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[00:00:00] Andrew Hibel: Welcome to the Higher Ed Jobs podcast. I'm Andy Hibel, the chief operating officer and one of the co-founders of HigherEdJobs.

[00:00:08] Kelly Cherwin: And I'm Kelly Cherwin, the director of editorial strategy here at HigherEdJobs. Today we are very fortunate to be joined by Dr. Emily Allen Williams. She not only is one of our regular contributors for HigherEdJobs, but she has also been in the field of higher education for over 25 years and has a very impressive cv.

And Emily, I'll let you go into a little bit more about that, but currently she's a director of educational research and analysis. She is a former VP of academic affairs, a tenured full professor, has written several books, and like I said, is a wonderful contributor to higher ed Jobs. So thank you so much, Emily, for joining us today.

[00:00:45] Emily Williams: Thank you so much, Kelly and Andy. I am delighted to be here with the HigherEdJobs team. I have enjoyed several years now of contributing articles and just staying on top of the work [00:01:00] that you are doing. It's an amazing platform that you provide for us.

[00:01:04] Kelly Cherwin: Thanks, Emily, for, for joining us. So can you just tell us, I know I, I talked a little bit about your background. Tell us a little bit about what you've done and where you are at today.

[00:01:13] Emily Williams: Okay. Thank you so much, Kelly. Um, certainly we are here for academic matters, so I'll lead with that. I have been working in the academy for over 25 years, having started my academic career as a faculty member at Morehouse College.

Where I stayed for 13 years and it's amazing how you can stay somewhere so long and not realize it. I then went forward to begin my approach to administrative work with Ska Atlanta, Savannah College of Art Design, the Atlanta Campus, when it first opened. So down the road, number of academic experiences from program director to academic dean to vice provost [00:02:00] for assessment and accreditation.

Something I really love working and helping people with accreditation and assessment. And then just the broader work in academic affairs as provost and vice president of academic affairs. And I always like to throw in that I'm an artist. So that was my life before I came to academia. And some of my friends used to tell me, don't say you used to be an artist once an artist, always an artist. So that's the writer part of me. And the performance part of me is a little downsized now, but really loving helping students express themselves as well as faculty.

[00:02:40] Kelly Cherwin: Well, thank you. Today we're kind of riff off a topic that you wrote about a couple years ago. How new faculty members can succeed in their first semester.

So I'll start with, with our first question. You talked about the process of, of steps forward. Can you elaborate a little bit more on that and, and I guess once you, you know, talk about the steps forward, [00:03:00] how have things changed in the past couple years regarding teaching?

[00:03:04] Emily Williams: Sure. Certainly things have changed dramatically in the last few years, and while we have Covid-19 the pandemic at the forefront of our minds, it is not only the pandemic, but it is certainly a large part of it. The ways that we teach, the ways that we administer the work, the ways that we support students, faculty, and staff to do the work have changed tremendously. So, I'll just talk a little bit about that. In the last two and a half years, the technology that we have had for a very long time and not used fully has been employed by faculty, staff, and students.

So just like this platform, Zoom as well as others, and the use of the LMS, the learning management systems, they had to [00:04:00] necessarily come into full usage during the pandemic to ensure that we didn't lose a year or two or a semester so that there could be continuous instruction and support. So the ways by which we engaged in trainings, and I, I like to call them performances and working discussions because sometimes people don't want to feel like they're being trained.

So if in fact we can talk about how we gather together and use the technology that becomes so rich and so empowering. So in that richness and empowerment, that's not to say that there wasn't pushback. So how do we enable and empower faculty, students, and staff to show up in the environment and when do we provide safe spaces like we would do in a physical classroom or [00:05:00] physical arena?

For people to feel safe and included as well. So I want to talk about the sort of showing up on time and being present. Certainly physically, we expect faculty to show up in their spaces on time, on a regular basis for students to show up on time and on a regular basis. So we expect the same of people in Zoom.

Or if they're using some of the platforms to go to meeting or go to class, that may be embedded in LMS systems. The same thing. However, in a recent faculty member meeting, we had some discussions about students not having their Zoom cameras on, and we talked a little bit about how that can be impactful in terms of equity, inclusion, and the whole belonging.

As we know, many students, [00:06:00] even faculty, were in geographical spaces where broadband access was very limited. Or they may have had several college age, university age K-12 students in a household with the use of one computer at best. So, very often, their surroundings were not conducive to having their cameras on.

So we had to think about how do we best serve those students? And that goes to the communication that faculty and academic support staff need to have with their students. So how can faculty be really successful? Stay engaged with the community you're serving. And that starts with the students, but also in working as a new faculty member, specifically with your department chair.

And hopefully not every [00:07:00] institution has a program, a mentoring program, but I am really, really strong on mentorship of new faculty. And when I'm saying new faculty, you may have been teaching for many, many years, but if you're new to a space, that's still very important that you have that mentorship.

[00:07:19] Kelly Cherwin: I absolutely love the idea of mentorship. And I have a question regarding if a new faculty member or yeah, a faculty member that maybe has been around a while but is new to the space, if that department doesn't have an actual formal mentor/mentee type program, do you have advice on how that new faculty member can, can reach out or who they should reach out to and and how to kinda take the steps to be successful?

[00:07:40] Emily Williams: Yes, absolutely, Kelly. I remember very early on when I was new faculty at Morehouse, I started listening very carefully in department meetings of who was doing what, what their, um, scholarly and research [00:08:00] interests were about. And I would invite myself to their office during their office hours and say, Hi, I'm Emily, new faculty here.

Do you have a few minutes? Of course if a student comes, I'll dismiss myself. Sure, sure. Come on in. So, um, I did in fact attach myself to two senior faculty who remain my great mentors and friends to this day who really gave me the ins and outs. And, you know, when we're talking about the ins and outs, this new faculty, it can be something as simple as, where can I go to eat lunch, if not in the campus dining hall and get back to my class in 45 minutes. Okay. You go here, you go there. Avoid the traffic, you can walk, et cetera. What committees would you recommend that I say yes to in my infancy as a faculty member? So all of those kinds of things, if there's not [00:09:00] a mentoring program proper will assist.

And certainly going to your department chair and establishing a strong relationship is really important. I know, um, with the department chair at my first two institutions, I went in and I said, you know, you know I'm new. You hired me. Is it okay if we have a standing meeting? I get on your schedule once a month, at least for the first semester, and then if I find that I'm paddling myself down the stream pretty well next semester, I'll ask for other standing meetings. So there are a lot of creative ways and as you move along the corridors where your offices are, get to know people and at least be cordial and someone usually picks you up and supports you as a new faculty.

[00:09:53] Kelly Cherwin: That's been fantastic advice and I think it takes a little bit getting out of your comfort zone and kind of, you know, having the [00:10:00] courage to reach out to people.

So it sounds like you did, uh, a great job at doing that, and I'm happy to hear that you have friends that were former mentors.
[00:10:08] Andrew Hibel: Emily I, I was really impressed with one of your steps to success that I don't think many people often make an intentional effort on that you suggest here, to create a synergistic relationship with the administrative support staff. Can you elaborate a little bit further on there and, and explain why you found it so important to include it as one of the steps to success?

[00:10:29] Emily Williams: Thank you so much, Andy. Uh, I remember being very, very new to the academy and there was the departmental secretary and then the departmental executive assistant.

And I remember seeing everyone just crowding in the office, particularly at the beginning of the semester, at midterms when grades had to be submitted, and certainly at the end. And I thought, gosh, these poor people are just [00:11:00] inundated with us asking a million questions. Demanding a million things. So I, I started thinking, and I started doing some research about what is the role of the administrative staff for the department certainly, or for the division, or for the dean, et cetera.

Um, certainly quite a few faculty felt that those individuals were their personal assistants. And certainly if you have a faculty of even 10 people and certainly many more, these individuals could not be the person who took care of your every need. Um, and as faculty, we know that we are quite resilient in taking care of her own sort of administrative needs.

But I started looking at what is the real role of the administrative staff. They are amazing resource persons, for [00:12:00] example, in terms of how to submit whatever documents you need to submit. They can help keep you on track. They can tell you who to send things to, where to send it, or even if they serve as that conduit to sending that information.

Certainly the administrative staff helped me so much in every institution by helping me understand the climate, the cultural climate of the institution, you know, where I needed to circle away from the academic water cooler and stay safe, spaces that I needed to go into in terms of understanding the work across the university or across the college and just amazing resource persons and very often faculty and other administrators can forget the centrality of these workers. I remember when one of [00:13:00] our administrative assistants was out for a long spell and we started utilizing trading people for a few hours from other departments, and this was actually when I was first a department chair. I really, really realized how important the administrative staff support was.

[00:13:21] Andrew Hibel: Thank you that, that's wonderful. I'm actually gonna actually take a little bit from that answer and kind of introduce ourselves a little bit to the, uh, you labeled them the steps away from success. And actually starting with the last one, you talked a little bit about the departmental water cooler, figuratively, the water cooler discussions at any institution are some of the most heated, particularly on the, on the faculty side. And one of your suggestions was to avoid the coup d'état. In other words, keep yourself out of the instances of [00:14:00] office politics that really, or not really productive for you or, or for your career. Could you elaborate a little bit more of, uh, if you're sitting down with a new faculty mentee how you explicitly put that with them.

[00:14:13] Emily Williams: Sure. It's important to develop relationships, whether they are just cordial, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, kind of thing, so that you will be able to work with your colleagues on a variety of committees and in projects. On the other hand, when the conversations tend to sort of dip into personalities.

I always ask faculty how they are feeling, if they are ever feeling uncomfortable in conversations in their newness with other faculty members, and if so, what some of that uncomfortableness might be. And certainly [00:15:00] when I was department chair and dean, I heard a lot from new faculty saying that some would say, stay away from this person because they will do X, Y, Z, or you don't wanna be on a committee with that person.

And I would always say, make sure that you follow your own counsel. Get to know who's who, if you will be very observant. The departmental meetings, the full faculty meetings, those are like feast for the eyes and ears. When you get to see how people interact, one with the other, how they interact with the leadership, whether it be the department chair, the dean, or the president or the provost.

Um, and you can begin to make your own analyses, if not judgements, as you go. And certainly I ask faculty to enter into the arena with an open mind. You're [00:16:00] new and you want to grow and make your own decisions and smile a lot. You know, I tell people, smile a lot when people are telling you things and say, Thank you so much for sharing, be optimistic and early complicity with troublesome kind of matters such as that. Particularly for faculty who are on tenure track, become very bad political potholes to fall into.

[00:16:30] Andrew Hibel: Thank you. I think that's, that's a wonderful perspective of being able to, to keep your eyes and ears open to what's going on and observe.

I always am, uh, very cautious when I start hearing somebody offering up, not observations on the, the workings of a department, but observations on the inner workings of people within that department that if they're willing to share those observations about who people are and what they think of them. Uh, they're probably sharing that more [00:17:00] broadly with people, being able to engage with people to be appreciative of that information, but also being observant of the people who seem to deal a little bit more in the, the free trade of information about others is probably best to keep yourself out of that sort of rabbit hole that you can fall into.

[00:17:19] Emily Williams: Absolutely, absolutely agree. And I think it, uh, speaks a lot to, we talk a lot about diversity in the academy, but diversity is a very broad area. So when we start talking about the differences in people and the way they approach their work and their mannerisms, there's your diversity and we have to just have a healthy respect for difference.

[00:17:43] Kelly Cherwin: Well, that actually leads perfectly into my next question. I feel like a common theme in our conversation is building relationships and I wanna kind of flip it to the classroom now. So speaking of diversity for, for a new faculty member, do you have suggestions or ideas on how [00:18:00] they can embrace building relationships with their students and making sure everyone does feel included?

[00:18:05] Emily Williams: Absolutely. It is a heavy lift. It's challenging, but for those of us that are dedicated to the work as a faculty member, it is the best work of all to really get to know your students, and that goes beyond that opening day or opening week when you get everyone to go around and tell you their name, their major, that kind of thing.

And we can start there in terms of making students feel comfortable. Always say to them, you know, I'm gonna tell you who I am. You probably wanna know or don't wanna know, but you'll find out more along the way. But I want you to share you briefly with us if you are comfortable doing so, and that's where we can begin to let students know that this [00:19:00] is going to be a space of inclusion and belonging.

And your inclusion will be here because I'm going to make it so, and I'll talk about that in a minute. But your sense of belonging will be something that has to develop over time. So you know, if we just do a small analogy with new faculty, new students, here you are, unless you came with your buddies to college or university, you are all alone and you are new in this environment.

So there's a feeling of uncertainty in some cases because it's like, how will I get to know everyone and how do I feel here? That sort of awkward moment. So as new faculty, as any faculty, every semester I say you start school again as faculty, and I recommend that you have high touch points with the students after class to say, you know, [00:20:00] a part of our getting to know each other, we are going to post what you're comfortable posting. And there are guidelines here, nothing strange and out of the protocol of university guidelines or college guidelines. And then the first meeting, I usually have three required meetings with students.

The first meeting within the first two weeks of the semester and you say, Gosh, you're teaching four classes. How does that happen? Constant. Constant. But I always say, you're in your office, you have office hours. Office hours are not for me to just do my research and reading. They are for me to interface and join with my students.

So each student has a 15 minute get to know at the beginning of the semester. At mid-semester, just before the midpoint grades or evaluation, we have another meeting. And then at the end of the [00:21:00] semester, just about two to three weeks before the finals, we have another meeting. So we get to join together to know one another.

And of course students can schedule meetings throughout, but how do we take that extra step to say, I want to show you what it feels like to be supported as a student. It has to be conscious. It can't be just make an appointment and come to my office. So faculty can do amazing things. And one other point is to show up to student activities. The games. And invite yourself to their meetings. Students would love for you to come a few minutes to their club organizational meetings. They don't want you there for the whole meeting. They'll say, Okay, you can leave now Dr. Williams, but thanks for coming. But showing that interest in them is just 1000% of getting to know

[00:21:57] Kelly Cherwin: And I'm sure you've been at several [00:22:00] commencement ceremonies too that means so much to the students. I love all those, those tips, so thank you.

[00:22:04] Emily Williams: Yes. And I wanted to add to that, uh, Kelly too, is that showing up at those events like commencement, the honors day or student recognition, it is so important that we as faculty show up because after all, we are their audience and their biggest cheerleaders.

So when we are not there, you will not believe it, but believe it, they are looking for us. They are really looking for the faculty.

[00:22:33] Andrew Hibel: If there's one piece of advice that somebody's listening to the podcast, what would you recommend that they, they take away from this?

[00:22:40] Emily Williams: I really think that listening to each other is key in the academic arena right now.

There's so much change. We've talked a lot about returning to normalcy while we still talk about innovation and other [00:23:00] matters. So, I was just jotting some notes for a forthcoming article, Kelly, actually, where normalcy may be somewhat overrated when we talk about innovation in the same breath. If anything, this two and a half years, three years has shown us that tradition is extremely important, but also being able to embrace newness and innovation is also important.

When we get ready to resist change as it relates to faculty matters, student matters, administrative matters, we have to ask ourselves why and to embrace the best of tradition and hold onto it and do a beautiful synthesis of innovation and innovation you know, the rhetoric versus the reality it simply means how can we approach our [00:24:00] work in educating young people better, non-traditional students, better, how do we as faculty stay on the cutting edge of learning and research and scholarship? How do we stay aware of the world that we're in? And that's very important to me. As faculty, I always consider myself faculty and as administrator that I can't live in my institutional bubble.

I need to be aware of the world so that I can do my very, very best work and join with the faculty to do my very best work in supporting the students. Recently I met a young man who's a mathematics professor at an institution in Georgia, and he wrote a book, I'm not gonna call his name out because I didn't tell him I was gonna do this.

The title of this book though is Professor Pay [00:25:00] Attention, and he really highlighted how important it is that we listen to students. To let them know that we are not just pushing information on them, but that we are interested in them. And my mantra for this period going forward is to be intentional, to show students, to show faculty, to show staff what it feels like to be supported.

[00:25:31] Kelly Cherwin: I love that. I, I loved all the insights you had and, and your thoughts on being intentional and, and, you know, authentic and, and, and moving forward, Not getting stuck in what normal used to be, but being innovated for the future. So thank you so much for, for sharing all that.

[00:25:45] Andrew Hibel: Thank you so very much. And to the folks out there listening, we'd encourage, If you have questions about what it's like to be a new faculty member or if you have some thoughts on what's worked well for you, please reach out to us at podcast@higheredjobs.com or tweet us [00:26:00] at higher ed jobs. We'd love to hear from you.

[00:26:02] Kelly Cherwin: Emily, was delight having you on today. Thank you so much.

[00:26:06] Emily Williams: Thank you. This has been extra special. I appreciate you, Kelly, and I appreciate you, Andy. Thank you very much.

[00:26:13] Andrew Hibel: Thank you so very much, and thanks for listening.