Is there a loophole in the contract? The contract states that published and unpublished scholarship is the baseline for evaluation. Can work still be of quality and contribute to the profession’s advancement if it is not published? Can published work (through a blog), or other non-peer-reviewed means contribute to the discipline? After serving on the university-wide promotion committee, these are the questions that I am left with.
If I have a following on a blog and write about my field, am I contributing to advancing the discipline? I blogged consistently during my sabbatical but then stopped abruptly when the summer semester started. I stopped because I was trying to learn a new role while also balancing the teaching and program coordination I was responsible for in the summer. I had the summer and fall semesters to adjust to my new role as Graduate Chair of Education for the Childhood Education and Care Department. Now, I want to get my thoughts on this new role and the development and learning that has occurred and is continuously occurring. I have decided to do this by blogging my thoughts again, and if this counts towards contributions to the discipline—well, all the better! The new role I found myself in starting in May of 2022 was graduate chair. This graduate chair role was constructed based on data from our state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) accreditation visit. It was, therefore, a new role at the university that had never existed until now. The evaluation and report from this visit indicated that our past model allowed program coordinators in each licensure area to set the standards and make decisions autonomously. This created “complex distributed leadership…with unclear decision-making challenges and responsibilities.” The recommendations from DESE were to create a governance structure that led to clarity in decision-making and united licensure program areas. One of the ways this governance structure was addressed was through the creation of this new role, Graduate Chair(s) of Education. Two graduate chair roles were created, one for the Childhood Education and Care Department and one for the Secondary Licensure Department. When reflecting on the first semester in this role, the two largest take-aways I had were: (1) how collaborative this role can be and (2) how to best frame changes in terms of DESE guidelines and regulations—as this produced the most buy-in and understanding the need for change. This new Graduate Chair role led to many collaborative partnerships with: the Graduate Chair for Secondary Licensure Areas, the Department Chair, Lead Faculty, the Deans, the Office of Field Engagement, and the Office of Student Engagement. Collaboration and partnering with multiple positions within the School of Education and the Graduate School, I think, was the only way a new position like this could carve a place for itself and begin to establish its importance. The other way the importance of this role needed to be highlighted was by framing how the School of Education was making changes based on the DESE evaluation findings. When changes were communicated without this framing, there was a lot of pushback and discussion that did not always lead to forward progress. When reflecting on why this was, it was because people were questioning the reason or purpose for change. In teaching, we always have students that question, “when will I need to know this?” or “why are we learning this?” so it shouldn’t be surprising that we always advocate for a purpose for learning to be shared with students. All leadership decisions I learned need this same purpose and framing so that changes can be understood, appropriately questioned and discussed, and forward progress and learning can be made. In my first full semester as a leader, my two biggest lessons and learning opportunities were the purpose for decision-making and collaborative working relationships and discussions. I can’t wait to see how this spring semester progresses and what new learning opportunities will present themselves—especially since the role is a little more concrete!
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February 2023
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