When I first stood in a community college classroom as an English adjunct in rural North Carolina, I never planned to be a college president. Yet two and a half decades later, I reflect on my first year as the president of the largest college within the Lone Star College (LSC) system, LSC-CyFair, serving nearly 23,000 students.
I spent 13 years as faculty, then dean in North Carolina, when an opportunity at Odessa College (OC) in Texas hinted at uncommon potential. We loaded up kayaks, horses, dogs, chickens and an RV for a life-changing move to west Texas. As vice president for instruction at OC, we transitioned to eight-week terms and, through a holistic commitment to students, earned the Aspen Institute Rising Star twice and the Leah Meyer Austin Award.
This article is an excerpt from the upcoming new issue of the Community College Journal. Watch for it soon and be sure to read the full article!
In 2019, having found similarly student-focused colleagues at LSC, I joined the seven-campus college of 85,000 students as the associate vice chancellor for academic affairs in my first multi-college system experience.
This May, I looked out from the stage across the packed stadium with more than a thousand graduates proudly wearing their national flags, “Black Girl Magic” stoles, “Moms can do it too!” mortar board messages, Hispanic heritage stoles, and 10 different colors of robes representing high schools from which over 500 current seniors earned their associate degree. I was struck by the honor and responsibility of serving as LSC-CyFair’s president.
To lead well though, we are always learning, so I share some reflections on this first year.
Moon marathon
Full disclosure: I don’t run. Played goalie in soccer, doubles tennis, rode horses who did the running. But let’s pretend my professional career is like running. I explain the experience of joining a large college system like taking a professional marathon runner, dropping them on the moon, and saying, “Go run!”
It took a good four months to really figure out gravity before I could reliably take the first step. I had an urgent task list, but lurching forward as though I was in a familiar landscape would have been awkward at best; at worst, it could have set me adrift.
I set ego aside to inquire and actively listen, asking “Why?” and “Who can help?” regularly in order to establish my footing. That open mind, eager to understand the culture and the individuals, would prove invaluable in my first year as president.
Successful leadership of LSC-CyFair requires operating in concert with the other LSC colleges, while collaborating with our system office and chancellor. This dynamic can, at times, feel like someone inserted a maze in the middle of the moon marathon.
Show me the money
We cannot know too much about the budgetary process and presidential authority within it. I wish I had known everything there is to know on day one, even as I understand the impracticality of that desire.
I have a tremendous appreciation for the interweaving of finances, campus culture and student success work. Vision is only a dream without the pragmatic, strategic operations behind it. Budget and finances were where I found myself often asking, “Why didn’t we do that? How did that happen? How should have known that was an option?”
Even now I feel myself thinking, “Ok, fine, maybe not on day one, but surely on day 371, NOW I have
everything figured out.” I don’t. Perhaps it takes more than a year to excel at all areas of finance and budget…but I sure wish it didn’t.
