Hilary Ward Schnadt

I was recently forced to retire my wine glass after it cracked while I was washing it.  For thirty years, it was the glass I grabbed for informal dinners at home, a souvenir of a conference marking the twentieth anniversary of the American Association of University Administrators.  I was there because the AAUA had created a new award for team leadership and my colleagues and I were the inaugural recipients.

We were a team of women assembled by a male dean whose concurrent responsibilities as part of the university’s central administration meant that we were largely given free rein to run the college dedicated to serving adults who were earning their degrees at night.  None of us had formal training in management or academic administration; one held a J.D., two had doctorates in English, and another held a doctorate in women’s development.  But we knew how to put ourselves in the shoes of adult students and part-time faculty and how to make changes to build community.  E.M. Forster’s “only connect” became a watchword.

The dean had hired us to revitalize a flagging program and we had succeeded; winning a national award taught us some additional lessons.  First, seize opportunities to have accomplishments recognized.  Second, external validation can bolster campus credibility.  And, finally, we learned from the questions that followed our presentation describing our work, that there was business terminology for all the strategies that we had pursued through empathy and common sense and mutual support.  We heard them labeled “turnaround strategies,” “re-branding efforts,” and “cross-training.”

I’ll drink to that—if no longer from a commemorative glass.