Almost 3 years ago I joined RIT’s Strategic Planning Committee as the Faculty Senate representative. At that time, I was in my third term as Senate Chair, and I knew I could speak clearly about the concerns of our faculty in that moment and also help predict the kinds of issues that were coming our way in the future.
Committees like this are very intense experiences. They are formed roughly once every decade and the information must retain a macro-focus while absorbing every micro-aspect of how a university is run. This was the ultimate crash course on how to run a university. As a Faculty Senate Chair, this was an additional course in learning how the different levels of leadership think, and to have the opportunity to present a different point of view through discussion.
This year’s (decade’s) committee was additionally made more interesting because it included two RIT Presidents in the planning process. We went from “what is” to “what can be” in the span of a year and it was exciting to see the sense of the committee transition in real time.
Something I was grateful to see was the actual outreach to the RIT community, as there was an active effort to hear from different groups to understand what our “next big thing” should be. *Spoiler alert: we never answered that question.* Yet the 70+ submissions were eye-opening. For me, it was a clear indication of how starved our community is for clear investment into the work we are currently doing, rather than some external idea of what should be done.
If there’s a big takeaway from my time on this committee, it is that leadership in today’s world has to constantly adapt with the changing times, but avoid falling into the Follower trap. It’s easy to look at someone else reaping rewards for some “daring” initiative and try to replicate it, but that is the academic equivalent of FOMO.
Instead, I’d love to remind every single leader that the successes of the past were all created by someone taking a leap of faith, and risking failure. Perhaps, instead of being wooed by flashy ideas and big promises it would help to look at the substance behind the recommendation.
It’s going to be exciting to see this framework grow and evolve over time. In the meantime, I’m going to ruminate on where this new learned knowledge and skill is going to take me.
Leave a Reply