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Faculty Support & Collegiality

It takes a village.

The challenge is to make sure faculty feel like they matter. It's not just about their salary and benefits, but also the resources that they have access to. This isn't always easy when budgets are increasingly tight. We have to find a healthy balance of academic freedom, professional development, teaching excellence, and accountability. Collegiality is also incredibly important to me. It's hard to get anything done if no one wants to work with you. So I strive to find common ground with faculty and staff at every level. I probably spend just as much time with facilities or IT as I do my faculty and student life colleagues. This is authentic but also very strategic, especially while I seek to accomplish things on campus and in the community.

I am a big believer in one-on-ones and regular feedback mechanisms. While I talk more about this in the 'Human Resources' section, the whole idea of support relies on knowing the person as an individual. You can't take a cookie-cutter approach to support and supervision.

One of my philosophies is the idea of giving people the "straight stuff." Meaning, they should always know where they stand. I believe that you do people a disservice when they don't know how they could improve. You can't expect progress in someone's performance if they don't know; a) that they are deficient, and b) you don't talk to them about how they could improve.