Frye Leadership Institute http://www.fryeinstitute.org/ June 5-17, 2005 Atlanta, Georgia Medaline Philbert Deans of the Institute: Nancy Davenport, President, Council on Library & Information Resources (CLIR); Brian Hawkins, President, EDUCAUSE; Susan Perry, Director of Programs, CLIR & Senior Advisor, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation The Frye Leadership Institute is a two-week intensive residential program held at Emory University; 2005 marked the 6th year of Frye. The purpose is to mold and shape managers (young leaders) from every department of an institution into the best leaders that they can be. I encourage you to submit an application to Frye. You'll discover that we all share the same issues regardless of institution, and that your department as well as your institution is on the right track, addressing issues that some institutions are still struggling with. During some of the discussions I was happy to share Mr. Murdock's support for professional development, his open door policy, and encouragement for his staff to be innovative and creative in moving the library forward, the open relationship that the library's IT personnel has with the institution's IT personnel. I also shared the transparent approach Pace has taken through chat with the President, open hours with the President and Provost, and the community forum to share various issues that affect the community and how they may be addressed. More important, you come away from Frye exuberant with hope and strength to affect change. The Cocoa-Cola Woodruff Foundation funds the Frye Institute and helps to keep tuition costs low at $3,000; the normal cost is $12000 per person. For this year’s program, 257 international applications were received. All were seen by at least 2 reviewers and only 45 were accepted. The requirement of a year-long practicum to explore within your own institution, focusing on issues and questions raised during the Institute, is a critical requirement of the selection process. It was strongly stated by Brian Hawkins that an applicant can submit a fantastic project but if it lacks collaboration across departments and the whole institution, or if the focus is primarily about the implementation of a project in the applicant’s own little world, the application gets tossed. COLLABORATION is the key! Throughout the course of the two-week residency, we had twenty-nine (29) presenters each sharing their experiences and providing a wealth of information. The following are highlights of a select few. Pat Battin, Consultant, (donor of Battin Scholarship of which I was a recipient) http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/html/cem/cem97/cem9717.html, discussed leadership choices. Develop you own style around a basic component – there’s no template, build on your own strengths, listen to your instinct, and understand your environment and audiences. It’s important to focus on self first and then focus on the people you need to influence. You can’t make the institution conform to your style, you need to adapt to it. To make a substantive change use the language of your audience. Leadership entails the ability to conceptualize a vision and make it happen – talk the talk and walk the walk. Faculty, librarians, and technologists are three major players who can have creative insight through the broadening horizon and analytical issues. Tony Blair said “Unpopularity is the cost of leadership.” Hence it’s important to be patient because it may take years for a vision to be realized. Importance of leadership at all levels involves collaboration and consensus (can collaborate but may not have consensus). Billy Frye (emeritus Emory University, University Chancellor, Provost) in his welcoming address stated the importance of reflecting before acting, the importance of communicating fully no matter how difficult the decision, and that the role of education is to serve faculty and students. Some challenges of leadership are providing the information needs of the institution, the large concern of community, diversity of competency, and scarcity of highly qualified leaders. Essentials of leadership: ability to craft a cohesive vision, ability to get people to embrace that vision, ability to empower people, capacity to deal with ambiguity and uncertainty, and the ability to avert the power paradox – it’s not about you. It’s important to hold onto your smile during challenges. The ABC to building diversity: Affirming identity, Building community through shared purpose and, Cultivating leadership by being able to interact effectively. Effective leadership in the workplace entails being a good listener, keep asking “why,” identifying the stakeholders. Since we’re built on narratives surround issues with stories, tear down the walls and be more of a generalist. When we were looking at the financial aspect and leadership issues of our hypothetical institutions (group assignment), Brian Hawkins stressed the importance of being knowledgeable in the various functions of an institution, not necessarily to perform a task but to become a key stakeholder at the big table. It’s also very important to have a “view from the balcony,” to be able to see the whole much like the administrators, rather than be blinded and sucked in with everyday tasks and issues in individual and specific units, or consumed by the routine. For example, the library has to have the ability to have that “balcony” view to see how it will impact the university and move forward through various functions, units, services, and resources. Balancing revenue and expense for the hypothetical institutions was an eye opener for me, because it revealed how enrollment, retention, and employment can adversely affect the sustainability of an institution. A slight percentage change in either direction for one of these areas has a huge impact on the financial health of the institution. I gained new respect for administrators who have to deal with these issues on a daily basis. Leadership from the top is essential as it sets the tone. Brian Hawkins’ view of playing at the “Big Table”... To be effective: Be multilingual. Have the ability to translate data and information; Avoid the unconscious conspiracy. Do not be consumed by the routine; Broaden your reading. You need to know what’s going on; Make Information an Asset; Understand the limits of advocacy. Know where you are in the organization chart; Be known as an Enabler. Enable others to achieve their goals; No Whining! You won’ be perceived as a team player; Be a generalist; Redefine yourself, Realize you must prioritize. Ask can I do this and still have a life? Yes! Leaders consumed by the routine don’t lead. Being a leader is getting to the right place, not about getting the job done. “Chin Up!” To see over the horizon depends on how you structure your day. Susan Perry and Don Harris, Vice Provost and CIO, Emory University (now at Unv of Oregon as Vice Provost for Information Services and Chief Information Officer) shared their thoughts on leadership. A person has to be a good manager in order to be a good leader. Build a good organization where people are comfortable to be of good service. Know the people on campus, first Building and Grounds, second Business Managers (important for restructuring). It’s important to take representatives who would be working with these departments along so they can hear the conversation. Attend faculty meetings to hear their concerns and what they want – may need to be proactive about services to faculty if they’re passive or “don’t know”. Always share your best thinking with your staff, what you’re planning – host annual large meetings, introduce new leaders. Individual performance is critical because it impacts on the institution. At the end of a project many people feel they were a part of it. Be seen as the person who can do “things” by others – faculty, staff, students. Allow IT staff to disclose information and services to the community; it’s important to go to their workplaces. It’s good to write things down, know when to keep your mouth shut, and be a good planner and manager. According to Allen Freedman, CEO and Chairman of Fortis, Inc., a great leader has a strong will to define success, what is the best purpose/strategy for the organization. A good leader can’t do anything right in the first 12 months. Strategies don’t change often, decisions are made around a huge amount of tactics; be in tuned with the environment, market changes. Strategy is how one figures what your institution is offering; performing activities differently from competitors. Marketing is the entire business from the customers’ point of view; quantify, quantify, quantify and be careful of what you quantify. Understanding demographic trend is vital e.g. providing a school in Spanish address Hispanic growth. Customer segment include others beyond students who may not be the primary customer e.g. TV networks (exposure, more revenue), foundations, legislators, corporations, parents, alumni. An institution needs to be a differentiated provider and/or offer lower cost in order to secure funds from government, etc. There’s a difference between differentiation and low cost, low cost has no additional perks. Strategy affects change a lot; a leader removes obstacles otherwise the old culture will not be diminished or removed. Branding is loyalty between employer and employee. The purpose of the brand is for making strategic positions that are important, communicating values by institution leaders, e.g. ensure that faculty knows what they are doing. The brand is reflective of the culture that is absolutely essential. When all the stakeholders hum the same tune, you know that they all understand the brand. Leadership establishes direction, align people - get faulty to be owner of institution, motivate and inspire - understand people’s strengths and weaknesses in order to align and motivate and inspire people to produce change. Although management is different from leadership it’s important because it plans and budgets, controls and solves problems, organizes and staff to create predictability and order in the institution. Success is a journey and not a destination. When application and retention are down: look at success stories what are the characteristics, even if it’s great to look at why students are leaving, look at what has kept the others then correlate to economic reasons, may need to rechannel funds e.g. from gym to collaborative open space, institute summer programs, etc and then use these successes to present to funders and government. Hanna H. Gray, President Emeritus, University of Chicago, (recipient of 60 honorary degrees), provided the outlook on higher education: Perception – Gloomy landscape, costs, cost of research technology, conflict and debate on access, liberal education lost its bearing, vocational education institutions remain too aloof don’t contribute to economic health of the community. Observations – Cost of the growth of education is the underlying dynamic e.g. potential of medicine with expense of equipment and knowledge. Pluralistic and decentralized system of higher education – competition allows not only for higher education to build from strength from each other but to become like each other. There’s also the age population challenge: women outgrow men, minority growth, largest growth in attendance is in community colleges. Impact of Science – Dominance of life sciences, huge shift in last century from physics to environment, need for interdisciplinary science, physicists are less funded by the government. Students – Need base aid is the best form of aid, how financial aid should be thought about will be more heavily assessed. Students want the university to be the “perfect” parent. Investment in facilities has no real academic purpose – stop being a social community and be an academic community. College should be seen as a place to make you think. Issues of Governance – Issues of corporate world and private funding. Issues of institutional identity – build on competitive strength, dynamic growth. Issues of higher education are not new but new to each generation: state of the economy, balance of research and teaching, central vs. decentralization, innovation vs. change, gap between students’ intellectual age and technical proficiency. These presidents, as panelists, gave their perspectives on higher education: Norman Fainstein, President, Connecticut College; John Hitt, President, University of Central Florida; Beverly Daniel Tatum, President, Spelman College. Norman Fainstein – Presidents roles: a) managers – extremely complex because function in unique culture (managerial structure don’t work the same as in business); b) political officials – governing community includes all types of constituencies; c) leaders – an enabler as the main role, creates situations which enable others to utilize expertise and interest; d) an embodier: a symbol of institution; e) an envision: some idea of what’s over the hilltop. Challenges – cost service squeeze: we are 99% like our competitors; consumer takes all puts pressure on institutions to cater to students’ lifestyle; technology seen as expensive to be incorporated in pedagogy; distance education sell: subtly inform students that they’ll be among elites, or should they be in similar background where they will succeed; diversity: parents are passively acceptable as long as other amenities are provided, e.g. climbing wall, be the upper class playground. John Hitt – Issues: Access – who gets to attend; Quality – with some notion of accountability to society, how good is it; Cost – equivalent to CPI? Society will inform you that it’s too expensive. Presidents’ roles: living logo – people project values of institution on you (nothing prepares you for the attention); have responsibility to articulate vision of institution; what must be done to achieve success; look at institution as it truly exist, how it serves students and faculty, be honest of what you see, then develop plans and actions, information technology should be incorporated. View of articulating visions: offer best undergraduate degree, distinguish programs and research, international focus, more inclusive and diverse, focus on developing partnership; important to get people to think along the same lines. Beverly Daniel Tatum – Goals: ALIVE – Academic excellence, recruit and retrain faculty and students; Leadership development, center for civic engagement; Improving environment; Visibility of achievement; Exemplary customer service. Challenges: grow endowment to $253m to assist students with funding, school is critically under funded; affordability for students despite $5000 scholarship and about $2500 in financial aid; students are emotionally torn when offered the shinny ball and will miss the Spelman experience. Some of the current challenges noted in higher education are tuition increases, the merging of libraries and computing to focus on customer service, the retreat of State funding, the privatization of public universities (public good vs. private good), increased competition with other universities, unfair disbursement of financial aid (more money move to merit base than need base), customer care about access to information, national security challenge (constraints on: international students, export of technology, personnel who conduct sensitive research, publishing), scholarly communication (dramatically rising subscription rates), increased copyright protection, IT challenges (margining of delivery and content, challenges of openness of U.S. system protection) diversity challenge (rapidly changing demographics, the complexity of the Michigan decisions), leadership challenges (problems are not short-term, university president and provost tend to be short-term leaders dealing with long term problems), ROI (education value, experience, research), strategic direction (how technology support values are aligned with strategic goals). James Hilton’s, Associate Provost for Academic, Information and Instructional Technology Affairs, University of Michigan, view of challenges. Collaboration is very important, much more to gain, not viable for a small institution to be competitive and “go it alone”. In the next 20 years higher education and research universities are likely to be redefined, an opportunity for libraries to shape the future. CHALLENGES: IT is firmly embedded as mission critical infrastructure but “does IT matter?” There’s an implicit notion that if investment is made magical things happen; it’s what and how investment is made “money is gone now we have to think”. Need to manage abundance as closely and carefully as scarcity is managed. Information vs. knowledge (access vs. navigation), knowledge is meaning make case of information doing thing with information access vs. navigation. University and library have always been in the knowledge business but didn’t have to explain it. Graduate education is not about access, it’s about collaboration. The control over digital material creates rise in licensing. A chapter: “Leadership Challenges for the Campus and the Profession” http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/pub7006k.pdf. Foundations’ skeptical view of higher education needs was very interesting; they could not correlate the high endowments and tuitions from small institutions with the needs identified. Other social needs are deemed needier by foundations thus less support for higher education. Collaboration within and among institutions is highly valued. Diana Oblinger, VP, EDUCAUSE, presented on Today’s Students; “Educating the Net Generation” http://www.educause.edu/EducatingtheNetGeneration/5989. Net Generation, Millennials, Over Achievers tend to work in groups. Today’s learners are: digital – may not pick up a magazine; connected – are on cell phones; experimental – want to do things for themselves; immediate – want instant response; social – connect with people whom they have never seen as well as with peer group. Their preferences are teams (peer-to-peer), engagement and experience, visual and kinesthetic, things that matter – go back to social consciousness. Some concerns with Net Generation are: they perceive the Web as information universe not the library, text literacy, short attention span, and fast response time may institute lack of reflection. Principles to remember: a) it’s the activity not the technology – define learning outcomes; b) knowledge construction – determine which learners’ characteristics are important; c) interactivity – outline the options; d) formal and informal – find the right balance; e) adaptation – evaluate & modify. Will Thomas, a faculty view of technology and the professorate. Digital Scholarship is not valued highly for tenure. Collaboration is important with all players: special collection, undergraduates/graduates, IT, library, faculty, and staff. Dr. Thomas’ presentation of his digital project to his department wasn’t well received before time for tenure (he got tenure). He made his case in writing with emphasis on theory. Reviewers were not concerned with form or scholarship; their interests were to understand the arguments and significance. Co-authorship is an essential element in digital scholarship; it can be on a large scale across disciplines. Sustainability risks with digital scholarship seem higher for young scholars. Forms of digital scholarship: teaching base – course websites, digital collections for websites; weblogs – email traffic, contribution to lists; databases – GIS database system used to build article; large scale editing projects around single author/subject, great scholarship go into annotation; thematic research archive – “Valley of the Shadow”; collection building – building other sources to address issues. Virginia Center for Digital History Research http://www.vcdh.virginia.edu/research.html Will the Federal Government Take Over Higher Education? Terry Hartle, Senior Vice President, Government and Public Affairs, American Council on Education, stated the huge increase of Federal support to higher education over the past 25 years; some money through work study program, supplemental grant programs and Perkins Loans program. Demand for accountability is always loosely defined following the money. Colleges and universities watch their independence and accountability closely. Because higher education is a big, diverse industry, accountability is difficult; one size does not fit all. For example, graduation rates are inappropriate for Liberal Arts College, take into consideration transfer students, those who don’t graduate and therefore rates are relatively inaccurate. It’s important to keep the Feds from academic core, that’s the institution’s responsibility, but if the Feds is giving lots of money it may want to influence the institutions. In Accreditation results the Fed has access to the disclosure risks, strengths and weakness in the summary report. The rate of increase in tuition and fees, much higher than the CPI, raises a red flag to the Feds. The Fed is wondering why the rates increase so quickly, there needs to be accountability. Hence, Congress believes higher education is too important to be left to educators. Herbert Van De Sompel, Los Alamos National Library presented on Scholarly Communication and the Open Archives Initiative. The thrust is to go beyond a mere scanned copy of the paper-based system. Networked environment begs for another scholarly system to emerge, “open access” is just one bit. Five steps are presented in the system to scholarly communication (the first four are fulfilled, the fifth is derived): a) registration – claiming intellectual priority; b) certification – certifying quality/validity; c) awareness – actors function; d) archiving – preserve; e) rewarding – evaluating and rewarding performance e.g. Social Science Citation. Serial Crisis –perhaps there are metrics to break the monopoly of publishers in the digital world; Permission Crisis – publishers include clauses that limit author’s rights, limit library use with technical barriers; The Now – changing nature of research (dramatic changes in which research is done, publishes have little interest in interoperability across publishing venue e.g. PDF, DOI, Open Access). At a meeting in New Zealand a comment was made that faculty was indifferent to material in repository; perhaps need to look at a system that’s open to everyone to build knowledge. Technorati is an aggregator that searches across RSS feeds. Scholarly communication is good because of the emerging reality, deconstructing the vertical system (outsourcing in India), so why not in libraries and institutions? Need to be clear about rights attached to materials, each object has its own rights of expression. Creative Commons is now thinking of machine readable rights. Library doesn’t have standards – does it need a new body to establish rights? Tracy Mitrano, Director, Computer Policy and Law Program, Cornell University, and Steve Worona, Director of Policy & Networking Programs, EDUCAUSE spoke about the importance of policies http://www.policy.cornell.edu/, http://www.cit.cornell.edu/cit/ Institutions exercise leadership through policy. It’s important to communicate the behavior and the process of IT to be implemented. Develop two themes for the framework: a) protection and preservation of institution interest and assets, b) security and privacy. Everyone has to report security incidents, require every user to register their device on the network; do not monitor content of network unless for due cause. Private institutions don’t have formal statements because they don’t want to be held accountable. Conscious decisions about what not to monitor have to be made. Key escrow, encrypted information SPYRUS PKI system – encryption in public key that receiver can decode in his/her private key. Dual key system – one for signing and one for escrow but not encrypted key; both keys are assigned to one person. Even if a gag order is imposed, you can always talk to your attorney. Training and referral programs are important to clarify policies in concerned situations e.g. suicides, death threats. The Myers-Briggs Type indicator coordinated by Otto Kroeger, President, Otto Kroeger Associates (Alan Klein represented Kroeger), was analyzed with various activities to address personal leadership in the workplace. Participants were grouped according to their type indicators – determined prior to Frye - for each exercise. Best of intention don’t get us anywhere – how others perceive us, we respond differently thus affecting the impact we have on others and they on us. The biggest uncharted territory is ourselves despite all the IT and knowledge. We need to understand ourselves in order to manage ourselves in various situations. Don’t confuse who you are with what you do. As people get older they may change their personality. Sensors and iNtuitives talk different languages. People who are Sensors require detail, while iNtuitives tend to give broad instructions. Thinkers gather information, put problem first people second and are much more easily to be trained, while Feelers are more involved, heart connected. Thinkers should make an attempt to thank more people. Extraverts and Introverts use their energy differently; 60% of the population is Extraverts and 40% is Introverts – same for Frye participants. Judgers are list makers, moan and complain, deal with issues at the moment of time “hit and run”. Perceivers have more of a wait and see attitude, generate alternatives, they know much more of what they don’t like than what they do like. These are important issues to keep in mind in the workplace to minimize discontent and errors. Susan Metros former Frye participant shared her experience, “Can you lead with a heart without taking it to heart?” Identify and mentor promising candidates, look for leaders in nontraditional places. Nobody learns as much as the teacher; rewards for faculty are for vertical thinking, depth. Lateral thinkers are broad, generalist; dig a little deeper to see the big picture, expand knowledge base. Keep your head in the boat – collaboration, holistic process, teamwork. Make the familiar strange and the strange familiar. Creativity – look at things in various ways/viewpoints (in what ways can I make things happen?). The new student – be attuned to new advancement, cultural trends, keep an open mind. Working wise – have the patience to figure the best route, work within and around bureaucracy. Personal fulfillment – respect and trust others, perform meaningful work, have open communication, have compassion and understand staff needs. Reflection – “is today the day to be fired for something I stand for?” – leading with the heart. http://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlpubs/crlnews/backissues2005/June05/hrttohrt.htm. Unbundle model – James Duderstadt suggested perhaps higher education should focus on providing the Core and let students choose if they want to pay for the extraneous stuff e.g. student services, football field. In higher education the journey to get there (leader/success) should be a fuller journey, identify successful strengths develop a story and share it. A university provides an opportunity that if you work hard enough you can become successful. Educating people was for the public good; that’s being eroded, we need to market and tell the story. Public service announcements will be advertising the public good – universities are trying to create a unified message instead of beating each other down. Collaboration is important both internally and externally; understand model of funding. Presidents are ambassadors to both internal and external stakeholders; they have to translate the mission and vision into a story. Make library and IT seamless, no need to have two desks: Reference and Help Desks. In the development of policy, make general guidelines and allow people to develop their own and respect it.