“A vision is not just a picture of what could be;
it is an appeal to our better selves, a call to become something more.”
- Rosabeth Moss Kanter
Many people know that I earned my Master of Arts degree from a seminary, and it was there that I learned that a critical characteristic of a good minister was the ability to see “what can be” at least as much – and perhaps more than - seeing “what is.” Well, over the years I’ve come to believe that this is true for a good community college president as well. In fact, while there are many things that a college president (or president of anything for that matter) is supposed to do, perhaps none is more important than being a believer in and champion of “our better selves.” Call it “vision,” exceptional predictive analytics, or maybe just good attention to a rapidly changing world, but a big part of my job is to “see” our role in that world and to ensure that we’re prepared to play that role.
This month, at the annual Oregon Community College Association conference, I was honored and humbled to receive the Howard Cherry Administrator of the Year Award. This award is both unexpected and deeply meaningful to me, and it is a great honor to receive this acknowledgement from my peers in Oregon, people who have contributed so much to the future of education in our state and from whom I have learned and continue to learn so much. However, let me clarify here what I made clear upon receiving this award: The leadership that was being recognized is, and must always be, a team effort. Or, to put it more directly, I recognize that I am an “incomplete and imperfect package” and, while I was singled out for an award, there is nothing singular about this work. Here’s how I explained this in my acceptance speech:
- I am here because…. I am privileged to work at a college that is somehow able to take who I am and what I do, and turn it into same really amazing things
- I am here because…. I have a Board that supports me even – and especially – when things get messy
- I am here because….. I have a leadership team that gathers with me and around me to refine my “visions” into meaningful objectives and strategies to achieve them
- I am here because…. I have friends who love me even in my incompleteness and imperfection
- I am here because….. I have a wife who hands me a glass of wine, and patiently waits for me to calm down and reenter into the relationship that has sustained me for 45 years.
In another part of my life, I have served as a whitewater rafting guide and, over the years of serving as both a guide and a president, I have come to believe that the work of a rafting guide is a great analogy for good leadership. On the river as well as in the college, I’ve learned to always to keep these three guidelines in mind:
- We’re all in the same boat and that, wherever we go, we will go there together.
- Everyone has a role, and it doesn’t work unless we work together.
- And, as the “guide,” I have a unique responsibility and role to play, and that role is to look ahead:
- To see around the bend, and around the proverbial corners and into the future.
- To see an ecosystem, where the events of the moment give signs of things to come.
- AND, when entering the rapids, it’s all about choosing the right point of entry.
In whitewater rafting, and in leading our colleges through turbulent times, choosing the point of entry -- the place to begin -- has an incredibly powerful impact on “how good the ride is.” Once in the turbulence, navigation can be quite a challenge but, by learning to “read the water,” you can turn the currents from impediment into impetus for the path forward. By choosing the optimal point of entry, the forces of the river – like the forces of change around us – can become our collaborators and not our foes…and this might be the most important thing I have to offer my college community. And, with that in mind, I'd like to suggest two “points of entry” for the white waters ahead, and maybe that we’re already in.
Navigating the Career-Technical Bandwagon
There has been a lot of energy and resources behind career-technical education in the recent past, and there appears to be even more to come in our future. This is good news… but it’s not the whole news. As John Dewey so often reminded us, education is about more than just making a living. It’s about the quality and character of life itself and, as COMPREHENSIVE community colleges, I do not think this means that CTE and the Liberal Arts merely cohabitate. Comprehensive education is something that we need to offer to ALL of our students, regardless of program. As community colleges, we too are institutions of higher learning. We ARE NOT “higher education light.” Instead, we are a more accessible version of the FULL MEAL DEAL. As such, we need to focus not just on skill development, but on character development as well. Our graduates need to be more than just good at something… they need to be genuinely good people. This holistic approach to teaching and learning must be our entry point to this work, because the future of our students, our communities, and our country depends on it.Navigating toward Equity and Inclusion
Equity is an OUTCOME. It’s not a value, a strategy, a program, or an initiative. It means that the same achievements of education and career and life are equally attainable – and actually attained – by all people regardless of race, religion, culture, gender, or economics. Equity is the Outcome to which free speech, diversity, and inclusion point, and it requires nothing less than a true transformation of our colleges, of OUR community college, and it will not happen naturally as an outgrowth of ubiquitous feelings of charity, but only when it is intentionally, strategically, and persistently pursued….and pursued from the right point of entry. Let me suggest that the entry point for this work toward Equity is to acknowledge the place from which we begin…..and the place from which I begin.
I am an old white guy, and the honest truth is that our colleges were built upon the cultural foundation in which old white guys were the standard. I, our colleges, and most all of us who work at them see ourselves and our work through this cultural lens, and we do not stand a chance of achieving equity unless we acknowledge this. I am a product and benefiter of White Privilege, and I believe that acknowledging this is the ONLY point of entry that gives us a shot at shifting our colleges off the culturally biased foundations on which they were built. Robin D’Angelo (who we had on the LBCC campus two years ago and now is a New York Times bestselling author) ends her most recent book, White Fragility, with this observation:
"The default of the current system is the reproduction of racial inequality; our institutions are designed to replicate racial inequality and they do so with efficiency. Our schools are particularly effective at the task. To continue reproducing racial inequality, the system only needs white people to be really nice and carry on, smile at people of color, be friendly across race, and go to lunch together on occasion."Leadership, like whitewater guiding, is a matter of navigation with the future in mind. The goal is to be there, and to be better, with every moment that the future becomes the present.
The goal is not to be better than the other man, but better than your previous self.
– The Dalai Lama
