[Editors Note: I first published this 19Apr2018 while Executive Vice President of Academic and Student Affairs at Tacoma Community College. I no longer supervise both areas but see more than ever the challenges of misalignment and possibilities of overcoming them. Updated to reflect changes in perspective and eight years out of a dual role.]
Student success through completion with quality and equity has been a major focus of every place I’ve worked since the early 90s but increasing focus has aimed toward creating conditions that serve all students and consistent use of disaggregated data to identify gaps in success for particular groups of students. Lately, such efforts include development of guided pathways that aim to create clearer stepwise paths to career options, holistic advising support that help students choose and enter those paths, intentional support systems to improve term to term persistence, and clear demonstration that learning outcomes are assessed and met. These four pillars of the guided pathways efforts fit very well with other systemic change efforts such as scheduling for completion and enhancing inclusion and student sense of belonging.
All of these efforts require deep collaboration and strategic partnerships between instruction and student services. Without common purpose, coordination of plans, synchronization of efforts, and honest assessment of what is or isn’t working inside and outside the classroom, change efforts are doomed to fail. Campus climate likely erodes as faculty blame staff and vice versa.
While there are many examples of ways to ensure that academic and student affairs are aligned, many institutions align the areas under one executive. Proponents argue that doing so ensures cohesion and accountability, skeptics argue that the job is too complex and that holders of the position are almost always biased toward one or the other area. Many have explored the experiences and perceptions of the experiences of community college leaders in the combined role of vice president for academic and student affairs and a dissertation of the same title by Paul Broadie provides some interesting insights.
In 2014, Dr. Broadie, now President at Santa Fe College (and previously, Housatonic Community College), interviewed sitting leaders – including me- to determine how combined positions promote collaboration and eliminate silos. Themes regarding a unified approach, intentional communication strategies, and work teams that promote commonality are clear from the participants. Another clear theme is the complexity that arises when two vice presidents are not aligned. One participant, “Dr. Thomasville” noted that
You know, I could do just as much good if I [worked with another VP] who was collaborative and on the same page and the same wavelength as I am. If [that person and I are] not on the same page and not collaborative, then we would not be able to accomplish anything. So the answer to your question is it would really depend who was over [each area]. I could imagine that we’d be able to solve the same problems exactly the same way. I could imagine that we would continue to meet together and continue to interface the same way we are now. Or I could imagine that something would blow up and personalities will get in the way and we go back to an era of the Cold War (p. 100).
The organizational chart is important, but it is really the culture beneath the structure that creates collaboration. Noted “Dr. Tillerson,”
You certainly could have the structure without the culture, but it does not work very well and I think you could have the culture without the structure and it can work but it just requires a different kind of intentionality. I have worked in places where there is an academic vice president and a student services vice president, and they collaborate and by virtue of their collaborating and creating activities that allow their staff to collaborate you get collaboration. I think the more organic your structure the more likely you are to be successful without the reporting lines dictating it. If you’re a hierarchical organization or there is not a culture that people can feel they can cross reporting lines [then] you almost have to have something like a joint position that provides permission for people to consider collaborations across the two areas… (p. 101).
Several of the participants noted that the “cultural and institutional personalities (p. 106)” can make a joint role or collaboration between two split roles difficult. Additionally, the ethics necessary to keep things balanced places a burden on the unified role to ensure a “deep understanding and respect for one another” (“Dr. Tillerson,” p. 114).
“Dr. Cartright” sums the joint role very succinctly as a “focus solely on the success of that student by creating more streamlined lines of communication, tearing down silos organizationally, reducing the administrative foot print, and creating a singular vision for the success of our students (p. 118).”
As sole VP with direct reports, the responsibility is clear, but other constellations (joint VPs, an EVP dotted line relationship to another VP, or an EVP with a direct VP report) require a range of collaborating, influencing or nudging dependent upon the interests of the President. Regardless of structure, when the culture unravels, momentum slows, and students are not well-served.
Prior to my current role, I have always nearly always been a Vice President with a responsibility for both areas. Having worked in executive roles for ten presidents, I have seen the nature of supervision and leadership shift considerably, and I have even experienced an uncoupling of the role in unusual circumstances and observed the consequences. I have returned to Dr. Broadie’s work periodically to reflect on how my role should reflect the purpose so well expressed by Dr. Cartright. We build teams and reporting lines, we communicate the values that underpin our work, we build and sustain a culture. I’d like to think we are always trying to put students at the center by demonstrating that we are emotionally intelligent leaders, that we bring people together, ask for input across both instruction and student services, and communicate an expectation for collaboration across senior leaders.
These principles have never been more applicable than today when guided pathways demand the tearing down of silos all across the college to ensure the student experience from connection to beginning to belonging to navigating toward an academic focus and completing. Instruction and Student Services are two sides of a common coin: an investment in student success.
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