I know, I know it's not like I'm the only one who's ever had to do this. Professional development is the bomb, no? Today I had an all day workshop on academic leadership. Now the idea that I'm an academic leader is specious (spurious?!) at best. I don't even have a tenure-track job for goodness sake. And there I am one seat over from the provost and at a table with two deans, both of whom have coordinated their outfits--one had a purse/shoe thing going on and the other had a glasses chain/necklace thing going on. When I sit down the chair of the Secondary Education department gets up to move tables. I shame her into staying and then feel as if I have to entertain her. I was actually thinking about whether I could make a swan out the mapkin in front of me (no) when, fortunately, the charming and handsome chair of Elementary Education sits next to me and I can sink back into a fog between them as they have a heated discussion about whether or not they really have to come up with acronyms for all the schools they work with for some data collection thing the College of Education is doing.
For a leadership workshop, it isn't bad. We do some role-playing games and listen to a guy from the University of San Francisco talk. He's engaging and has lots of overheads. He reads the overheads more than he should.
Everyone decides I'm brilliant during the afternoon session while we're role playing a conflict management scenario when I notice that our group needs the juice of some theoretical oranges and the other group needs the rinds of the same theoretical oranges. People actually pat me on the shoulder. Bring that spork girl around, she can solve all your theoretical orange problems. Now get me to figure out how to manage the English department and their bright white hatred of me for suggesting that future teachers don't need a course on the history of English grammar and you'll have something. Oranges, sure. 50 irate English professors, nope.
My Dean told me that she's posting my currently interim type job in May, with interviews in June. I tried not to hyperventilate. She wants me to get the job, so does the provost. But I get to spend the next few months in a fog of not knowing and not talking.
Someone actually referred to me as a risk-taker in one of the simulations today. We were supposed to pull stickers off a board. Green dots underneath were good. Brown were bad. We need a net total of 25 green dots to win. We managed to get 26 green and 1 brown. I was a risk taker because I was more willing than most to follow my instinct and memory.
Rosa Parks, she took risks. I solved the oranges and the blue stickers. Watch out folks, the next great academic leader has arrived!
7 comments:
Yeah, she has! But I would like you to work on that swan-napkin thing.
You are a good leader, and a risktaker. The latter leads to the former I think: You take the risk to do stuff you might not know how to do but act like you know how to do it. Remember how I used to ask you a question about something and you'd make something up but say it so confidently that I'd believe you? It's that. Me, on the other hand, I act like (and feel like) I don't know how to do something even when I do. Now that's unleaderish.
I have to say though, I love workshops. Love them.
And why is there no notify list for this thing??
It occurred to me that the above might sound like an insult, when really it was meant as a compliment -- it's not that you don't know how to do stuff...ergh...you know what I mean don't you?
scout--
forget it. no swan napkins. napkin balls i can do
sandra--lying isn't risky, it's just lying. you'd have liked this workshop, i actually did too. and i didn't take offense.
Well, you certainly chose the right blog template for a green dot/brown dot expert!
S.
Ick--I hate role-playing exercises. Give me the real thing and I do just fine, methinks. Role playing in a group setting makes me feel radically self-conscious and far more unleaderish (great neolog!) than I am in real life. Is that backwards? In any case, I wouldn't worry about upsetting academics--especially those who want to engage in the "We did it this way (or learned this) when we were students, so we must continue this tradition/oppression, regardless of present concerns and needs" aspect of teaching--they will always be upset about something, because something new will always come along to intrude into their comfort zone. The history of English Grammar? Are you kidding me? Sheesh.
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