A Learning
Profile:
From ‘Why
are We Here?’ to a Collaboratively Designed Proposal in One Year
The Mid-Atlantic Consortium, a group of ten
institutions of higher education in five states, began its
collaborative exploration into leadership development and
institutional change by first re-establishing institutional and
collective commitment to work together.
One year later we had settled on a vision of engaged leadership
and a proposal to create a regional institute that would focus on
leadership development in higher education.
This is some of what we learned along the way:
Early on, the MAC-LINC initiative attempted to
create a separate identity from the FSPE project so that we could
include others from across our institutions who would not necessarily
resonate with a food systems focus.
We actively sought the involvement--and sponsorship--of those
individuals and/or programs known for their work in leadership
development at each institution.
In some cases, including both large and small institutions,
this involved a more direct connection with people involved in the
“quality” movement. In
other cases we found institutions newly poised to address leadership
development efforts which welcomed the banner and structure that the
Kellogg LINC program afforded. In
yet other instances we found institutions where faculty and staff were
already spread so thin that the LINC efforts were merely added to the
shoulders of those already coordinating FSPE.
Through this process, we added strong collaborators from across
our institutions along with free-standing programs such as the Academy
of Leadership of the University of Maryland at College Park.
Several challenges emerged along the way:
Identity:
Our biggest challenge was that our institutions do not have common
bonds outside the FSPE initiative.
Our institutions run the gamut from community colleges to large
research institutions in five states.
It was not always clear that the focus on institutional change
was best addressed collectively or regionally.
Although this remains an issue, having a regional institute
focus on engaged leadership seemed to capture everyone’s interest.
Name:
We learned that the term “leadership” does not always speak to
faculty, and that the word “change” can be problematic as well.
We have struggled to keep the focus on building engaged
leadership for engaged institutions. We have learned that a
focus on engagement often does not involve attention to leadership
development for institutional leaders.
Similarly, a focus on leadership development often ignores
engagement. We have renewed our commitment to focusing on both
at the same time since “engagement” can be the answer to:
“leadership for what?”, but we have learned that holding the two
ends together at the same time can seem incoherent if we are not clear
about how the broader vision works.
Language:
We learned that traditional shorthand ways of referring to
institutions could unintentionally slight other institutions.
At one meeting it was mentioned that “Maryland” wasn’t
there (referring to the University of Maryland at College Park) when
the University of Maryland-Eastern Shore was present.
Similarly, there are three institutions within the consortium
which have “Delaware” in the name, making it ambiguous to ask,
“What does Delaware think of that?”
Distance:
Our work has been conducted largely by email and to a lesser
extent by phone and internet. It
is hard to imagine what our collaboration would have looked like ten
years ago. We benefited
greatly from the national workshops as opportunities for us to gather
together as a team and strengthen our relationships and advance our
collaboration. To a lesser extent, we also benefited from
networking with others during these events and particularly
strengthened our relationship with the Pennsylvania LINC team.
To compensate for the distance, we structured our regional
events to involve time to listen to each other (particularly our first
regional workshop) and to be inspired together (particularly at our
Fall Summit).
During this planning phase, each institution has
completed an institutional inventory of leadership development
activities. This process has succeeded in focusing attention on
leadership and institutional change and enabled institutions to see
the ways in which they are (and aren’t) actively supporting
leadership development throughout their institution. Prior to
this, most institutions have engaged in leadership development for
different constituencies (faculty, students, staff, external
constituents) on a program-by-program basis so there has been little
overall awareness of the current level of expertise or gaps related to
leadership development. These inventories of leadership
activities have also enabled institutions within the consortium to
learn from each other by seeing what similar or disparate activities
are taking place throughout the region.
Beyond the inventories and meetings,
relationships have been built so that people are more aware of and
supportive of each other. Faculty and administrators have also
learned more about life at institutions different from theirs, for
example, learning from the ways that community colleges are connected
and responsive to their communities, or appreciating the ways in which
the human resources at the comprehensive institutions can be spread
thin.
We have drawn upon these “learnings” as we
have prepared our regional workshops. For example, in our last
workshop, we focused on the core problem of developing engaged
leaders. This involved responding to many questions about
whether or not “engagement” was a new focus or a deviation from
our earlier attention to leadership development or institutional
change. We invited a faculty member who showed incredible
leadership in his that changed how the University of Illinois worked
with impoverished East St. Louis. His model of engagement helped
us profile the type of engaged leader that we want our efforts to
foster. We also asked each institution to come up with a case of
engaged leadership from which we could learn. It was harder than
most people thought. Each of our institutions is engaged, but
often these efforts are not carried out by faculty, or don’t
particularly change the way that the institution relates to
communities or the way that students learn. This was an
interesting thing to learn about ourselves that made us more open to
hearing about others and more keen to do our collaborative work to try
to build engaged leadership within our institutions for the
communities we serve.
We are really pleased with the formulation of our
proposal for a regional leadership institute.
We decided that the focus needed to be on developing engaged
leaders and this is the profile that we created which will serve to
guide programming at the new institute.
Engaged leaders are individuals with
integrity who can draw upon a knowledge base and leverage power to
advance a shared vision that addresses pressing needs.
Engaged leaders can be developed.
Leadership development must include skill development but
cannot stop there. Engaged
leaders have a civic spirit. They
see their work—be it teaching, research, administration, or
service—as more than “helping” or “service,” but as
organizing and mobilizing people and ideas to improve communities,
however community is defined.
Engaged leaders are reflective. They have learned to be aware of their own strengths and
weaknesses, and of the resources around them.
They listen.
Motivated by a sincere commitment to their
work, engaged leaders are able to build relationships of trust and
motivate others. They
build new leaders.
Engaged leaders need enhanced skills in
facilitation, negotiation, and conflict resolution, as well as
public relations. Without
sacrificing their values, they must develop political savvy.
They may require skill development in research, evaluation,
and assessment.
Engaged leaders “start small where the
need is great” and build, with others, from there.
Able to take leaps of faith, they are models of social and
political courage, who remain grounded in their commitment to
community. They inspire others with their hope, their resilience, and
quite often, with their humor and humility.
Engaged leaders know that education takes
place inside the classroom and out.
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