Leading Ladies in University Administration

There are plenty of things that I love about working at a university (good karma, student hijinks, excellent benefits, an abundance of general and free-floating intelligence, etc.), and a few things that I hate about it (bureaucracy, dowdy clothes, bureaucracy, student hijinks, bureaucracy, etc.).

But one of my favorite things about being a university employee is the number of brilliant women leaders hanging around. Of the two deans and three department heads I work with, four are women, so 80% of the leadership I'm exposed to is female. They're all brilliant in their own unique ways: this one's a great communicator and an excellent team manager, that one's efficiency and ability to think long-term is unrivaled, this lady bursts with a never-ending stream of fruitful ideas, and that one's kindness creates the type of team-oriented culture that makes working for her a pleasure. My last department at the university was also lead by a brilliant female director--one with a lot of invaluable stubbornness and savvy who was able to create and shape her program from the ground up. Trust me: I've worked with a lot of impressive ladies.

In institutions of higher learning, I love that there doesn't seem to be a glass ceiling in sight. Women can be leaders and managers here and still be genuinely respected and valued by their colleagues--and have I mentioned the fact that they're usually nationally respected, brilliant scholars leading research in their respected fields? Oh, yeah, that too.  ;)

All this is great news for me because I'm surrounded by strong, intelligent, successful women who I can readily adopt as role models. It's also great news for the flood of young women entering college campuses (57% of all students graduating from universities are women, according to USA Today): they're frequently exposed to intelligent female leaders in their classrooms, heading their departments, and piloting their universities (including the recently appointed chancellor at my university!).

I like to think that seeing women in leadership roles at the university-level will encourage young female graduates to go out and believe that they can do great things in the world, because they can. Maybe in 30 years, that 57% of college graduates will translate to 57% female leadership in corporations and government--here's to hoping.  :)

Earth Day, Patagonia, and the World's Diverse Passions

Happy Earth Day, everyone! I completely forgot the holiday, but it's a happy coincidence that I bought a new Electra quick-release wire basket for my bike last weekend and a Patagonia messenger bag this week. Both I plan on using for environmentally friendly offices. I'm going to use the wire basket for conveying groceries from my local farmers' market and books from my library. It looks cute on my bike and is soooo fun to use!

The Patagonia bag is extra-special to me. I've wanted one since college. Patagonia makes high-quality camping, hiking, and bicycling products in an extremely earth-friendly way: they fund a lot of great causes, and pretty much everything they sell is either completely recycled or completely organic. They're a fantastic company, and I can't wait to tote my work computer around in their bag! I'm calling it a Happy New Job present to myself.  :) 

Finally getting a Patagonia bag is a big deal for me; their stuff is expensive (in part because it's meant to be used for decades without falling apart), so it's exciting to finally be able to afford one and to placate a consumerist fetish that I've been nursing for a long time!

Buying my bag got me thinking about people's unique proclivities and passions. Patagonia is an old one for me, and it's a passion that is unique to my geographic location, my class, my social situation, my values, and my temperament. It comes from being a former Enrivons member and a KU graduate and a Lawrence resident during the early 2000s. It's symptomatic of who I am and where I come from, just like my passion for bookstores and literature and education and vintage clothes and granola and pickles and who knows what else! Our loves and desires are created by more than just ourselves--they're organic outgrowths of our unique personal contexts, as well.

This has been on my mind as I learn about the students I'm involved with as an advisor. The personality types common to each of my academic programs are so distinctive from each other and often quite different from my own. Each day contrasts my values and understandings--those values and understandings unique to my background in the study of literature, writing, and the creative process--with those of my new co-workers and advisees.

I suspect that my job will be a great one for studying human nature and the variety of human passions. Whether it's service, professionalism, creativity, or knowledge that my students seek, I find it refreshing and fascinating to experience, at least for a few minutes at a time, how these lovely people perceive the world, themselves, and their career paths.

Curiosity

As you know, I'm working on putting together a chapbook out of some old poems from my thesis. Most recently, I've been grappling with a poem about Greek water clocks. It's a topic that I find complex and strange and absolutely fascinating, but I know that most people have no idea what a clepsydra is and, to be honest, they don't give a damn.

And that's perfectly fine. The problem is that this poem is dependent upon a knowledgeable audience or, even better, an audience willing to hit up Wikipedia when confusion strikes. It's also a poem that draws my attention to my own knowledge, to my own academic backgrounds. It makes me hyper-aware that I've spent more of my life learning about Greek history and literature than most people care to, and yet I still know so little about it. It's a topic that sounds very learned and obscure, but really I'm only scraping the surface of a whole fascinating field of study that some scholars of Greek archaeology have dedicated their lives to. I'm an amateur at best.

This makes me think about my other areas of "expertise": poetry, American literature, personal essays, baking, etc. But what I know about, say, poetry is just a smattering in a huge field that's bursting with poets and poems I've never heard of. I can name at least twenty people I know personally who know a heck of a lot more about poetry than I do. I know that, even in this, my primary field of expertise, it's absolutely impossible to know everything, and it's nearly impossible to gain mastery over even a fragment of such a wide field. For example, it would take a lifetime of study and reading and thinking to master a tiny category like Post-Modernist Midwestern American Poetry By Women written after 1960.

Sometimes, I find my persistent and unavoidable ignorance to be depressing, but more often I find it thrilling and even comforting. A friend once told me that libraries make her sad because she walks into the stacks and knows that she will never be able to read all the books that she sees. But this is the exact reason that libraries make me so happy: no matter how hard I work to learn, there will always be too much to know in my lifetime, and there will always be some work left for someone else to do.

There is a limit to what one man or woman can know. In a library full of hundreds of packed shelves and millions of volumes, each of us can only read a few shelves worth in a lifetime. No matter how boundless our curiosity is, the world is always much vaster and much greater than our aspirations, and this, I know, is a gift.

Life at KU: New & Old

I've been working at KU for two weeks now. It's constantly strange to me how much I still remember about my old surroundings, even though it's been four years since I was a student here. But I've spent so much time here that life at KU is still second-nature to me.

But there are plenty of differences, too. Here's what I've noticed over the last few weeks:

Old:Walking everywhere.
New: I still walk all over campus and downtown Lawrence, but I don't blend in anymore. I'm obviously different from the students swarming the sidewalks. My clothes are more professional, my "luggage" is different (now I have a red leather purse instead of a tattered khaki messenger bag), and my face is obviously that of a twenty-something. I'm not going to get mistaken for a freshman anytime soon!

Old: Camping out on campus.
New: I still spend my free lunch hours on campus. Fortunately, my memory for KU's public spaces (lunch tables, study areas, etc.) has proven surprisingly strong. I still know where I can go for a quiet hour on my own. But I'm no longer squatting in hallways to study or nap or scarf down a To Go lunch from the dining hall. Now, I'm eating home-made veggie sandwiches and writing during my lunch hours.

Old: Those damn hills!
New: They're still everywhere, but now my old lady hip hurts when I trudge up them.  :(

Old: KU email and Blackboard.
New: I'm still checking the same sites, but now I'm using Outlook to check my email and using the faculty section of Blackboard. I'm also trying to figure out Microsoft Access to manage my databases, considering Google Wave to collaborate with my boss, and learning how to update the department's website with Adobe software. I'm way, way more tech savvy than I used to be!

Old: Feeling baffled by the University's vast, complex, and highly specialized bureaucracy.
New: The bureaucracy's the same, but now I'm supposed to understand it all! In the past, I showed up at my advisor's office and asked for help when I was lost. Now, I'm expected to help lost graduate students figure out how to navigate the University. Ack!

Old: Constant school-related anxiety.
New: I'm pretty nervous about learning how to do my job well, but I'm not worried about classes or finals or studying any more. That is one major perk of being a staff member instead of a student: no finals week ever, ever again!

Berube's "From Where I Sit--Measuring the Unmeasurable"

I'm out in Lawrence this afternoon, having iced coffee at a local coffee shop, blogging, and basking in my status as a Gen Y cliche (all I need to complete the scene is a light-weather scarf and a bad texting habit!). I've spent my day hitting up temp agencies and stopping by a potential employer's office to insinuate myself with HR.

I've also been on Twitter, which lead me to this brilliant little article from the Times Higher Education. The author is Michael Berube, an English professor from Penn State (which is where I got my MFA). I've never taken a class with Dr. Berube, and I don't remember ever meeting him, but I loved this piece.

Berube believes that "the humanities help us come to terms with the possibility that some forms of difference might be unresolvable and that some kinds of conflict might be intractable." Though today's academic culture repeatedly demands easily digestible "assessments" and evaluations of "impact" (whatever that means) for its programs, Berube admits that "We do not know how to test people to see if we have enhanced their suppleness of mind or their love of lifelong learning."

This brief opinion piece seems especially meaningful to me today. Though I know that I am intelligent, reliable, professional, and capable of adapting to almost any work situation, I'm having a hard time getting a job. This isn't too surprising based on my degrees (a BA in English and Humanities and an MFA in creative writing), but it frustrates me that these degrees mean almost nothing to potential employers when, to me, they represent years of personal and intellectual development. Not only would my skills as a writer and editor be almost nonexistent without my education, but I can guarantee that I would be a poorer thinker and a less generous individual if I had not attended KU and Penn State.

When I compare the person I am now to the person I was at eighteen, I find that I'm less likely to judge others; I have more tools to help me understand new ideas and novel situations; I'm less likely to believe everything that I'm told, but I'm also less likely to instantly dismiss ideas that make me uncomfortable or challenge my previous conceptions; I'm able to see the larger implications and assumptions behind others' opinions, ideas, and beliefs; and of course, I'm a quicker and deeper reader and a more precise writer.

To me, all of these talents seem invaluable, and if I had the choice to go back to the beginning of my education, I would never change my majors or earn a different graduate degree. Sure, I'd work more internships and be less afraid of talking to my professors and network more aggressively, but I would never give up my liberal arts education and the skills it has given me.

Now, all I can hope for is an employer who agrees with my assessment of myself and my education. I need to find a company that is willing to make an investment in me, a company that knows that a well-trained mind, a strong work ethic, and natural talent may be more valuable in the long run than a person with a solid skill set and little else to offer.