Here I go Again

I spent last year participating in the Big Ten’s Academic Alliance Leadership Program. Find my smiling face on page 35.

Each month, I had lunch with leaders at the University of Iowa. I sat next to the director of HR. I tried to avoid saying things that heads of HR wouldn’t want me to say. I ate beside the CFO of the University of Iowa. It took him a moment to realizing I was joking when I asked for a gargantuan raise.

I traveled to the University of Illinois and Indiana University. I listened to presidents, provosts, and athletics directors share their leadership experiences. I talked with other potential leaders in higher education. I learned much about how universities run. I attended a Japanese tea ceremony at the University of Illinois. I rifled through Kurt Vonnegut’s original manuscript of Breakfast of Champions in Indiana. In short, my experience in the Big Ten’s AALP was a lot.

Ultimately, I realized academic leadership is an important, impossible job.

***

I was an interim co-department chair last fall. I’ll be stepping into a department chair position this summer. I never imagined myself being a temporary or full-time department chair, but here we are.

The department of Teaching and Learning at the University of Iowa is a large department, and the department chair position seems like a big job. I’ve had powerful mentorship during my four years at the University of Iowa. Thoughtful leaders have empowered me in my work as an educator—this hasn’t always been the case in my career. These leaders have inspired me to empower others.

I’ve told anybody that will listen that the University of Iowa is the best place I’ve ever worked. It is. I’ll continue to be mentored by people I trust as I step into the department chair role. Further, I’m surrounded by competent and caring support staff. Still, I’m nervous as June is about to become July. I don’t yet know what I’m getting into, and I’m about to get into it.

I didn’t know what I was getting into when I arrived at the University of Iowa four years ago. I spent four years learning to guide an unruly English Education program. Becoming a program coordinator was not easy, and I suspect that becoming a department chair will be challenging as well. So be it. I can do challenging things, and you can too.

Anything could happen, and so I’ll see how it goes.

***

This year, the final meeting of the Big Ten’s Academic Alliance Leadership Program was held at the University of Iowa.

The final session was held over The Bread Garden, on the pedestrian mall in downtown Iowa City. I was sitting around a table with a group of strangers. Potential leaders from around the country were discussing their futures as leaders in higher education. This was a week before I would interview to become a department chair. I asked the group for advice. An associate dean from the University of Ohio told me I needed to figure out if I actually wanted the job or not. I paused and realized, in that moment, that I did actually want the job.

Universities matter. Higher education should be a transformative space in which knowledge is created, people are empowered, and reality is transformed for the better. These pursuits can get lost in heated battles over funding, Human Resources issues, or keeping up with publications or grading. There is so much work in universities and, contrary to powerful narratives, this work has very little of it has to do with indoctrination. If fact, universities should and can be places where instead of being indoctrinated, people are liberated. I really do believe in the missions of universities.

This past year, I learned the average lifespan of a university president or provost is shockingly short. This knowledge didn’t discourage me. Quite the opposite. I realized that there is no way to do the impossible job of providing leadership in a university in the present moment well, and so that frees me up to put my queer shoulder to the wheel. I just referenced Allen Ginsberg. I am ready to put my queer shoulder to the wheel this fall. I don’t know if I’m strong enough to push, but I will try my hardest. We’ll see how it goes.

I was promoted to shift manager at McDonalds when I was sixteen. I was a night and weekend manager at Subway when I was eighteen. I was president of the Silly Octopus club in third grade. Leadership is not new to me, so here I go again.