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The Chronicle of Higher Education |
I have written often of my encore career as a full-time faculty member of North Park University. Being a college professor is the fulfillment of a dream. I have had this dream since grade school. I am thankful circumstances and some wonderful folks like Leona Mirza and Wes Lindahl were instrumental in making it happen.
I have had another title at the University the past three years. I have had the honor of being the President of the Faculty Senate, which is the governing body of the University in the areas of academic policies and procedures, transfer and degree requirements, and courses of instruction. I have served on the Faculty Senate nine of the eleven years I have been at North Park. I served a term as Vice-President and ran for President earlier but was not elected.
For a variety of reasons, serving on the Faculty Senate became increasingly unpleasant in the academic years of 2019-20 through 2021-22. At the end of the 21-22 academic year, one of the years I was not on the Senate, people did not want to serve and were complaining that the Senate and Full Meetings had become toxic.
At the end of the 21-22 Academic year, I was elected as one of the two Senators from the School of Business and Nonprofit Management (SBNM). It was also end of that very most tumultuous year of the three years I referred to above. The faculty Senate ended the school year without having elections for the Senate Executive Committee as required by the bylaws. It was rather concerning and the mood of the faculty, especially those serving on the Senate was to put it mildly: grim.
This bothered me and bothered me enough that over the Summer of 2022 I began to contemplate running for Senate President. There were a few reasons for this:
- First and foremost, I wanted to provide a service to the North Park
University... a place I truly love and value.
- I also wanted see if the principles I teach, rooted in Total
Quality Management, could work in a university setting to make the Senate a
more congenial and effective. I had a
summer research student during COVID where our topic was How to Apply TQM in
Higher Education and I believed I had a good handle on how to do it.
- I believe a majority of the faculty had the same wish for the Senate and the Faculty as a whole to be more congenial and effective part of the university.
The provost, the chief academic officer at a university, was already ahead of me on this though he did not use the term Total Quality Management (TQM). The tenets of TQM are:
- Customer Focus
For a university, the customers are students, their parents, potential employers, and even the alumni base. - Strong Quality
Leadership
This is a shared mission between the administration and the faculty with clear and consistent goals and excellent communication on the state of the university from both a business and an education standpoint. - Decisions based on
Facts, Data, and Analysis
This is about having the right metrics when they are cost effective and practical. It is also the realization that it is almost impossible to have numerical metrics that are reliable, cost effective, and consistent in every aspect on the academic side of a university. - Employee Involvement
Create a sense of shared mission and goals (shared governance in academic parlance) and a culture that is collegial (duh…) and congenial where everyone feels valued. - Continuous Process
Improvement
This is a mindset and practice that is essential to the transformation of any organization.
There is one thing that we can say about the North Park faculty. It has not changed, I believe, since the founding of the university. Each and every one of us, has a great passion for teaching, counseling, and guiding our students. It is why most of us are in this profession. Our goal was to build off of that foundation and focusing faculty and senior leadership operating with greater communication, greater trust, a shared mission to improve, well, every aspect of North Park to create a TQMish culture.
I believe a majority of the faculty had the same wish for the Senate to be a more congenial and effective part of the university. With the help and buy-in, to various degrees, by everyone. I believe we have made great progress in this regard. I cannot claim victory. TQM is, for certain, a never-ending quest. But I believe the groundwork is in place for this to continue, if we follow the playbook currently in place.
Serving as President of the Faculty Senate for the past three years has been one of the most satisfying experiences in my long work career. I am proud of the job we did and the current climate at the university. There is one benefit I did not anticipate and, perhaps, appreciate the most. The mantle of leadership made me respond to any and all requests from faculty and act on them the best I could… even if I did not fully agree with them. As a result, I learned to appreciate and to better understand every faculty member I have interacted with. It has been a great time of personal growth for me which is also a never-ending quest.
Whatever success we had was not mine and certainly not mine alone. This was a shared effort that included:
- The Senate Executive Committee: Evan Kuehn (who is now the Senate President), Kelly VanderBrug, Boaz Johnson, Karl Soderstrom, and Angelica Ahlman for their insights, ideas, and wisdom.
- My consigliere: Jon Peterson who was Senate President for three terms. I was his VP in one of those terms.
- Director of Provost Operations: Monica Guarisco worked closely with the Executive Committee to keep us organized and informed.
- Faculty representatives to the Board: Heather Duncan, Martha Mason, and Julia Davids
- All the faculty of North Park for putting their faith in me and the Executive Committee with added appreciation to those who served on the Faculty Senate the past three years.
- Board of Trustees: Thank you for you dedication and commitment to North Park. It was a pleasure being part of your meetings.
- Lastly, I have to thank the President, Provost, and Board Chair who were all open to consult, communicate, clarify issues and policy, and meet whenever needed.
- Provost Michael Carr for meeting with me once a month to nurture collaboration, communication, and getting things done.
- President Mary Surridge for her leadership and dedicated partnership.
- Board Chair David Otfinoski for his love of North Park and steady and thoughtful guidance of the Board.
In summation, serving as Faculty Senate President at North Parking University has truly been, and I say this all my heart, a blessing for me.