Whereas. . . .

This spring we had four retirements in our College: three tenured faculty and one instructor. For the most part, I had time to get used to the idea that they would be leaving. I’d known about one professor for two years. He’d opted to go half-time for two years prior to retiring. Two others, the instructor and a professor, decided mid-year to retire. The fourth professor decided two weeks before the end of spring semester. While it was a surprise, it made sense, and it was best for her.

In the frenzy of the end of the semester, we worked to make plans for their exits. One faculty member was a dept. chair and had served as associate dean and interim dean prior to my arrival. She was vital in work that the College had to do over the past two years related to accreditation and licensing. We made plans. We hired someone who would assume some of her many responsibilities, and this individual worked closely with her for the last few months of the year. Another professor had served as my Director of Quality Assurance and Accreditation: writing reports, facilitating student academic appeals, etc. Again, we worked to plan a transition assigning tasks to others.

The day of the retirement party began like a typical Friday “meeting” day – continuous improvement teams worked with external stakeholders reviewing data and making recommendations for the College. The reception was scheduled for the afternoon, and it was lovely. Former colleagues came to wish them well. Faculty from across campus also joined us. Directly following the reception, many of the faculty – including the retirees – filed into the auditorium for the faculty senate meeting. One of the first orders of business for the last faculty senate meeting of the year was to offer resolutions for those retiring. The first education faculty member stood to read the first resolution honoring his close colleague, a series of “Whereas. . . “ chronicling all that this amazing faculty member had done during her 29 years at the university. He got choked up as he read the very long list – and for good reason. They had been close colleagues and friends for years. Directly following the unanimous approval of the first resolution, another education faculty member stood to read the next resolution for the next retiring faculty member. Again, the list of “whereas” statements was long, and each barely touched the surface of what the titles like “former faculty senate president,” really meant. The senate produced another unanimous vote, and then another education faculty member stood, and she read the third resolution – another accounting of 24 years of service to the institution.

Somewhere during the third resolution, the reality of our loss began to sink in in ways I’d not allowed it to sink in before that moment. Seeing all the names projected on the screen in front of me and hearing statement after statement pointing to the impact these individuals had within the institution was simultaneously affirming and heartbreaking. Ashland was losing over ninety years of experience that day – ninety years of gracious service to students, the institution, and the community. Like the first faculty member, I too began to get choked up. While I’d only known these faculty members for two years, I could see the legacy they created. I heard stories from others about their work. Knowing them, I knew that they had a profound impact on hundreds of students and colleagues, and each had made a profound impact on me personally.

Reflecting upon that day, I cannot help but think about loss in universities and how those losses need to be acknowledged and remembered. The year before, we lost four faculty. One professor – our endowed chair- retired. Another faculty member was wooed away from the university and back into a public school. A third position, an instructor, was lost because of financial needs, and the last, a professor of educational leadership, was taken from us by cancer. Again, the impact of losing them has been profound. While I’ve seen others step up and step into places to fill the needs, it is never the same.

Some might find my perspective on loss of faculty ironic since I have often been on the other side: the leaver. As a teacher and administrator, I left five different school districts in the span of twelve years. I left my first position in search of an administrative role. I left the second position a year later after a failed promise of administration (and the realization that the district has serious issues involving racism). I left the third district to move into my first official administrative position. After a year of chaos and controversy (which will surely wind up as separate blogs in the future), I left that position for another administrative position in another district. Finally, I left the second administrative position twelve years after I graduated from college in order to fulfill my long-term goal of entering the academy. My transience didn’t stop once I entered the academy. After three years, I left my first academic post at Illinois State University to go back to Atlanta. I then spent five years at Georgia State, but when I was faced with being the only tenured faculty member in educational leadership and expected to singlehandedly finish the 50+ doctoral students in the program, I left. I then spent a year at an institution that was beginning a new doctoral program in leadership. It didn’t take long to see that the program was engaging in questionable practices, and with the wooing of West Virginia, I made another change. By 2013, however, I felt the need to go back to my administrative roots, and so I left West Virginia University to take a position in Missouri as Department Chair. Much like my first administrative position in public schools, this administrative position included challenges for future blog entries. Three years later, I left Missouri for Ohio. So, in summary, I have been a leaver ten times over a nearly thirty-year career.

The changes in the academy were not intended in the beginning. When I was preparing for the switch from public schools to the academy, I went out and bought the most expensive suit I’d ever owned. It cost more than my dining room table. In my mind, this would be the last time I’d ever be interviewing because this was what I was called to do from that point on. It didn’t take long for me to realize that the value I placed in committing to an institution long-term was not reciprocated by the institution itself. Each year, faculty around me left with little notice. At one point, an associate provost hosted a town-hall conversation. Someone brought up the fact that the College of Education had experienced elevated levels of faculty attrition. Her response: “Let them leave. We can always hire more.” By this point, only three years into a position I thought I’d hold for the rest of my professional life, I came to the realization that I was probably valued more as a sixteen-year-old working at Wendy’s than I was at the university. This was a shock. The same year I left, a leader in her field in education also left. She had been elected as president of a prominent international organization – the highest recognition for her field. When she shared the news with the dean, the dean responded with an email indicating that she hoped the faculty member didn’t expect any release time for this role. No congratulations. Upon receiving that email from the dean, the faculty member went home and asked her husband where he wanted to live. She had a job in that location by the next year.

Academic positions take tremendous sacrifice: time, effort, and money to pursue a doctorate; putting personal goals on hold while finishing degrees and/or pursuing tenure; etc. How is it possible that a position that takes so much effort holds so little organizational commitment? Have we grown so accustomed to faculty moving on to what they perceive to be greener pastures that we think so little of their leaving? Are we so disconnected from the impact of our colleagues that we fail to see what we lose when they leave? When faculty lose bids for tenure and must leave, do we find ways to rationalize that it is their faults and they should have worked harder? What about times when a faculty’s leaving is not by choice or because of lack of effort? On the day when our faculty senate was recognizing our retirees, the faculty also shared a resolution for a tenured faculty member who was let go the year before – part of a series of reductions that were a result of restructuring in the university. She was one of a group of faculty who were let go, and while I never had the opportunity to work with her, I saw the impact of her absence in stories from faculty. As a matter of fact, this was the first time in my eighteen-year history in higher education that I saw emotional pain regarding someone’s leaving – anger over how she had to leave. I saw that elsewhere across the campus as well. This distinction – the emotional toll of this loss when compared to others – is important to note as we face volatile markets in higher education that may lead to increased rates of organizational restructuring and faculty layoffs at vulnerable institutions.

How do we cherish one another? This is a question I posed to a faculty member at one university before she became our department chair. By that point, I’d seen many people leave the department: failed bids for tenure that were casualties of the prestige-seeking behaviors of the institution, a frustrated colleague who did not get the years of experience from another institution applied as they were originally promised, and others who felt undervalued and/or invisible. I now pose this challenge to myself and those around me. When we may only see some faculty at monthly meetings, how do we truly “see” them and the impact they have on the university? When our faculty member the previous year was struggling with cancer, I was fortunate enough to visit with her periodically. We would talk about school, politics, and life. As she talked, I could imagine her interactions with the students, and it didn’t surprise me that she had such an impact on so many given the impact she had on me during those afternoons in Columbus. It made her passing even more difficult, but it taught me how important it is to invest time in talking with and getting to know those with whom I have the privilege of working. This is easy with those who are around – those who stop by the office regularly. It’s quite another task for those who work remotely or who choose to spend most of their time working from home. And yet, this work is so very important. And so, this remains the challenge I post to myself and my colleagues: Whereas we have been blessed with the opportunity to work with incredibly talented and dedicated individuals, and whereas we recognize the impact those talented and dedicated individuals have on students, the university community, and their fields, we should therefore, in all ways possible, cherish one another.