With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility

This week I started a new administrative position. For the next 6 months I am a programme coordinator with over 100 subjects in my portfolio. It is an exciting and challenging position filled with numerous opportunities to interact and help students progress towards diplomas and graduation.

I quickly discovered that this position requires a keen ability to multitask which I think is wonderful. I am a list maker, so in any one day I am now taking things off lists and putting new things on lists. I have lists of things that are my responsibility and lists of things that are under the purview of the part-time coordinators in my portfolio.

There is a lot of reminding and reinforcing as a coordinator which made me think of how I can use pedagogical strategies that I use in the classroom (I also still teaching three classes this term) in my new role. Those who believe that admin and teaching are two separate entities are probably missing out on the nuances and benefits of both. Here are three important ways coordinating and teaching share philosophies.

1. Collaborative:

 Being a programme coordinator means working as a team in order to provide the best environment and support for our students. We learn from each other, from past experiences, and move forward to create new forms of knowledge, new protocols, and new procedures. The same is done within the classroom setting. The best and most effective learning is collaborative, where knowledge mobilization allows for greater access to information and a more (inter)active experience for all learners.

2. Student-Focused:

 Coordinating programmes always has to be student-focused. The main responsibility of a coordinator is to lead by example and this means always remembering why you are there. Some administrators forget the student part of their positions, in order to focus on minutiae, or more paper (electronic) based logistics. Bottom line, we are all here to assist the students and this should ultimately be the focus of our work, which is that same in productive engaging classrooms.

3. Ethical:

 Finally, ethics should always be an important aspect of administrative and pedagogical duties. I know this is a personal interest but it is one that is often sadly forgotten. As a teacher or administrator one should strive for an inclusive comfortable productive atmosphere. Academic spaces need to be safe spaces, regardless of field of study.

I know there are many other aspects and attributes that administrative positions and teaching positions share. Similar to the argument that research and teaching can go hand in hand, I strongly believe that the best administrators are those who remember pedagogical strategies and keep those front and centre.  Admin does not live at arm’s length to our day-to-day teaching and learning spaces. Post-secondary academic architecture (both in terms of physical space and reporting structure) is one that must maintain accountability to the learners (students and instructors) for with great power comes great responsibility.