Insights: The Academic Leadership Program

Written by Michele Tracy Berger

Associate Professor, Department of Women’s Studies
Academic Leadership Fellow Spring 2009

Academe provides few institutional structures that offer faculty the opportunity to assess, learn about or develop leadership skills as part of one’s professional development. Even on a sabbatical, most faculty members spend time frantically working on the next research project or courses to teach.

The IAH Academic Leadership Program offers a unique opportunity to reflect on one’s current leadership style, become grounded in the singular nature of academic leadership and interact with an interdisciplinary cohort of peers across the university. This well-designed and life-expanding program came at the right time in my career.

When accepted into the program for the class of 2009-2010, I had met several important professional goals and personal milestones: Recently tenured, a third book nearing completion, running for public office and just turned 40, I was in a ripe life phase and ready to dive into a challenging, transformative program.

As part of the preparation, all ALP fellows attend a weeklong leadership intensive at the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) in Greensboro, NC. The immersion program is designed to help participants gain valuable information about themselves as managers and leaders and assess their skills and competencies across a variety of areas.

Before you attend CCL, you are asked to complete several assessment tools that range from how you deal with change to how others view your performance. Although somewhat daunted by the scope and intensity of CCL, I was excited about this in-depth learning opportunity. My CCL group was composed of professionals from higher education, private industry and the public sector.

CCL was an outstanding experience with superb facilitators, well-designed learning components and encouragement to use new skills while on site. My one-on-one work with a professional coach stands out for me as one of the strongest components. At the end of CCL, each person is assigned to speak with a coach for four hours. My coach used all of my data (from that week and earlier) to reveal patterns and trends in my decisions, behaviors and choices.

Two things crystallized for me: I had too many projects that were not sustaining my core goals and, if not rethought, would thwart future leadership roles. Also, she pointed out how low I had ranked myself on certain tasks compared to peers, staff and others who ranked me very high. With such glaring discrepancies, I could clearly see the long standing tendency of being critical of myself that had contributed to unnecessary stress. I left the session with clear goals and action steps to address my concerns, and I have worked on implementing them over the last year.

After CCL, I was very eager to meet the other participants and begin the second half of the program at UNC through weekly meetings at the IAH in the spring semester. After individual interviews and group input, facilitators Kim Strom-Gottfried, IAH associate director of the ALP, and David Kiel, IAH senior leadership consultant for faculty leadership programs, created a dynamic schedule of topics and readings.

My cohort consists of eight people from across the university (College of Arts and Sciences, School of Nursing, School of Journalism and School of Education). Presenting in the weekly workshops allowed us to share important observations, insights and expertise. We covered many important topics including exemplar academic leaders, mentoring, leaving a legacy, athletics at Carolina, fundraising, undergraduate education and self-renewal.

All the topics contributed to helping us think about leadership in context and how we would like to serve, be that in our departments, with professional organizations, at the university or in non-academic contexts. As a cohort, we developed rapport and trust over the last six months that will serve as a resource while we continue on in our careers. Additionally, some collaborative projects have started to emerge from our cohort.

ALP seeks to foster the development of professionals who will continue to excel in their departments and disciplines and also consider academic leadership roles at UNC. This invaluable experience has provided me with a vibrant intellectual community, critical tools and knowledge about academic leadership, and increased self-awareness about my core goals. My implementation of the skills I’ve learned, my digestion of healthier attitudes toward work and goal achievement, and use of the tools I received at CCL have given me the confidence and equipment to step into a fresh realization of my talents as an academic leader.