Upon returning to the United States and spending some time with family, I join the 2008 American Council of Education Fellows program.
Experiences with the ACE Fellows
The ACE Fellows met three times a year and during our year, this included weeklong solongs in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Los Angeles, California, and Washington, DC. There were also optional trips to South Africa, Atlanta, and Maryland that expanded and enriched our understanding of higher education. Our cohort was quite diverse with a full spectrum of leadership styles and interesting life journeys. During these visits, we explored topics in higher education as a group as well as completed formal assignments tied to different learning objectives.
My ACE Class consisted of Alfred Bryant, Margaret Venable, Hellicy C. Ngambi, Walter Zakahi, Francis Achampong, Andrew Hsu, Jacqueline El Sayed, Beverly Morgan, Nancy Aries, Peter Nwosu, Risa Dickerson, Jeffrey Sussman, Ellen Bluth, Brian McAuley, Andrew T. Harris, David Garcia, James Hobbs, Derek Rovaris, Cindy Kelley, and Christopher Van Wyk.
Our ACE facilitators, leaders, and support staff consisted of Sharon McDade, Andrea Warren-Hamos, Nita Banks, and Brian Madden.
The university placement process is an organic process which an obscure way of stating that it is a very stressful and nonlinear process. You consider possible hosting organizations, visit them, and they rate you and you rate them. Think of it as an odd dating site to spend a year together and you have the right idea. I interviewed with DePaul University in Chicago and George Mason University.
As a lengthy aside, I attended my first political rally in downtown Chicago hosted by Natalie Portman to support presidential candidate Barrack Obama. Natalie did a great job although she was so skinny I was tempted to go buy her a burger. I had been a lifetime Republican but was captivated by the vision that Obama articulated. It would be the start of my movement away from the dysfunctional Republican party to being a full time independent. Where is the party that is fiscally conservative and socially liberal? Back on topic – the university that most aligned with my leadership approach was George Mason University for a number of reasons.
George Mason University is a young, vibrant, innovative university. It has had longstanding, visionary leadership focused on long term growth and student success. It was a rapidly growing university where everything was possible. I was fortunate enough to be at George Mason when Alan Merten was the president. We both had backgrounds in computer science which led to interesting conversations about the impact of technology on higher education.
Living with the Howards
One of the disadvantages of the ACE Fellow program is that you normally have to spend a year away from your family. George Mason was four hours away from West Point so while I could get home for the weekend, I had to have an abode during the week at George Mason. Fortunately for me, my West Point officemate and perpetual collaborator Rick Howard owned a couple of houses near George Mason and suggested that I move into a bedroom living with his son and mother in law. The rent was inexpensive, hearty German meals were included, and there was an expectation to help out around the house. This was most excellent and I readily took advantage of the opportunity. I am forever indebted to Rick for the quality time I had with his mother in law as we devised all sorts of things for Rick to do.
Experiences at George Mason University
My time at George Mason University was very instructive. George Mason has a pendant for hiring long serving, popular, politically savvy visionaries for the office of president. As a result, they have rapidly advanced much to the dismay and at the expense of other universities in the crowded market of Northern Virginia. Being an ACE Fellow and politically neutral, I had open access to most meetings. With no agenda, I could observe the reactions of meeting participants when different topics were discussed, technology was used in the meeting, and different leaders spoke. It was a fascinating insight into the dynamics of senior leadership in a higher education setting.
If you are perceived as politically neutral, everyone will tell you everything.
While my nominal mentor was Alan Merten, the university president, I actually spent more time with the Provost, Senior Vice President for Administration, and the President’s Chief of Staff and each had a very different leadership approach.
Peter N Stearns, the provost, was on his 7th wife (6th wife was on the faculty at George Mason). His work effort was extraordinary. Once a month he flew to the Middle East to lead and influence the George Mason campus over the weekend and he was first in the office on Monday. His mastery of the English language was singularly extraordinary. He always used the best possible word or phase to advance the conversation. No meeting with him lasted more than 15 minutes because of his genius to use exactly the right word or phase to advance the conversation. You never felt rushed in talking with him – he just naturally guided you to the thoughtful end of the conversation within 15 minutes. I met with Peter and his direct report weekly.
Michelle Marks and I became frequent collaborators discussing the future of education and the books we were reading on higher education. You are who you associate with and I grew v=because of Michelle and very much enjoyed our joint exploration of higher education.
I had lunch weekly with the President’s Chief of Staff, Tom Hennessey. Tom was very much the President’s chief of staff who handled those things that the president did not want to directly handle. He had an affable style and was very effective at getting results. He did an outstanding job of ensuring I had access to everything and he often provided insight and council as to how university decisions were being made and the factors being considered by the president.
Periodically, I would link up with the Senior Vice President of Administration. He was an interesting leader (who I cannot remember his name) who served as an NCAA football referee on the weekends and traveled nationally to fulfill that role. His quote below has served me well over the years.
The secret to leadership is getting through windows of opportunity in hallways of distractions.
2008 George Mason Senior Vice President for Administration
Over time, I glimpsed the brilliance of George Mason strategic leadership. Now, they did make mistakes. They undervalued and underutilized IT which is a cardinal sin but they got a lot right. They were planning three dimensional chess when the other universities in the region seemed to be playing checkers or worse, ignorant that a game was being played. They were willing purposely propose less important initiatives as sacrificial lambs to be denied so as to later win more strategic initiatives proposed at just the right time.
In Retrospect
I had the opportunity to visit numerous universities during my ACE Fellowship. I visited faith-based institutions, historically black universities, regional colleges, and research universities. Some were private and some public. They ranged in size from 1,000 students to more than 50,000. In each case, I got to meet with the president, their cabinet and senior leaders, and walk the campus. My perspective of the richness and diversity of American higher education broadened.
I had the opportunity to spend at year at the young, vibrant George Mason University which was superbly led by Alan Merten. It would prepare me well for my future work at UAB. I read a lot of books on higher education including some like Americana Academia which was bitingly sarcastic and unerringly accurate. It was a good year for me to continue to learn and grow.