Number three on the list of competencies needed for leaders in the Inside Higher Ed* article is Communication Savvy. In other words the necessary skill is being knowledgeable about one’s communication, thoughtful about what and how one is communicating, and effective in that communication. This takes work, practice, and sadly learning from mistakes as we go.…

My first semester as Assistant Dean for Student Conduct at UT Austin was, to say the least, challenging. In addition to learning a new job and making the transition from a very small college to a very large university, we had two high-profile profile cases we had to manage. Somewhere in that semester, as I was leaving work, the…

Recently, Inside Higher Education published an article presenting a research study on the seven competencies needed by university presidents. What struck me about this article is that there were no real surprises in the list. I didn’t see anything new or different from any other discussion of presidential leadership in recent years. I also thought the…

In the summer of 1985, I traveled to England, Scotland, and Wales with my dad, mom, and grandmother. We were never quite sure if my dad was brave or simply nuts to try driving across the British Isles with his wife, mother, and daughter, but it was a wonderful trip. My grandmother had traveled a…

There’s no doubt that my plans when starting college were a bit unformed. My favorite classes in high school were French (four years) and German (one year), so it made sense to me that I would study languages in college. I had no real understanding of what I might do with these languages I was…

Working in complex organizations brings many challenges. So many different interactions with so many different people. It can sometimes be difficult to navigate through the combinations of various personalities, organizational needs, and daily tasks to be done. Conversely, working with others to accomplish a major project or lead a team can be so much fun if…

Years ago I found a poem about gardening that spoke to me about the work of education. Overtime, I’ve come to see it as speaking as much to the work of leadership as to education and gardening. The poem is “The Seven of Pentacles” by Marge Piercy. I wrote about it as the poetry of…

How many calendars do you have? Of course there’s the one on your computer, the one that keeps track of all the meetings and tasks you need to plan for in a day or a week or longer. If you’re like me, you also have a paper calendar where you keep notes and odds and ends…

In 2020 as the world shut down for the COVID pandemic, I started walking around the neighborhood for physical and mental health. By August, I was walking about three miles a day. That progress was interrupted when I rolled my foot off an uneven part of the sidewalk and broke my ankle. By the time…

University administrators don’t usually take sabbaticals. I’ve heard of a few who negotiate some kind of break. Usually they are very senior people with long histories at their campuses. For faculty, the idea is to provide time to focus on research and writing. Since administrators aren’t expected to be doing research and writing, then there’s…