You will have the greatest impact, influence and joy if your path emerges from deep self-understanding, writes Kerry Ann Rockquemore, who describes how to make such possibility mapping concrete.
Over the past four weeks, I’ve argued that you are most likely to make a positive transition from tenure-track to tenured faculty member by going back to basics. Remembering who you are and what you love must be the foundation for choosing your posttenure pathway, because you will have the greatest impact, influence and joy if your path emerges from deep self-understanding. While I designed this series for newly tenured faculty, I’m delighted to hear that readers who are long past promotion to associate professor are finding the process helpful in planning their next chapter.
Now that you have done the work to clarify who you are and what you love, it’s time to envision what possibilities exist for your posttenure future. It’s important to do this work with an open mind, a radical imagination and a spirit of creativity, because the energy you bring to this exercise will significantly impact the volume and range of possibilities you generate. This week, I want you to brainstorm all the different ways that you (knowing who you are) can imagine actualizing what you love in the world.
Please notice that I did not say, “Brainstorm what’s possible given a variety of constraints,” “Consider how you can meet everyone else’s needs before your own” or “Generate a list of what’s expected of you by others right now.” That means you’ll need to locate the off switch for your typical academic approach, because overanalysis, judgment and sarcasm have a way of castrating dreams. Instead, let’s play with unfettered brainstorming by letting loose and generating a wild range of possibilities -- without judging or evaluating them.
The question for this week is, “What does it look like to use your gifts and talents pointed in the direction of what you love?” In our Posttenure Pathfinders program, we approach mapping those possibilities as a brainstorming exercise. All you need to do is grab a piece of paper and write down in the center your answer to “Who am I?” Then draw at least 10 outward-facing arrows (those represent what you love). Then set a timer for 15 minutes and start imagining what it looks like to actualize who you are and what you love at multiple levels: 1) the micro level (direct service), 2) the organizational level (campuswide, community based and so on), and 3) the macro level (national and international).
Let me share an example to make possibility mapping concrete. Last week I wrote about Jane, a newly tenured faculty member at a research-intensive university who was surprised to discover that she experienced her greatest joy, highest energy and deepest sense of meaning in teaching-related activities. Her answer to “Who am I?” was “super teacher”! And what she loved was “transforming student’s lives.” But she felt conflicted about this discovery because her university doesn’t reward or value teaching, and she couldn’t imagine what possibilities existed for her posttenure pathway based on her new self-understanding.
Jane was willing to brainstorm the possibilities about what the future could look like for a super teacher who loves transforming students’ lives. When she did, she came up with the following list of what she could become in the next chapter of her career:
A workshop facilitator who travels to various campuses to train faculty members in extraordinary classroom teaching
A blogger or online community organizer for faculty who love teaching and want to share innovative ideas
In generating this list, Jane’s energy started to change from feeling disempowered (“what I love isn’t valued or rewarded on my campus, my university doesn’t value teaching, woe is me”) to excitement about the possible ways she could be her full self, do what she loves, make significant contributions and become a leader on (or beyond) her campus.
The possibilities you generate are likely to be different than Jane’s, because your baseline questions are distinct to you. What’s important is to start with who you are and what you love, and then imagine the various ways that can manifest on your campus, in your community and in the world. And if you get stuck -- or want to maximize the fun -- try this brainstorming exercise with a partner or in a group of supportive friends or colleagues.
While mapping possibilities can provide an energetic shift, I don’t want you to stop there. The next step is to identify at least three people who are currently doing each of the things you’ve imagined. These people are role models and, by definition, they must be alive (not historical figures), actively engaged in the activity you’ve described and capable of being contacted by phone in the next few weeks. (Sneak preview: we will be contacting them for a conversation, but more on that next week.)
You may notice that some resistance flares up when you start to identify role models. That’s OK. It’s perfectly normal to experience a bit of resistance within yourself during this activity. You’re already thinking outside your comfort zone by actively mapping potential pathways. Then when you start to identify people doing things that are exciting possibilities for your future, it may start to get real. Having done this exercise with many newly tenured faculty members, I’ve observed that resistance most commonly shows up as avoidance, procrastination, anger, fear and denial.
“(Whatever is the greatest challenge to you getting what you want) pisses me off, so I’m going to go complain about it on social media.” (Anger and avoidance)
“I’ll start working on (an exciting possibility) when I’m (full professor, more experienced, financially independent, an empty nester and/or perfect in every way).” (Procrastination)
“I don’t know how to (get from where I am to an exciting possibility) so I couldn’t possibly (do the most exciting thing).” (Denial)
All I ask you to do is notice when your limiting beliefs emerge and welcome them with open arms. It’s so much better to see these disempowering mind-sets for what they are: stories that we tell ourselves that limit us from even considering playing a bigger game. When I can see the ways that my own stories are controlling my behavior and keeping me small, I can choose to develop new stories that support exploration, experimentation, growth and change.
Spend 15 minutes wildly brainstorming possibilities about what you could become based on who you are and what you love.
Let it breathe for a few days and walk around in the knowledge that you have a bright future that is full of exciting possibilities and you get to choose which ones to pursue; and
Spend 30 minutes identifying accessible people who are doing the things you are considering as possible posttenure pathways and make sure you record their contact information.
I hope it’s clear by now that we’re working toward reversing the pattern that leads so many newly tenured faculty to flounder at midcareer: reactively responding to opportunities that are presented to them, overcommitting to things that are not aligned with who they are and what they love, and becoming part of other people’s agenda instead of choosing their own. I’m walking you through these steps so that you can consciously and intentionally chart your own posttenure path in a way that will best serve you and your campus.
LONG BEACH, Calif. -- It's not particularly hard to find a chief financial officer who can tell a story about being hired, running the numbers and then watching the chair of the board's jaw drop when he or she learns for the first time how far the institution is in debt.
What is harder is finding someone offering firm recommendations on the role CFOs should play in delivering the bad news, making sure administrators, faculty members and other leaders take it seriously, and then plotting a course to turn around a college.
But at least one session addressed the issue Monday at the National Association of College and University Business Officers’ annual meeting.
In short, if a college or university really wants to change its ways and find stronger financial footing, the CFO can't be sequestered in his or her office, filling out spreadsheets and running projections. He or she needs to be engaged with the institution's various constituencies -- and backed up by the college's president and its board.
“This isn't just a financial problem for the CFO to solve,” said Nick Wallace, director at BKD CPAs & Advisors and a trustee at Taylor University, in Indiana. “It's not just your problem. It's a problem that the whole institution has to solve together.”
That may sound like a truism in the world of higher education, where shared governance means multiple parties are supposed to have a say in any major university decisions. Yet in many situations where colleges have failed, it's been clear the lines of communication broke down somewhere between the senior financial officer, the rest of the administration and the campus at large.
Think of Saint Joseph’s College, in Indiana, which last year surprised many of its students, faculty members and alumni when it announced it had to suspend operations because of a financial crisis. Or Mount Ida College, in Massachusetts, which broke off merger talks with one college and then weeks later announced it was closing and selling its campus -- a plan B that few knew existed coming at a time when most were unaware the budget had reached a breaking point.
The CFO, president, provost and other cabinet members have to be in agreement about financial conditions and discuss those conditions with the board, Wallace said. Then the board has to agree as well.
“That is an issue at times,” Wallace said. “Does the president really believe you have a problem, and do they have faith in this plan to turn things around? Getting a president to that point is sometimes a very difficult thing to do.”
Identifying the characteristics of stress can help. Wallace listed 14 characteristics of financial and operational stress, like running deficits in three of the past five years, new student enrollment dropping by more than 10 percent, more than one cycle of midyear budget cuts, freshman tuition discount rates of more than 50 percent and declining cash reserves. He also listed signs of academic and leadership stress, like no new degree programs developed for at least two years, an institution on probation or warning with its accreditor, and a faculty with an average age of 58 or older.
“Being in a turnaround situation is a little bit like starting a 12-step program, because you have to recognize that there is a problem,” Wallace said. “That's not the easiest thing to do.”
The question of turning around a college isn't far-fetched in today's environment, of course. In a recent Inside Higher Ed survey, only 44 percent of chief business officers at four-year baccalaureate colleges said they were confident their colleges would be financially stable over the next 10 years, meaning confidence is down substantially from previous years. That same group of business officers was likely heavily represented in Monday's session, if a show of hands is to be believed. Most attendees in the room raised their hands when asked if they were at small to midsize institutions.
This year's NACUBO annual meeting slate was full of information about financial forecasting and modeling. A question that always follows is how the CFO can go from cooking up the forecasts to helping a college actually put changes in place.
For on-the-ground experience, Brandon Parker, the CFO of one college consulting with BKD, shared his experience. Parker is the CFO at Pacific Union College, a Seventh-day Adventist institution in the Napa Valley that enrolls about 1,200 students.
Enrollment has dropped by about one-third in three years, Parker said. The college was facing annual deficits of $5 million or more if it didn't make a changes. It's facing pressure from a declining number of graduates from the Adventist high schools it traditionally drew upon.
So it put in place a turnaround plan that included reductions in the number of full-time employees, operational improvements and some creative, if often incremental, new revenue sources.
Among the changes, it cut about 46 full-time-equivalent positions from its 2017-18 budget through retirements, attrition and involuntary separations to save close to $3 million. It made changes to its health-care benefits for employees, outsourced security and some property management, and decided to pursue a business running a commercial storage park. Storage is in heavy demand in the area, start-up costs are low, and the college thinks it can earn about $70,000 per year on the business before taxes.
Some of those moves might not fix the financial picture for the long term, but they can help bridge the gap.
“You've got to think outside the box,” Parker said. “Finance, let's be honest, sometimes moves faster than enrollment. What can we do in finance to make a difference as quickly as possible?”
The college also made decisions related to its long-term outlook, deciding not to sell parcels of valuable land. Leaders said the land was the college's endowment, and Parker indicated it can be utilized and monetized without selling it.
Pacific Union's leadership wants its CFO to give presentations to groups like the faculty about the financial situation. So he's sometimes been the face of bad news.
“You can't constantly be feeding people bad news or else you're going to kill morale,” Parker said. “So how do you juggle, ‘This is … the reason for the turnaround plan’ with, ‘OK, guys, here are the good things that are happening’?”
Giving the right information to the right groups is key, Parker added. So is providing enough context.
That was another point echoed by Inside Higher Ed's survey of business officers. Business officers who were not confident in their institution's future financial stability were less likely to say constituencies like students, faculty, staff and alumni were well informed about the situation. While 94 percent of business officers who were confident in their campus's 10-year outlook said constituents were given "accurate and sufficient" information, only 77 percent who were not confident said the same.
Parker recognizes that some believe he is moving too quickly at Pacific Union. Although some have been devastated by the changes, others are excited, he said.
“Some people have self-selected out and are not going to be coming back for this next school year because they just can't handle the change anymore,” Parker said. “Some are really energized by it.”