ADMINISTRATIVE LEADERSHIP

I have served in various administrative positions at Penn GSE over many years: Division Chair (2000-2004), Acting Dean (2002), Interim Dean (2006-2007) and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs (2004-2006; 2007- ). In doing this administrative work, I have developed the following thoughts on educational leadership in a school of education at this historical moment.

Schools of Education are facing increased pressures, from several directions. We have been attacked for doing low quality, irrelevant research, and we face competition from non-university research enterprises that compete for research funding. We have been criticized for producing poor educational practitioners, and we face increasing numbers of alternative certification routes through which educational practitioners can enter the profession without our help. We have been described as complicit with an inefficient public educational system that is increasingly being circumvented by for-profit, charter and home schooling. We also have unusually diverse faculties, in our disciplinary approaches and involvements in practice, and we face the challenge of building a coherent identity and developing shared priorities. These and other challenges are not short-term concerns that might pass, but require more serious reflection on our mission and strategy.

Elite schools of education are in a good position to turn many of these challenges into opportunities. We have excellent faculty and good reputations, such that we can do research and teaching that overcomes the widely circulating concerns about quality. But we are unlikely to succeed if we pursue only a set of fragmented programs, following individual interests. We need to develop more focused research, degree and professional development programs, around themes that groups of colleagues can address. We are also well-positioned by two initiatives increasingly being adopted by our universities: the increasing concern to make academic work relevant to local and global communities, and the emphasis on integrating knowledge across disciplines. Faculty in schools of education have always been concerned to make our work useful, by improving education (broadly conceived) outside the academy. Now that universities are increasingly interested in using their work to improve public schools and other social institutions, we are well-placed to build cross-university partnerships that take advantage of academic and field expertise on both sides—building partnerships between various schools at the university and practitioners to address educational problems. Universities' new emphasis on interdisciplinary knowledge also offers opportunities. Schools of education have connections to many disciplines covered by our sister schools, we comfortably adopt a range of disciplinary tools to address educational problems, and we are able to partner with a range of colleagues toward this end.

In order to take advantage of these opportunities, however, we must develop a more coherent sense of our collective identity—both as a guide in deciding which opportunities to pursue and in order to present ourselves more effectively to external audiences. I do not expect that schools of education will develop one set of principles that guide everyone’s work. Instead, I envision three components: a few overarching commitments that almost everyone accepts; a set of cross-cutting foci that a school becomes known for, each of which overlapping clusters of faculty will address; and a set of more diverse programmatic foci in which programs train students and do research. An educational leader must guide the development of such a vision and build the organization required to implement it.

In developing this vision and implementing programs, we must maintain three basic criteria. First, our work must be scholarly. We are not merely a school that teaches the techniques of a profession, but instead an interdisciplinary collection of scholars who use academic concepts and methods to investigate educational processes. Anything we do must take advantage of this scholarly expertise, and we must ensure that our initiatives have scholarly substance. Second, our work must improve educational practice. As important as scholarship is, we are a professional school and our mission is to improve education. Thus our activities should meet social needs. Ideally, scholarship and a commitment to practice work together, as we develop solutions to problems in ways that contribute to both. Third, we must be fiscally sound, because we cannot do our scholarship and service without resources. A university is more than a business, but it must act in some respects like a business. This means that we must not let fiscal considerations corrupt our core mission, but we must also be entrepreneurial and develop resources to support that core mission. It follows from these criteria that an educational leader must have scholarly credibility as well as a commitment to improving educational practice, plus entrepreneurial spirit and managerial skills.

In my administrative work at Penn GSE I have demonstrated these characteristics. I would argue that my most important administrative strengths are the ability and inclination to listen to others, the disposition and skill to organize my activities efficiently, and the ability to formulate ideas quickly and clearly.

Listening is crucial, because an educational leader must develop a joint vision with faculty and remain open to unexpected opportunities. I do not do administrative work expecting simply to implement my priorities, although I certainly have commitments of my own. I instead spend time listening, hoping to guide others toward jointly authored plans for productive change. A leader must recognize opportunities and bring together resources to take advantage of those opportunities. Because opportunities and resources often appear in unexpected places, a leader must listen to others and be open to new possibilities. In my teaching as well as my administrative work, I have shown both the ability and the inclination to listen carefully to others and to pursue unexpected opportunities.

Academics vary widely in their inclination to be organized and efficient. One can be a wonderful scholar and teacher without organizing carefully, but in order to be a successful administrator one must organize time efficiently and attend to details. This is something I have consistently done well.

Although administrative work sometimes seems removed from scholarship, many administrative tasks demand the sort of creative and clear thinking that also enriches scholarship. One wants academic meetings run by an administrator who can formulate issues clearly, and one wants initiatives developed by an administrator who can approach problems in creative ways. In my teaching and scholarship, as well as my administrative work, I have shown an ability to communicate clearly and think creatively.

As a Division Chair, Associate Dean, Acting and Interim Dean I have done various tasks, from faculty recruitment to organizational redesign to development. My most consistent priority has been to build cross-university connections between the School of Education and other parts of the university. Because of my own interdisciplinary background (my graduate training is in anthropology, education, linguistics and psychology, and at Penn I have appointments in education, anthropology, communications and folklore), because I believe that Schools of Education are well-placed to foster interdisciplinary research, and because cross-university partnerships strengthen the school, I have worked hard to develop joint degree programs and other collaborations between Penn GSE and several of Penn's other schools. Many problems in the world do not respect disciplinary boundaries, and we must help faculty and students develop interdisciplinary expertise so that they can address such problems.