important to me will allow me to reclaim the energy that administrative tasks tend to drain away. The thought of doing more of the latter in the future is bleak and dispiriting; the thought of teaching the subjects about which I'm passionate, of reading, researching, and writing in the field where I can contribute something unique, is exciting. The message couldn't be more clear.

That's where I stand, halfway through. Changing horses and changing courses is a process. I'm not where I was in this process of rethinking and reorienting six months ago, but if you'd asked me then where I thought I was going, I should have told you, if I were being honest, that I suspected I might end up here. I might have feared it more than anticipated it then. Now the fear is diminishing.

Maybe I've been on the other horse for awhile, and just needed to open my eyes to see which way I've been headed. Check back in a few months and see if I've picked up the reins or have been swept away.

Dissolve to next scene

Definition of infrequent posting: My last post was in late March, and announced my sabbatical for the summer (actually nearly a month after it was approved). This post, on Mother's Day 2013, contemplates the start of my sabbatical in just two days.

It seems like it's taken at least a full semester since spring break to get to this long-awaited point, even though it's only been seven weeks. April has been a month of intense hard work, with two major service projects in my two classes involving on-campus events coming to fruition. I ended the semester drained; the word that kept coming to mind, frankly, was "defeated." But at least it wasn't an ordinary summer stretching out in front of me. Wonderful as that can be to look forward to, it wasn't going to cut it in my burned-out state.

Because of my sabbatical, I won't be working on anything but my book after Tuesday. Well, I'll have to work on my promotion application, which has made almost no progress since spring break, and will be due shortly after I return from sabbatical. But nothing that has to do with my normal administrative duties. No freshman orientation. No information management. No reports. No strategic planning. No assessment. No curriculum development. No course prep. Nothing but reading, writing, interviewing, and organizing material for my prayer shawl ministry book.

It might sound like I'm already there. But this week, representing the transition from my administrative job to my sabbatical, involves several big tasks.

Here's my to-do list for Monday and Tuesday, my last days at work as associate dean:

• Complete sections of the annual report for which I'm responsible, chiefly reporting on the status of goals from the last year.
• List specifications for computer and A/V purchases for several classrooms, so that they can be ordered by the secretary.
• Brainstorm goals for the upcoming year with administrative team.
• Convert cash donations for service learning fundraisers into checks, write cover letters, and send to the appropriate charities.

And here's my to-do list for Wednesday through Friday, the first days of my sabbatical:

• Familiarize myself with my interview recording setup.
• Ascertain if I need any more equipment or backups.
• Conduct a trial run of my interview outline with a local subject.
• Schedule and confirm interviews in Hartford, Connecticut, where I'm headed next week.
• Make travel plans for my next trip in late June.
• Continue reading and notetaking from my growing stack of research texts.

Noel is in Chicago this upcoming week starting his new job (details on that forthcoming). It's hugely exciting for both of us to be opening the door to new lives in the same week. His change is more permanent; mine is more of an extended vacation from my usual routine. I'm as eager for him to get started as I am to start my own sabbatical. In his absence, I have a few additional items for the ol' to-do list, related to being sole custodial parent this week, including school chauffeuring duties that will shorten my office workdays by a couple of hours (making those Monday-Tuesday to-dos more difficult to achieve without taking work home).

I've been looking forward to this Wednesday, May 15, the first day of my sabbatical, for a long time. I'm nervous about being able to do what I'm setting out to do, and I'm aware that I'll be working just as hard and long on this (if not more so) as I do on my teaching and administrative work normally. I'm already stressing about squeezing all the pre-Hartford sabbatical tasks into just a few days this week before I hop on a plane next Monday. 

But oh, the appeal, the longed-for luxury of turning my attention to Just One Thing rather than trying to squeeze my scholarly work and theological thinking into the odd half-hours left over after the million and one things of my normal job. Sabbatical, here I come.

Dissed

I've had occasion recently to think about a complex of emotions with which I have limited experience. Disrespect is not something I've paid attention to for the first four decades of my life. Before the last few years, I doubt I could have articulated what disrespect feels like, and what it means.

But now I've witnessed disrespect at close range in various settings, and it's a very interesting phenomenon. Disrespect happens when a person is performing their role or duty, and another person either interprets that performance as a personal attack, or treats the performance as illegitimate. What's most intriguing about disrespect is that it's a public matter. It requires the witness of other people. The whole point of disrespect is that there is an audience. Just as the according of respect is a performance that communicates roles to a broader public than the two people involved, so the enacting of disrespect shows others that the recipient's authority or position is not accepted. In that way it is an attack, or more properly a rear-guard action.

Disrespect feels like a blindside. Here we are in a group setting, doing our jobs, and somebody's decided not to play the game.  And in a public setting, it can be jarring, and difficult to decide how to respond. Do you draw further attention to it by noticing or calling it out?  Do you take the high road and just go on doing your job?  What if you weren't present for the public disrespect, but found out later that people didn't feel like you deserved honesty about their intentions? How do you react next time you see them?

We can all understand disrespect because we've all been in situations where we are annoyed, frustrated, or impatient with someone doing their job. We feel like we'd do their job differently, or we find that their way of doing their job rubs us the wrong way. We have the impulse to roll our eyes or mutter asides to our neighbor or otherwise act out our disapproval. Normally we save it for the next venting session with friends or spouses. But sometimes we take it public, and it shades into disrespect. It can be impulsive, like a moment of annoyance, or calculating and thorough.

I don't think we deserve respect because of the positions we occupy, or even because of our simple humanity. We deserve respect if we haven't foregone it by failing to be worthy of trust. I think if we're trying to do our jobs, we deserve respect. And when we don't get it, the hurt is quite singular. We don't know how to fix it, since doing our job isn't the answer. How does one demand respect if others are clearly and publicly on record as unwilling to give it?

Spending energy

It can be daunting, as an administrator, to inaugurate a lot of new inventions, events, or processes at once. Any change takes a lot of energy.  Tonight we announced and described in public for the first time two huge new processes for students ending their second year with us and beginning their third.  They'll undergo a new planning cycle for volunteerism and civic service, which involves workshopping and an individual presentation.  And they will engage in research training as a portal into their junior year, as a cohort, getting help identifying their thesis topic and finding a mentor.

For the faculty, these changes require a big shift in thinking and planning and teaching.  It's hard to imagine the amount of energy we'll need to summon to make it happen -- it even seems impossible to begin, for some of us.  But for the students, it's different.  They aren't carrying around a decade-long legacy of doing it differently.  This is the only time they're going to do it.  So all they want to know is what we expect of them.  Give them their marching orders, and save the handwringing about how new it is and how hard it is to change.  The change is on our side, not theirs.

Faced with a big shift that will take a lot of new work and rethinking, the inclination is to put the change off.  We can't do it this year.  Let's take it up again next year.  I see two problems with that line of thinking.  First, it's going to be just as much work and thought next year.  The extra time in between is not likely to be used to spread out the task of preparation and implementation.  And second, there's an unappreciated cost to doing nothing -- to maintaining the status quo.  If the change is really needed, then it can be taxing to continue doing what doesn't work, what makes no sense anymore, or what isn't well thought through or structured.  That takes energy, too, energy that has to be spent on top of the energy to make the change that you've put off.

Frankly, we've kept on doing some things long beyond the time when we knew we needed to make changes, and the toll has gotten to me.  I'm not willing to continue with legacy processes that I don't believe work anymore, that I don't know the reason for, just because imagining what comes next is hazy and difficult.  That's energy I am done spending.  Change is hard, but stasis is just as hard -- once you've become convinced that it's possible to keep your promises and make your mission real.

Continental divide

One reason that some people get drawn to administration -- the dark side, as many faculty call it -- is the chance to actually get some stuff done.  You can get stuff done in your classroom, but the reach is limited.    People who see a chance to make larger, more systemic impacts move up to the levels where those decisions are made.

It's the role of faculty to be skeptical about change, because those larger initiatives threaten the freedom of the sphere where they get their stuff done: the classroom.  The administrative team to which I belong has spent a lot of time and effort thinking about what changes need to be made to solve some persistent, nagging problems in our curriculum and to enact fully for the first time some of the longstanding promises and rhetoric of our program. The changes are big and complicated, with lots of simultaneously moving parts, and the time they need to get started is yesterday, unless we want to give up on them for yet another year and keep doing the same stuff.  The rationales and proposals are as daunting as they are sweeping. The challenge is how to meet faculty somewhere in the middle between "here's everything we need to do!" and "why do we need to do anything at all?"

As I move toward more rarefied positions, I'm watching carefully to see how change gets done.  It's a little like sausage-making, I must confess.  Do you work out a detailed proposal, and risk having your personnel feel like they didn't have enough input?  Do you leave much unresolved, and try to corral a larger group of people into the process of invention -- which is often like wordsmithing a document with a dozen people around the conference table, if you've ever experienced that?  Present the proposal close to the time it needs to be implemented, and you have a sense of urgency and a deadline that can help you get stuff done, but you also may convey the sense that it's all already decided.  Give people lots of lead time and request their involvement, and they wonder why you're pushing them to do extra work on top of what they've already got on their plate.

I'm not sure there's a Solomonic way of doing administrative leadership that cuts these babies in half.  I see lots of ways to go wrong, and sometimes the only way that seems to go right is just steeling yourself and bulling through.  But that just confirms the divide.  Is there any way to get these factions pulling together?  And what's the role of meetings, memos, agendas, emails, minutes, reports, and other kinds of communication tools in pulling people together?

Pressing the flesh

I spent the morning working the Honors College table at Bear Fair, an event showcasing my institution's departments, colleges, and student programs for prospective students visiting the campus.  It's a role I've gotten used to over the past few years.  You answer questions, give information, make people feel welcome, convey excitement about your program.

Earlier this week, my boss had a talk with me about the near- and long-term future.  He's going to be very busy for the next year planning a national conference, and the year after that presiding over one.  So he's wanting to hand off some of the day-to-day operations to me, starting right away with leadership in the assessment and curricular efforts that we have going.  The good news in that message is that we both feel confident, based on recent history, that I have what it takes to do these jobs.  And the even better news is that he thinks I could do the kind of bigger jobs that are taking him away from the office recently -- fundraising and national leadership.

I think I can, too, and it's little things like the Bear Fair that show me how far I've come.  I'm not afraid to approach people; I believe in my message; and people respond to me.  I'm welcoming.  I can connect to people on many levels, not just the intellectual one.  I was knitting as I stood by our table, and in the first ten minutes three mothers of prospectives students stopped to ask me if I had knitted my sweater, providing an opening for further conversation about UCA and Honors.

'Twas not always thus.  Becoming a teacher brought me out of my shell.  It's not insincere, either; I enjoy the interactions and genuinely want to leave people with a smile on their face and a good feeling about the institution I represent.  I aim to always be straight with people, never to gloss over problems or tell them what they want to hear, and I can see that they appreciate that when they ask my opinion and get an honest answer.

If you had asked me ten years ago whether I wanted these kinds of events to be a regular part of my job -- be they with colleagues, recruits, committee members, alumni, or prospective donors -- I would have shuddered with dread.  Now I see their value in the connections generated, the positive feelings spread and multiplied, the reputation enhanced.  You work at home to have a program worth bragging about; then the bragging isn't so much work.  It takes time, and I personally find it exhausting, but all you have to do is be yourself and represent what you do.

Who, among those who knew me back when, would have thought that my skills could ever be described as administrative?  Yet I'm an excellent wordsmith; I have a structural/architectural "big picture" view of complex processes; I'm good at thinking through problems from needs to detailed solutions; I enjoy connecting with people and advocating for what I believe in; I have strong opinions that I'm learning how to leverage into leadership.  At this stage in my career, I'm starting to think that I truly have something to offer in a dean's or director's chair.

The administration gene

One of the reasons I like administration is that consistency and integrity matter to me.  There is nothing more infuriating than an arbitrary decision; nothing more rage-inducing than ad hoc leadership.  We should know why we are going this way rather than that, on something more than purely practical or least-resistance grounds.  There should be a principle that guides and unifies various decisions.

Identifying and following that principle isn't easy, to be sure, but neither is treating each choice as a wholly separate, unique, unrepeatable event for which no precedent or context comes into consideration.

I'll bet I'm not alone.  When I get together with other academics, or with the denizens of any reasonably-sized institution, the majority of complaints center on senselessness.  When decisions don't cohere with each other, when leaders whack moles, when squeaky wheels get grease and everyone else goes begging, morale plummets.  People deserve better, and they know it.  A little explanation and a lot of follow-through goes a long way.  When communication channels shut down, every action -- even the most defensible -- looks unprincipled, because it comes with no strings connecting it to other actions, making a pattern that illustrates a principle.

And there's one more key.  Missions, values, principles, strategies are wonderful, essential things to have.  They tell you what's the most important things for you to do and the essential components to doing them.  But without structures that can persist beyond the commitment of individuals, no matter how central or dedicated, they are empty.  We can't just farm this off as Person A's job; everybody in the organization needs to be able to follow the logic and understand -- if not make -- the decision.  Without a transpersonal structure, that's coincidental at best and a sham at worst.  Structures make some people nervous; they take resources to maintain, they add layers of oversight complexity and can form hierarchies, they can become ossified and recalcitrant and creaky.  But none of those potential flaws is a reason to dispense with them.  Indeed, without a structure that identifies such elements in the effort that are in conflict with principles -- without a structure of assessment and reflection -- any labeling of structures as problematic is just an aesthetic judgment or opinion, asserted without any common language of process and perception underlying it.

Trade-offs

Being an administrator means facing the reality that not all good things can be simultaneously accomplished.  Almost every improvement somebody proposes involves a cost elsewhere.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the always-contentious realms of time and power.  In order to exercise control over a process, or have input into it, or manage it in a hands-on manner, you have to give up some of your time -- by going to meetings, reviewing documents, doing interviews, etc.

Sometimes a process will be criticized for not allowing enough people to have input, or for being controlled by the few.  The only solution to that criticism is to widen the scope of input and control.  But that means asking the critics to devote time and effort to the process, in amounts comparable to those that the few were previously investing.  And the things a faculty member tends to guard most closely are his time and autonomy.  Becoming a part of a larger process means having less of both.  It's the price one pays for gaining power over the process.

So people who are asking for more of a say need to be prepared to give up something else they value to get it.  It's a trade-off.  And there's no right answer.  What you choose depends on how much you value each side, and which you want to prioritize.  It's up to you to decide if the cure is worse than the disease -- if more work on behalf of the group and less on your own projects is worth it for the change you want to see happen.

And at that point, an administrator's job is to present you with the choice, not to make it for you.  An administrator's job is to make sure everyone knows what the administrator sees every day: Every yes contains a corresponding no.

Just about done

After arising at 5 am, taking two flights, riding MARTA for the entire length of the Gold Line, grabbing a 20 minute nap before the afternoon session, wading through the legalese of an LLC agreement for two and a half hours, dinner with the committee members, and post-dinner drinks, I'm just about out of energy.

But I'm suddenly aware, as well, that the half-dozen people with which I've been riding this organizational roller-coaster for the past four years are about to break up, forever. We've begun from scratch asserting our distinctiveness, we've found common ground under new leadership, we've voted ourselves out of power, and we're about to leave a legacy of secure and clear legal status to our successors. And all these folks, whether they sought this job or were shanghaied into it at the last minute, have been through the entire process.

I have two more years, as does my closest counterpart in the group, the regional coordinator of the Southeast Region, with whom my organization has the most in common. But most of our compatriots are about to abandon us, many with a hearty "good riddance" to the wild mix of anxiety, responsibility, loneliness, and lack of real power that their positions represent. Still, it's a moment to be noticed, and mourned, no matter how little some will miss the job.

In reference to a concern that cropped up so much it become a joke -- the idea of a regionally-elected director going out of control and misusing her position -- I've conceived the idea of a "RED Gone Rogue" T-shirt we should all get. We've felt like rogues at times -- like the academy's underachievers at others -- and always underestimated and underappreciated in many quarters. Things will be different now that we've worked through our stubborn determination to be special snowflakes and submitted to some discipline that holds us accountable to our members and to the national organization whose work we do. But we'll always have the war stories from these few years of tumult that we experienced together.

Perception and reality

I don't spend a lot of time wondering about what other people think of me.  So when I find out, the surprise is sometimes pleasant and sometimes not so much.

Nothing's more wonderful than receiving an unsolicited compliment or praise.  In the past few days, I've had some nice experiences like that.  It is an incredibly buoying moment, unlooked-for, unexpected.  As you have gone about your daily business, someone has noticed what you are doing and let you know that you are doing it well.

On the flip side, few things are more disturbing or derailing than finding out other people have a problem with you.  When you are not focused on other's opinions of you as a matter of course, the revelation comes as quite a shock.  I think that's because the other option isn't not caring what people think, but simply taking the evidence at hand at face value.  The absence of conflict or the presence of productive cooperation is taken to be prima facie evidence that there are no barriers to the relationship.  So when you're informed to the contrary, it seems to come out of nowhere.

Time was that I invested a lot of my identity in being liked and being praised.  As a result, I was torn between trying to find out what people thought of me (because if their opinions were good, I got a huge ego boost) and avoiding the subject altogether (because if it were bad, I'd rather not know about it).  Now I'm just too busy to obsess about it.  I spend a lot more energy trying to be open about my motives and processes, to make my self an open book, and let the chips fall where they may.  Just about the only thing that can make me question that strategy is when it's completely misinterpreted as an effort to impose control or as a failure to listen.  The unexpected praise from other quarters, though, can be reassuring that such misinterpretation is not entirely my fault.  I have to listen to both unsolicited compliments and criticism, but can't make the mistake of believing that either represents the most important truth about me.

Getting out the vote

This week is Challenge Week in my department.  It's a week of presentations and discussions around a common theme.  For the first time this year, the theme was brainstormed by seniors last spring; they chose corruption in government.  And for the first time this year, the focus was not on national speakers that cost five figures to bring in, but local talent: a professor from Hendrix, a current student, and an alumnus currently working for democratic development in Macedonia.

Because our previous experience has been mounting large-scale events that cover multiple out-of-town speakers, large budgets, and time periods that have extended over two weeks in recent iterations, we didn't really know what to expect in terms of an audience for this time around.  Here are the lessons I've learned so far.

• When you do huge events, you change the audience from an internal to an external one. The focus then becomes doing publicity in the media and lining up partners in the community or other institutions to turn out an audience.
• Because of this emphasis, the necessity to get your own students to come is reduced; they are no longer the primary audience, because by themselves they are not enough to justify the expense and scale of the event.
• This leads to a strategic mismatch, if your institutional goals are centered on your students rather than on the community.
• By scaling down, the audience of the event is correspondingly redefined.  Now there isn't a draw for the general public (no big names), nor the imperative to make multiple partnerships that can deliver segments of the eventual audience.
• Your audience becomes the student body, then -- a result aligned both to the expenditure of resources and likely strategic goals of the organization.
• Because you need the student body to turn out for the events, the pressure increases to offer curricular incentives for their attendance.  Incentives are not mandated, and therefore not as frequently offered, when the primary audience is external.
• Incentives, not surprisingly, tend to increase attendance in the student population.

The result is the audiences we've seen at the first two events of the week: overflow student participation. And that's exactly what we should want for this reconfigured Challenge Week.  With limited resources, it makes strategic sense to pursue initiatives aimed at the students, which creates a momentum to do what it takes to make sure the students are reached.  If we can resist the temptation to believe our job is to educate the whole campus, city, or region, and work on educating our students, whaddya know -- we actually end up with structures that direct the education their way and vice versa.

High tech

After some willful excess and embarrassing lack of control in recent years, the university is auditing all units that grant scholarship money. The auditor came by today to see what procedures we have for awarding scholarships and renewing them.

We set up a projector and demonstrated our extensive database application set for making admission decisions and tracking student progress. As we were going from screen to screen, report to report, I had the strange experience of suddenly seeing my everyday routine from the outside. I'm so used to having instant access to the data I need and to navigating complex workflows with proprietary, custom-built software that I forget not everyone has such a system. The auditors were duly impressed -- not just with the information technology we've developed, but with the procedures thereby supported.

The truth is that we couldn't make the kind of fine -- sometimes qualitative -- distinctions among applicants and students, based on the kind of difficult-to-evaluate data that we believe are the best indicators of success, without a sophisticated database and ways to use its content. All of our ambition to improve our recruiting, admissions, and retention is built on the availability of information. It's only when we're reminded that not everyone has built such mechanisms, either because they don't realize they should or because they don't have the resources to do so, that I realize how lucky we are to be able to do what we do -- and dream what we dream.

In between

There are two directions to look during an academic year -- backwards and forwards. This particular moment is poised on the cusp; it's time to look in both directions.

I spent the day reviewing the complete transcripts of everyone in our program. That's the essence of backwards-looking, and it can be quite enlightening. We all have an idea what happened among our student population in the last year, from our various perspectives and informants. But it's not until the data is available that we get a true global view. What's the truth behind the intimations of disaster or triumph that were whispered in the hallways? Who succeeded, who failed, and what was the overall trend line?

Grade review day, though, is also the beginning of serious forward-looking. We begin preparing to welcome the new incoming class. There are syllabi to be perfected. And everything we found out about our students' records triggers a set of actions and decisions that unfold for the next few months -- some need to enroll in summer school to bring up their grades, others rethink their majors.

There's no clear dividing line between what's behind and what's ahead in an academic year, although the definitive dates on the calendar give that illusion. Ideally, those syllabi you begin creating or revising around this time are built on a foundation ideas born of past experience -- maybe even the very recent past. Those incoming students got selected during the previous spring, based on values and processes invented in prior years. What becomes concrete in August is, in some ways, the manifestation of the past. We enjoy the renewal that comes with each academic year, but we shouldn't hope for a revolution. We'll always get the next year we deserve.

Long-range plans

I came back from Atlanta with my head clear of details and full of vision. Something about the minutiae of a board meeting, with people focusing on this and that, parsing commas and conjunctions, leaves me frustrated with details and action items. I always want to think back to first principles after weekends like this. The task that appeals at this point is connecting the road we're on to the values and purposes we elsewhere espouse.

So while I got a few details cleared away today -- gathering needed signatures and getting a form submitted, grading journals, answering e-mails -- what I kept gravitating towards was the big picture. I set up a Google Wave with a colleague to think through our field's use of technology. I sent a follow-up e-mail about a committee meeting yesterday that put a speculative discussion in some further context. And I met with students about two different long-term projects that are still in the conceptual stage.

What's happening is that I'm finding it dissatisfying to focus on details until I know something that differentiates between relevant and irrelevant details. I've become quite evangelical on the need to know why one course of action is preferable to another. It matters where it takes us, and it matters what that says about who we are.

At some point I'll have to get down to brass tacks. But I'm pretty sure when I get there, I'll know better what those tacks are supposed to be holding together.

Future on tap

Tomorrow's a day I've been looking forward to for weeks.

In the past month, my program has interviewed more than 120 students in intensive, day-long sessions. Each student has been scrutinized by at least three, and in most cases four, faculty members. We've scored three essays for content, two for writing mechanics; we've evaluated performance in small discussion groups; we've added consideration for standardized test scores, GPA, high school recommenders, and the impressions of the faculty involved in the process.

As of tomorrow at 8 am, all the scores should be in, all the students' portfolios complete. And we've blocked off half a day to do nothing but sift through the list, sorting them this way and that, to identify the 55 to whom we'll offer admission, and rank-order those who will have alternate status.

My boss and I were comparing the task to that of the NCAA men's basketball tournament selection committee. As for them, much of the decision-making about who's in and who's out is easy. Those who absolutely don't belong are clear; those who are the top contenders are clear. It's the last ten students to be offered admission, and the first ten to miss the cut, who will be difficult to deal with.

The hard decisions aren't what I'm looking forward to. The real appeal is the view at 12:01 pm -- the list of the students who will be joining us as the incoming freshman class in the fall. It's a far more intimate group than we've had in the past. So I feel like every single one counts. I'd really like to spread their polaroids out, American Idol Hollywood-week style, and just sort them into piles. I'd like to see their faces when they find out that they're part of this elite group. And I'd like to reassure those who fell just short that making it past the first rounds of scrutiny is a great accomplishment in itself.

In medias res

There are certain advantages to being able to plan and test a process thoroughly before implementing it. But that's not always possible. Right now I'm in the middle of one of those processes put in place before everyone was entirely clear about it. And while I know some of the people involved find the lack of clarity frustrating, I am enjoying figuring it out as I go along.

Before this year, the process of figuring out which subset of our applicants we're going to invite to on-campus interviews went like this. The two administrators -- the dean and I -- reviewed applications as they came in. One or the other of us looked at each application; if either felt the need for a second opinion, we ran it by the other. The rest of the faculty was brought in for the interview evaluations, and that was work enough for all of us.

But when we did strategic planning this past summer, one of our goals was to involve the faculty in all stages of the admissions process. So this year we've brought the rest of the faculty in on the screening of applicants before inviting them to be interviewed.

I'm playing both roles right now; I evaluate every fifth or sixth application that comes in, and I also look at every application at the administrative review level. We're all used to seeing the whole application picture after the interview and making recommendations based on however each of us individually preferred to weight the components. But now the faculty are seeing only the two essays and a few quantitative pieces -- ACT, GPA, class rank -- during their prescreening pass. I've come to understand my role at that stage as quantifying the parts of the application that don't come with numbers already attached: essay content, writing proficiency, evidence of fit. I also have a chance to add comments and give an up-or-down recommendation on whether to invite the applicant to an interview.

Then when the application comes to me as an administrator, I have a different job. I reread the essays and look at the quantification done by the faculty member. I read the comments and consider the up-or-down recommendation. Then I read the recommendation submitted by a high school teacher or counselor. And then I try to place the applicant and the faculty input into the larger context of the whole applicant pool. What factors speak most strongly in favor of or against a certain decision? How should mitigating factors be considered?

Then I say yes or no to interview. But even that's not the end. My fellow administrator makes his own independent review of everything, and says yes or no. If we agree, that's the end. But if we disagree, we have to discuss the application until we come to consensus.

That's a lot more involved than the process was before. More people, more information, more evaluation, more opinions. Now, we knew when we set this up that we wanted that greater faculty input, and we knew we wanted to exercise independent judgment at different levels. But it wasn't entirely clear what the job of faculty doing the initial screening was (to look at everything except the yet-to-come interview data? but that interview data was often crucial in making a recommendation!), and how the job of the administrators differed (on what grounds would we ever disagree with the faculty up-or-down vote?).

And yet over the past four weeks, working our way through eighty-some-odd applicants so far, I've come to some important realizations about how the process should work, and what the various elements in it should provide on the route toward a final decision. I've also been energized every day by reading applications in my faculty role and my administrator role, looking at different elements depending on what hat I have on, and trusting that I'm not the only or the final word. I've been forced to think every day about what characteristics in applicants make them desirable or constitute warning signs, about how various factors should be weighted in each case. And that's been a creative and illuminating process. It's fraught with danger, of course; already we've heard from a few applicants who disagreed with the result. But I'm happy to take those risks because it teaches me more about what kind of educational program I'm helping to shape.

I'm not sure I could have figured that all out ahead of time. So I'm grateful to have the chance to learn by doing.

A nation turns its lonely eyes

I've learned a lot about leadership during the last few years that I never learned during my previous life as an introverted loner. One area in which I'm still trying to improve is how to deal with people who don't come through.

I'm pretty good at delegating responsibility, I think. Where I find myself getting stressed out, frustrated, and sometimes paralyzed is when the person to whom I delegated slacks or bails.

The tasks we're talking about are ones that affect dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of people. What to do? Rescue the overall task by doing the work myself? Let things break so that the consequences of failure are clear?

As deadlines draw near, I find myself expending a lot of energy making contingency plans for what to do if one person or another doesn't come through. I fret, going back and forth about the wisdom of my plans. And sometimes I have to implement, scrambling to plug holes. What I don't like about it is that I'm not following any kind of principle in my action. It's ad hoc. I want to know what I'm trying to do with this leadership situation -- not just trying to get the task done for which some portion was delegated, but leading the team.

I'm looking for advice. Who has some wisdom for me?

Her ongoing mission

I chatted with a friend today who is suffering at his workplace. His unit is perceived by various constituencies -- one might even call them clients -- as primarily geared to serve their unique needs. Trouble is that the unique needs of each client differ. And so conflict arises as the unit tries to balance its tasks against the ever-increasing demands of each client for near-exclusive attention.

I sympathize with my friend's situation. And it could be that the problem is intractable. But my advice was that his unit develop a mission statement (or locate, revive and revise one that might already exist).

Mission statements are easy to mock. I can't help but think of Jerry Maguire's earnest attempt to change his business with one. But my experience is that when taken seriously and disseminated widely, they're very helpful in just the sort of situation my friend is experiencing.

His unit has some sense of who they are and what they do, but it's not explicit and it's not shared. That leaves all its clients and constituencies free to define the unit's identities and functions to suit themselves.

A mission statement is the first step toward differentiating between the good things that it would be nice if somebody did, and the good things that are your particular job. If carried through as a guide to planning, it tells you what you should spend scarce resources on -- money, employee time, energy and effort. It outlines a core set of responsibilities. And it helps other people understand where you're coming from when you make a case for how you do your job (not to mention a case for particular resources).

You may think you know all these things without having to write them down. But does everyone know them the same way? Does everyone agree on them in principle? How many conflicts arise because people disagree on the very notions a mission statement makes clear -- what goods are to be pursued and in what priority, who is to be served?