As an administrator, I seek to encourage people in an organization to bring their strengths forward for the benefit of all. I encourage people to continually grow and learn. Most of all, I work to foster environments built on inquiry, conversation, mentoring, and accessibility in effort to support a common mission.
Organizations, like all things, have histories that are significant and complex. They were not formed in a vacuum and they will be engrained with both stated and unstated values. As an administrator, I need to ask questions and ascertain how the organization has come to the place it has rather than assuming I already have the answers. As an administrator I need to respect the history and context and help those in the organization to understand that history as well while also encouraging them to follow up on their own lines of inquiry. Respecting the history does not necessarily mean being beholden to it, however. As a writing center director, I encouraged tutors to seek out ways other people communicate and to bring that to their interactions. As a writing across the curriculum director I encourage those around me to inquire about their own classroom practices and use of writing as well as others’. As an assessment coordinator I encourage people to understand the practices of others but not to be afraid to challenge those practices in the name of student learning. In all situations I seek to learn from the people with whom I interact and to challenge my own assumptions through inquiry.
Inquiry, though, is just a start. Asking questions and hiding the findings is no better than not asking the question to begin with. Therefore, as an administrator I value conversation. Not one-way conversations but interactive and engaging dialogs with and between myself and the other members of the organization. I want people working together to bring the things they are excited about into the fray. Also, I hope they don’t fear bringing what they are worried about forward. This type of conversation is dynamic as the ideas of individuals become the project of many. As an administrator I need to respect the different roles and spaces people need for that conversation to be fruitful and not assume that they way I communicate is the way that everyone communicates. As a writing center director that meant creating safe spaces for tutors and students and truly listening to what they had to contribute. As a writing across the curriculum director that meant creating various means of discussion and sharing amongst faculty and students to talk about the power of writing. As the coordinator of assessment that meant encouraging people to talk about assessment both within and beyond disciplinary contexts through meaningful multidisciplinary assessment processes. In all the situations it was important that first and foremost I was an open and willing participant in the conversation, willing to both listen and speak.
Part of understanding the different roles and comfort levels that come from shared inquiry and conversation, though, is also understanding that both are learned activities requiring mentoring. As an administrator it is crucial to mentor and to encourage others to mentor one another. It is not fair to assume that someone will “just pick it up” or they he or she already understands the current context. As an administrator it is important that I create an environment in which people feel safe to learn, experiment, and grow into their roles in the organization. I do my best to create an environment that emphasizes responsibility over rather than heavy-handed accountability. As a writing center director this meant helping to tutors to learn how to see their own literacy practices and be able to speak to those practices and it meant finding ways to help the tutors mentor each other. As a writing across the curriculum director this meant finding ways to help faculty find new pedagogical approaches and to then also teach one another. As an assessment coordinator this meant helping campus stakeholders to understand the purpose behind the process while helping faculty spark conversations about the many methods available to assess student learning. In all these situations, though, that also meant that I too must be ready to learn from other people’s experiences.
All of this is predicated on my accessibility. Inquiry doesn’t go far if there is no one to ask questions to or bounce questions off of. Similarly, inquiry is not encouraged if I show I am unwilling to see where it leads. Conversation can’t occur if people can’t communicate with me or with each other. Likewise, conversation definitely can’t take place if I show myself to be not present even within the same physical space. Mentoring can’t happen if the mentor isn’t there. More importantly, however, why would someone want to be mentored by a person that doesn’t care? Just as I ask others to be physically and ideologically accessible, so must I. As a writing center director that meant being present when I could, open to communication when I couldn’t, and most of all being willing to listen to tutors, students, and faculty. As the writing across the curriculum director this meant creating spaces for faculty to come together or digital spaces to talk about writing. As an assessment coordinator this meant actually talking to people and taking part in the assessment at all levels rather than just handing out edicts. This, though, requires that I also be reflective enough to be open and to protect my own space when necessary.
In all my administrative work I have sought to create environments that allow growth through inquiry, conversation, mentoring, and accessibility. It is something I do consistently, but, as my examples above show, always with an eye toward flexibility in the process. An administrator can’t always be concerned with the numbers but also can’t ignore ways of measuring success. An administrator can’t always be buried in the task at hand but also can’t eschew the organization's place in in the greater context. An administrator must balance the needs of all the people involved and an administrator needs to know when to stand up and when to sit down. I encourage seek flexibility and adaptability from myself and others, which is to the strength and benefit of all.