Supporting Our Faculty from Soup to Nuts…

So I have not written a blog in a while, not since getting back from Moscow well over a month ago. I have been struggling with which subject to settle on: convocation and the masterful and meaningful speech by my college and friend Bianca Premo; the visit that I took with the Office of Faculty and Global Affairs (and with Vice Provost Meredith Newman and her team) to the universities in our Metro Consortium: the University of Central Florida (UCF) and the University of South Florida (USF) in order for me to learn about how they do Humanities teaching and research; the inaugural luncheon for the Emeritus Circle, bringing together the best and the brightest and trying to engage them; or perhaps my three-day intensive Ombuds training workshop in Alexandria, VA last week where I met Ombudspeople from around the nation (including the UN and the Coca Cola Company and many, many universities).

Each of these above items has something very much in common; each reflects the fact that those in charge – the upper administration—is thinking about us all of the time, about how to engage us, how to make FIU a simpatico place for each of us to work, whether adjunct, instructor, newly-minted assistant, long-term full or recently retired emeritus. Someone, somewhere, I assure you, is thinking about you. I understand well that it often does not feel that way. That, on the contrary, it seems as though our colleagues who are other places or at differing ranks or in other fields have it better, easier, or simply are more appreciated. Right. I understand those feelings (and no doubt they are sometimes justified). I stayed on the job market for over a decade before deciding this is where I want to be for now (and no promises as to future, which I believe is healthy for any institution). So, believe me, I get it.

However, what I know well now that I am a year plus into this job, is that they are thinking all of the time about us, no matter which category of us you are. Allow me to elaborate.  I have sat in on meetings about how to better integrate adjuncts into the life of the university, including the decision to have adjunct instructors participate in New Faculty Orientation this year (and pay them a small stipend to do so); discussions about how to convert adjunct lines to instructor ones, where feasible; I have heard conversations about streamlining processes for promotion and tenure; about expanding the faculty mentor program; doing a better job of nominating our best faculty for awards and fellowships; including the fact that the Office of Faculty and Global Affairs went on the road to learn about faculty policies and supports at our counterparts across the state; including the fact that my three-day training (not cheap) was paid for so that faculty at FIU have an Ombuds particularly for us. The Provost’s enthusiasm for the formation of an Emeritus Circle, meant to extend our faculty community in a sustained and meaningful way to colleagues who retired at the height of their fields and who are still interested in pursuing the life of the mind even after they leave, reflects the effort, the desire, the hope to effect change in our faculty culture, to create a work environment that is conducive for thriving…

Now, the obvious question is why? Is it altruistic? Is it good hearted? Maybe. Maybe not. It is, no doubt, a reflection of the fact that they need us and how. The upper administration needs faculty members, at all levels, to do their best, to write books, get grants, teach students well, and on and on and on. After all, we are the university and we make the metrics at the end of the day. And they know that well.

So, in closing, I would like to reflect on how the divide between faculty and administration looks well into my second (and final) year as Faculty Fellow, Office of the Provost. I must say that it has been, to a certain degree, normalized, which is to say that I am already – I fear – much less sensitized to these divides. Perhaps I have seamlessly become an administrator: I dress up just a bit for work each day and (most days anyway) head into the office, walk straight to PC and take the elevator to the fifth floor, where I find colleagues already busily working. I sit down at my desk and read through whatever policy is being reviewed that day….

Yet, it is not so simple. I am still, as always, one of you…and I am still engaged not only in my own writing and research (thus the Russian archival trip), but I am also involved in a whole variety of collaborative projects, both with FIU colleagues and with colleagues across the nation and globe. Some of these are simply because of my position (I would like to hope that some others are because of my expertise). Either way, I have learned so much and witnessed so much. I am beginning (it has taken me a while) to fully inhabit the position, to (as the youngsters say) “own it” and believe that my insights are recognized and valued by those colleagues who surround me day in and day out on the fifth floor. I serve a purpose. I also recognize that I increasingly have some authority to comment to colleagues about university priorities and plans (of course only those priorities that are ready to be heard).  This is satisfying and I am already nostalgic for a time when it all ends…… So, I urge you all to reach out, to engage and to help me get our individual and collective voices heard.

What do you think?

Rebecca