Think Like an Administrator

By Monica F. Jacobe. When I moved into my first faculty position after earning my Ph.D., I had been an academic administrator for several years — and had been an administrator some years before, too. Moving into the “faculty mindset” wasn’t hard for me at first. I was expected to focus on my teaching and research, asked to commit to service when it was needed, and was otherwise free to go about my business as I saw fit. 
It didn’t take long, however, for me to start to chafe at the disconnection: I had very little sense of what was going on in the wider university that didn’t directly impact my work or wasn’t in the student newspaper. I was used to knowing more, being part of the larger project of education on campus. That’s a central part of why I sought administrative work after only a short time in a purely faculty role. It was also the moment when I realized that there really is an administrative mindset that comes with changing roles. Read more...