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The HigherEdJobs Podcast is dedicated to helping higher education professionals find fulfillment in their careers and be the change agents that higher education needs in today's world. Join hosts Andrew Hibel and Kelly Cherwin, along with guest experts, as they examine job search strategies and break down the latest news and trends in higher education.
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[00:00:00] Kelly Cherwin: Welcome to the HigherEdJobs Podcast. I'm Kelly Cherwin, the Director of Editorial Strategy. My normal co-host, Andy, is not with us today. He's actually home sick. So we are delighted to have our Director of Editorial Strategy with us, Leah Jackson. Thanks, Leah, for jumping in.
[00:00:18] Leah Jackson: Sure thing. I am happy to sub in for Andy.
[00:00:21] Kelly Cherwin: So today we will be speaking with Lisa Jasinski, and we'll be talking about navigating the transition of returning to faculty after being an academic leader. Lisa is a Senior Director of Strategic Initiatives in the President's Office at the University of Texas at San Antonio, where she supports the development and implementation of the university's 10-year strategic plan.
Lisa is also a previous author in residence for us at Higher Ed Jobs, and you just wrote several blogs for us on your recent book, Stepping Away, Returning to the Faculty After Senior Academic Leadership. Lisa, thank you so much for joining us today.
[00:00:54] Lisa Jasinski: I'm delighted to be here. Thank you.
Kelly Cherwin: What inspired you to write this book?
Lisa Jasinski: This book is [00:01:00] really the culmination of a long-term research project that I've lived with for about seven years. It was my dissertation and then since then I've continued to work on it over the last several years. But the project had a really clear origin story. So I was earning my PhD while I was working full time as a special assistant to the vice president for academic affairs.
And one day, Mike, my VP, sat me down and he said, Lisa, I want you to know I'm about to announce publicly that I'm stepping down from my role. And I'm returning to the faculty. So, in that moment, my head was just spinning. What was this going to mean for my colleague, my mentor, my friend? What might it mean for me and my career?
What, what might it mean for our institution? Mike had been in that role for about 17 years. It was hard to imagine anyone else serving in that role but him. And since I was a graduate student at the time, I went back to my [00:02:00] office and the first thing I did was I started Googling, I started going to databases, I started to see what was written about this.
And honestly, once I got on that path, um, I never looked back. I thought there was really a story to tell here and it was one I was interested in telling. And I would say the second thing about the book was, all the while I was working on my, on my dissertation and in the years since, I have been so lucky that people have been so generous and open with me.
So I've interviewed more than 50 college presidents, provosts, deans, and associate vice presidents, and they were just so open and candid in sharing their stories. And some of these stories, frankly, are about hard chapters in their professional lives, especially if returning to the faculty wasn't something they had necessarily planned to do or planned to do at that moment.
And I really felt a sense of obligation to be able to bring that [00:03:00] work to a broader audience. And to share their stories so that, frankly, it would be easier for people in the future, and it might be a little smoother for institutions as well.
[00:03:10] Kelly Cherwin: That's great. Thanks, Lisa, for giving us that background. You set the table really well for why the book was so important.
And actually, I did have a follow up question that when you were, went back to your office and you were Googling, I'm assuming there wasn't a lot of information there, right? There wasn't a lot of research?
[00:03:23] Lisa Jasinski: There wasn't too much. There was one study, it was about 20 or 25 years old, and it really kind of broke the process into two parts.
Sort of what you think about before you make a transition, and what you think about after. There was another really great study that only looked at women leaders, but it was really small. It was about 15 women leaders overall. And I just thought this was maybe a bigger conversation and a bigger question.
So I felt really grateful that I could have these great foundations to build on. But as a researcher, you always want to find a niche, or you want to find a gap that something that hasn't been fully explored. [00:04:00] And I felt like after circling around lots of questions and lots of things that interested me, I kind of found something that felt really relevant to my personal life.
And also I felt like there was more research needed to be done.
[00:04:13] Leah Jackson: So from a faculty member perspective, can you talk a little bit about why it might often be uncomfortable for them when a former administrative leader joins or rejoins their department?
[00:04:26] Lisa Jasinski: Sure. So, Leah, I think there are a couple of reasons why it might be uncomfortable when somebody like a president or a dean or a provost finds themselves back on the faculty.
And I think the first reason is it just doesn't happen very often. So even though it's kind of happening continuously at campuses all around the country at a single institution, this might only happen two or three times in a faculty member's career. And most likely, those administrators go back to really different offices.
Maybe one person goes [00:05:00] back to being a professor of economics, and another becomes a professor of history. So, I think it's just fundamentally uncomfortable, because it just doesn't happen that often, and we don't have a lot of practice in navigating these tricky spaces about power and privilege and identity.
So that's one reason why it's uncomfortable. I think the other reason it's uncomfortable is returning to the faculty is really a higher ed idiosyncratic quirk. So we never hear stories about CEOs saying, I've led this organization for 10 or 15 years. We've really transformed the market space or we've transformed our company.
Now I'm going to go back to being an accountant. Or, you know, you never hear about somebody who served as a five-star general, which is saying, I've done my time. I'm really proud of the work we've done. Let me go back to the infantry. And so, I think in some ways, too, it's, we don't really have a lot of parallels.
So we don't, we don't [00:06:00] really know. What this could look like and it's it's just fundamentally not easy to flip a switch and see somebody as being a boss or a supervisor one day and then suddenly somebody turned on the light and now they're your faculty peer. So you could just imagine. Just the sense that it doesn't happen very often, we don't have a lot of experience or practice.
I think that that just sort of sets the stage for this to feel somewhat awkward or uncomfortable for all parties.
[00:06:29] Leah Jackson: Sure that makes sense. It's interesting that you say it doesn't happen that often and that it doesn't typically happen in other industries. Do you have any insight on why it's so common in higher ed as opposed to other industries?
[00:06:40] Lisa Jasinski: I think one of the things that I really love about higher ed is that we have a tradition of selecting our leaders from among the faculty. And I think that tells us a lot about what our institutions value and increasingly the fact that we see leaders coming from all different kinds of [00:07:00] experience, governmental service, the for profit world, different walks of life, I think that that's had a pretty profound impact on higher education.
But I also think it's one of those things that it's really great for anybody who leads an organization to lead with the understanding that one day they may play a different role in that organization. I think it. Keeps them grounded. It helps them make better human decisions about anything from personnel policies or labor practices or values.
So I think it's a real benefit and it's something that makes higher ed special. But just being able to think about having a kind of cyclical return is something that makes higher ed different from other institutions. And, um, it's something I'm frankly grateful for.
[00:07:48] Kelly Cherwin: Lisa, you kind of touched on how it's uncomfortable just because it doesn't happen that often.
It can be awkward for both sides from, from the faculty members who are used to having someone as a leader and now they're back as a peer. But then on the opposite [00:08:00] side, I think you said, was your mentor, was his name Mike? So when he came to you, I'm sure he was kind of navigating some emotions as well of returning.
So do you have some recommendations that, you know, someone consider as they explore transitioning back to a faculty position?
[00:08:14] Lisa Jasinski: Absolutely. I think one of the really fun things about writing this book was that I got to walk with people who were going through this process and they were able to identify decisions they had made that had made the process feel a little bit smoother. And so I think there's kind of three strategies that a leader might keep in mind. The first is that it's really never too soon to start laying the groundwork. We've had an especially volatile year in higher education. We've seen a number of leaders depart their posts quickly and unexpectedly.
So while a leader might be thinking that they'll enjoy the privilege of deciding when they go back to the faculty. I don't think that's something leaders should take for granted. So I think [00:09:00] there's there's a few different ways you can lay the groundwork. But the most important thing is just. Get some experience, block out some time on an already unforgivably busy schedule just to put yourself back into the world in a faculty mindset.
So that could be everything from co teaching a class, getting back into the classroom if you've had an extended absence. Sometimes it's not possible for an administrator to keep up a full time productive research agenda. But you could always go to your disciplinary conference for a day or two a year and just re immerse yourself, steep yourself into the things that your colleagues are really grappling with and thinking about.
I think there's other ways to reduce the learning curve as well, whether it's sitting in in the teaching and learning center and just hearing how people are navigating teaching after the pandemic. But the idea is, try to make less distance between your administrative life and the [00:10:00] faculty life you might have again.
I think a second thing that people really talk about is the benefit of having some kind of buffer in time between their administrative service and then their resuming and reprising the roles of a faculty member. So oftentimes this means taking a semester or a year long sabbatical. And really what the advocates of this approach really emphasize that you need time away.
You need to create some distance. You need to rest. You need to recharge. You need to think about other things. You need to reconnect with the people in your life, but also you need to give your campus some time to adjust. So if you're constantly around, it's only going to make things more challenging for your successor to really establish a place of authority for people not to constantly be coming to you and asking your opinion. So I think the idea of creating some space [00:11:00] is a good one and to really hold yourself accountable to making that distance happen. And then I think the third thing that leaders can do is they can approach this transition from a place of curiosity.
And it's largely about asking lots of questions. Ask your colleagues what's a change they've made in their teaching in the last couple of years. Ask them how they've adjusted their attendance policies in the day of COVID. Ask them how they're navigating this increasingly complex space around identity in the classroom.
And I think if you can do that, not only do leaders demonstrate to others that they're approaching this from a space of humility and they really are interested and curious to know, but they frankly just learn a lot of things that they might take a really long time or they'd have to learn through trial and error.
So I think the more questions you can ask rather than just presuming it's going to be the [00:12:00] same as the last time you taught five, 10 or 20 years ago. I think that's always a good approach.
[00:12:06] Kelly Cherwin: That's fantastic advice. And you're right. I mean, a lot can change in five, 10, 15. I mean, obviously we know a lot has changed since COVID. So, thank you so much, Lisa, for that. Great advice. Looking for more conversations in higher ed. We invite you to join the higher ed military community as we discuss issues, best practices, news and general trends affecting our institutions and the HigherEdMilitary affiliated community. Inspired by the deep commitment to service that veterans and military connected faculty, staff, and leaders have towards the academic community.
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As I mentioned in our intro, you are one of our current authors in residence, actually, and you have written some blog posts, and one of them provides some advice for department chairs.
But I'm curious, what advice do you have for [00:13:00] other department members who are navigating this awkwardness?
[00:13:03] Lisa Jasinski: Sure. And I want to say I'm only speaking hypothetically here because I've never, I've never been in a department, so I can't speak to exactly what it might look and feel like. But, but I think that that same approach of asking questions is a really helpful place to start.
So if you're really accustomed to only seeing somebody in the context of their former administrative role of being a college president, being the dean, it's important that you start to see them as something else. And I think the best way to do that is just from a place of curiosity. So ask them a little bit.
What kinds of research projects are you going to be working on? What classes are you excited to teach? Or even just a really simple, open-ended question like, how's it going? It just creates some invitational space for conversation. And that could lead in any number of directions. But don't [00:14:00] presume you know why somebody returned to the faculty or what they're going to be doing.
Let them share. Let them tell you. And then I, I think the second piece of advice is to try to have a little bit of empathy. Um, I think on an increasing number of colleges and universities, we sense that there's a kind of hostility or a tension between administrators and faculty. And that's probably a really great conversation to have on another day, why that, why that might be happening or what that means and what that says about the state of higher ed.
But I think if a person is leaving a position of leadership and going back to the faculty, sometimes that kind of hostility can linger in the air, and it could be about power, it could be about prestige, it could be about a salary differential, it could be about a faculty member even holding a very worthwhile grudge of a decision a leader made that they disagree [00:15:00] with.
But as much as that is going to be part of the dynamic, I've tried to see leaders as people who are in the middle of a major transition. And we know that transitions are difficult. I think anyone who's been no matter where you are in your career, you can definitely remember what it was like to do things for the first time.
You can remember that feeling of being both kind of excited and overwhelmed and making mistakes and learning things the hard way. And I think if, whether you're a faculty colleague, whether you're a staff member in a department, to try to put yourself back into the last time you were in a moment of transition and you just remembered how far a little bit of human kindness went.
I think that that's a, that's a great way to start building a new relationship with a faculty colleague that is distinct and different from the relationship you had with the person when they served in an administrative role.
[00:15:56] Kelly Cherwin: That's great advice. And I can't agree more like just the importance of being [00:16:00] kind and allowing each other a little grace.
So thank you for that.
[00:16:04] Leah Jackson: Lisa, we talked a little bit earlier about all of the research that you have done and all the various different leaders that you have talked to, can you talk a little bit about whether there's anything in your research that has surprised you?
[00:16:16] Lisa Jasinski: Yeah, so I think, you know, when I started this project, one of the things I liked about it was it was really exploratory, and I had no idea where it was going to take me.
But I think going into the project, I really thought I would see clear differences in how people experienced going back to the faculty based on factors like identity and context. So I thought I would really see a difference between leaders at public institutions or private institutions or men or women, or frankly, I thought I would see a difference between the experiences of people who left their roles voluntarily of their own choosing and those people who felt either [00:17:00] pressure to resign or really felt that they were forced out of their institutions.
And I think what surprised me was as I started doing research and I started having conversations was that I actually saw a lot more commonalities and universalities to the experience. And it's not to say that any of those factors don't have an impact, but that I was surprised to see that there are just these things that everyone seems to go through, like experiencing and using their time differently, or going through, um, moments of reinvention in all the domains of work and life, that those things really prove to be more unifying than dividing.
So I think That definitely shaped how I approached writing the book, how I framed my findings, but, you know, I'd always been listening to see if there was something categorically different for leaders at private institutions or presidents or deans, and [00:18:00] I just found that those differences didn't matter as much as I thought.
[00:18:04] Kelly Cherwin: So talking about writing the book, you know, we talked about kind of surprises or things that you didn't anticipate when you're researching. Was there anything that kind of surprised you for those people who are interested in writing a book? The book writing process? Do you have anything to add into that?
[00:18:15] Lisa Jasinski: Yeah. You know, I, I always kind of hoped and knew that this project had the potential to be a book. I've done other research projects in my life that were perfectly suited to an article or a presentation. But I thought. I felt like this was a bigger idea, and I was excited to maybe think about turning it into a book one day.
The first thing I, I would say is that my book is about a hundred pages shorter than my dissertation, and it includes new research, so I think, if anything, I've gotten better at being a little bit more concise and focused. I think that that's sort of the, the beauty of being able, in a way, to revise your dissertation.
And I think the second thing I really liked about this [00:19:00] was I was willing to take a few more risks, and one of the risks was making my research feel very practical to individuals who might be going through a transition or offering some really direct advice to institutions that were in moments of leadership transition.
Oftentimes as a scholar, you want to sort of play in a realm of more theoretical ideas or you want to really demonstrate that you have a command of the literature on the topic. But I think for me, writing a book that felt helpful and authentic and valuable meant that I had a little bit more freedom to go beyond kind of traditional social science writing.
So I, I would definitely encourage people to think about it. It's not that different than, say, transitioning between administration and faculty. Maybe you want to give yourself a buffer. I, I think I ended up with a buffer because I, I had planned to revise my dissertation into a book [00:20:00] during the pandemic and I put it on hold for two years.
And I think in some ways giving myself a little bit more time and space to percolate made it a better book. So, it was really fun and rewarding and challenging and, and all of those things. So, um, by all means, you know, dissertators just, just keep going. Uh, there is a light at the end of the tunnel and, and one day you too will be done with this topic for once and for all.
[00:20:24] Kelly Cherwin: Well, thanks for that. Those words of inspiration.
[00:20:27] Leah Jackson: I really liked what you said about writing a helpful book, and I was just curious if you've gotten any feedback yet from anybody about how this has helped them, or is helping them as they navigate this transition, or you mentioned earlier, you want it to be able to help institutions as well. So have you gotten anything that you can share?
[00:20:44] Lisa Jasinski: You know, this is my first book. So there's something just incredibly flattering and touching when a person reaches out to say, thank you for writing this book. Thank you for writing something that resonated with me. And I've gotten a couple [00:21:00] of those emails from individuals who said, you know, they, they sort of open and they tell me their story and, and I just feel both so grateful and also so curious. I'm, I'm interested in, in what's landing, what feels similar, what feels different. I think many of the conversations I've been having with people since the book came out really takes on, I think, a more acute focus. I think we're kind of fully out of the pandemic, but I think that the pandemic took a real toll on leaders.
And I think some people are sort of finding themselves really burned out and grateful to have an opportunity to continue to have rewarding work, but not in an administrative capacity. I think institutions are facing some really steep financial pressures now that they haven't been facing for a couple of years.
Things we've, we've known might be happening or kind of happening at an accelerated pace. So I like hearing people help me [00:22:00] understand how these more universal themes and concepts are playing out in a, in a contemporary form. But honestly, you know, it is just the most wonderful thing to get a note from somebody who says that your work resonated with them.
It's made me want to be better at every time I read an article that, that strikes something in me doing that myself. I think, um, as writers, it's, it's a little lonely sometimes. And knowing that your advice is helpful is just such a great wind in your sails moment. (Absolutely.) But I'll also answer your second question, Leah, about institutions.
And I'm excited to kind of push the envelope and to think where I could do a little bit more in that space. Leo Lambert, the president emeritus of Elon University, and I are going to be on a panel at the Association of Governing Boards, and that's an opportunity to talk to college presidents, members of boards of trustees, and regents about [00:23:00] how to really structure and ensure smooth presidential transitions.
And that's been sort of a great way for me to stretch my own thinking, because that's never a role that I've held, but to really think about how we can take these individual experiences and turn them into institutional practices is something that's really exciting. And I'm just so grateful to Leo for seeing that that was a space where we could make a contribution and I'm really looking forward to that this March.
[00:23:30] Kelly Cherwin: It sounds like the, the book writing process and the promotion and talking about it has been so rewarding. That's great. Well, thank you again, Lisa, for joining us today. It's been a great conversation. I know it's going to be helpful to a lot of people.
And Leah, thanks so much for being the, the guest co-host. I really enjoyed the conversation. We'd like to hear from you. If you have a question for us or comments, tweet us at higher ed careers or email us at podcasts@higheredjobs.com Thank you so much for listening. Take [00:24:00] care.