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[asco7]

Hi!

I hope this is the right forum for this: wasn't sure between this one and "administrative track", but here it goes:

I'm in a tenure-track position, and it seems quite likely I'll get tenure next year (my university has a tenure rate of over 95%, and I have enough publications from my dissertation to get it), but here's the thing: I don't like being a professor. I REALLY enjoy teaching and advising (undergraduate and preprofessional) students, but I've discovered that I don't enjoy the aspects related to research: writing and editing articles, grant writing, new research proposals, overseeing student research. I can't see myself doing that for the next 10 (or even 3) years. Also, I feel I need structure in my life, of the 9-to-5(-ish) type, rather than coming and going as I please with no colleagues ever around my department and feeling somewhat useless that no one cares if I am there or not.

Given this, I think academic administration may be the way to go, and in particular, something related to working with undergraduates (student advising, international students, study abroad, etc.). But I'm not really sure what administrators DO. I know that some positions might involve grant-writing (which I would really not enjoy), but I don't know which ones. I also know I might enjoy still being able to teach a class or two (which I would enjoy), but again, which ones? Also, although I'm willing to take a pay cut (advantage of having a financially successful spouse), I'm not sure what the job security of such positions is. Finally, would I be a competitive candidate for such positions (I will have my first major admin role in my dept. next year as undergraduate chair)?

Any advice or insight would be greatly appreciated. Thank you very much!

[michigander]

There's no single answer to your question because, in many ways, academic administration is just as balkanized as the professoriate in terms of desired degrees, qualifications, and experiences for different administrative specialty areas.  Be advised that in at least some of these areas, entry level jobs aren't really administrative but instead involve a full eight hour day of direct student contact.

My primary experience is as an academic advisor.  My responsibilities were almost entirely for individual F2F or telephone advising sessions for walk-in students of anywhere from 5 to 75 minutes depending upon the student's need.  I kept scheduled office hours for 5 days a week for 40 hour weeks with extra hours during orientation periods.  I worked on every day of every new student orientation assisting students to register for their first set of classes and served on the campus financial aid appeals committee.  In addition, I was assigned a special project of facilitating the grade appeal process, and that did involve some administrative work such as teaching students to follow the procedures, collecting documentation, recruiting members for hearing panels, advising faculty members on how to prepare for the hearings, scheduling the hearings and space usage, and arranging for gift cards from the book store for student panel participants.  In essence, I was the academic VP's administrative assistant for that program.  As another, smaller project, I was responsible for providing feedback to students who had attempted to test out of English composition clases which involved coordination with the learning center where the tests were administered.

Other advisors had different project assignments such as coordinating departmental interface with the state agency that funds programs to return displaced workers to the workplace, arranging reasonable accommodations for students with disabilities, tracking and providing support for FTIAC or returning students, monitoring student registration and organizing telephone calls to eligible students who had not yet registered for the next quarter, and so forth.  At other schools, advisors design and present optional or mandatory classes for students on academic probation and serve on the committees that make probation, dismissal, and readmission decisions.  At some places, academic advisors are involved with new student recruitment whether it's meeting individually with prospective students, holding information sessions on campus, or traveling to college fairs at high schools or community colleges.

I was also tapped to become an international student advisor (though that never in fact happened).  That would have required lengthy and intensive training so that I could become the official "designated school official" to work with the feds on a daily basis to get students the paperwork to get their visas and support them in staying in status.  At some schools, particularly smaller ones, this person also works with study abroad programs.  Other posters will need to provide you with information on that area.

Most jobs in such functional areas become truly administrative only above the entry level unless you're at a tiny place where you'd be a one-person program.  In most of these types of jobs your faculty experience will be a big plus, particularly if you've had quality experience with student advising or mentoring, undergraduate research programs, tutoring, anything interdisciplinary such as writing across the curriculum, and so forth.

My best advice would be for you to conduct informational interviews with the people at your current institution who do the kinds of jobs that look interesting.  You don't have to tip your hand.  For many people in such areas, a faculty member who wants to appreciate and understand what they do will be a very welcome novelty.  People always like to tell others about what they do as long as they're not being asked for a job.  Once you identify some specific areas, you can start mining the web sites of the professional organizations in those areas for more detailed information.  For academic advising, check the NACADA web site; for international student advising check NAFSAA.

[asco7]

Thank you so much, michigander, for your lengthy response. From your description, I am convinced more than ever that administration is the way to go for me. I'll be curious to see what some others have to say about different positions, but this sounds very promising.

[alleyoxenfree]

One way to get to know people in these positions is to ask them to guest lecture, or just come into your classroom to give a short presentation to your students.  Now you're on a first-name basis with them, and can ask follow-up questions.

If your curriculum allows it, you can also design assignments that would have them into the classroom as a guest expert for the students to interview.  Or you might design a "real-life" assignment based on a work problem they might confront.  This is actually flexible enough to encompass most fields, since you could ask your students to solve a complex university hypothetical that would involve an engineering challenge with a scientific health-and-safety aspect, a communicative component, and involving some historical research.  Alternatively, you could suggest your students follow their intended majors and do an assignment or some writing that requires them to interview people in these positions.

In other words, think broadly about how you can gather information, help your students at the same time, and help the administrative staffers you are curious about.  (Many would love to speak to classes, and ask to, and we find it inconvenient because we have the time booked.)

[glowdart]

Start taking your administrators out to coffee and ask them.

(This would be totally fine on our campus; I realize that it might be weird on yours.)

[farm_boy]

To be a successful administrator often involves protecting the bottom line at all costs.  Is this consistent with your personality?

[asco7]

To be a successful administrator often involves protecting the bottom line at all costs.  Is this consistent with your personality?

Interesting question. Well, I'm not sure what "protecting the bottom line" involves. Presumably, if I am at a university whose core values are consistent with mine, it wouldn't be a problem. I probably would not want an administrative position at my current university, for example, which is very anti-liberal-arts and also too strongly union-driven for my taste, nor could I see myself at a devoutly religious institution, for example. But beyond that, I'm not sure what that would really mean...

I do know some administrators at my institution, so that is a good place to start for networking, although I suppose it might be better to make contacts at a university that would be more consistent with my values if I'm really aiming to network, as well, and get an idea of what it might be like at places where I could see myself (a good place to start would be the universities where I got my own degrees and their alums).

[farm_boy]

I mean you may be required to lie.

[nezahualcoyotl]

I mean you may be required to lie.

May I remind everyone of the actual definition of 'to profess'?

vb (tr) to claim (something, such as a feeling or skill, or to be or do something), often insincerely or falsely.

Also I'm reminded of a definition of diplomat - an honest man sent abroad to lie for his country. My point is there aren't many jobs in which brutal honesty will get you very far for very long.

[farm_boy]

Certainly dishonesty runs on a continuum.  Ironically, I went for the "life of the mind" so I wouldn't have to deal with that dishonest business world.  I didn't understand at that time that universities are businesses.

I also believe certain disciplines are more dishonest than others.  Times are tough in the humanities right now (e.g. in the competition for students' tuition dollars), and desperate times call for desperate measures.

Yes, I know I was a fool to get a PhD in the humanities.  I'm waiting for someone to invent a time machine.

[drdata]

Back to answering OPs query...administrators are the folks that sort of make sure that the doors are open every morning.  Making sure they are open involves multiple tasks (lying is NOT one of them) from physical plant management (possible step for someone in civil engineering) to counseling (admissions, financial aid or advising).  Also consider areas of interest such as ombudsman, institutional research, information technology, public relations, policy development, etc.

When you consider a move from faculty to administrator, consider what your area of expertise is and what might be the best areas to apply that expertise.

As to job security, you will lose the warm fuzzy tenure blanket and be judged on your ability to perform your job, much like everyone outside of the tenured world.

[oldfullprof]

Or you may not.  One way to become an administrator here is to be an ex (or current) of a higher up.  You can also be a spectacular, world-class dumbass (in at least one case here.)  Or an anal-complicating processes that were better before he took over and complicated them weenie.  Or a sign-offaholic.  Or you can be a buzzword monkey.  Or a do-nothing travel coordinator with too-expensive suits and cosa nostra connections.  Or you can be (pardon me) someone like Dr. Data, who may be underestimating the power of cliques and bureaucracies in our non-faculty world.

I actually enjoyed administering the research part of our faculty development program for six years, however.

[libarts]

In my experience, a good administrator comes to work every day and tries to provide the resources (material and otherwise) that the people in her area need to do their very best work every day. This has to be balanced with all the expected externalities--budgets, weird edicts from on high, regulations, ed code . . . . Sometimes it means getting rid of obstacles, and sometimes it means helping people understand, or at least tolerate, barriers that seem ridiculous. Sometimes it means giving bad news, all the way up to firing someone. Every day, it means negotiating relationships with everyone around you--staff, faculty, other administrators. It almost always means letting someone else take the credit for success, even if you are largely responsible. On the best days, it means seeing something fantastic that the people of a department under your charge have accomplished and knowing that your efforts have cleared the way for them to thrive.

On a bad day, it means being called a racist, idiot, liar, and/or tool and being threatened with multiple lawsuits.

[farm_boy]

Administrators who post here will likely defend administrators.

In my experience (working at four different institutions), administrators are roughly the same life form as Wall Street bankers, well below the average lawyer.  I realize that in theory it is possible for honest administrators to exist, and if you are one of them, I'm sorry.

Of course, it is theoretically possible that all my experiences have been atypical.

[asco7]

Thank you, Dr. Data, for the useful advice. I mentioned study abroad and international student advisor as possibilities in my initial post, because these are committees that I have served on in the past (not to mention having studied and worked abroad), so I thought I might be a stronger candidate for these positions, as well as general student advising positions, although I don't really know if grant-writing and budgeting is a large part of these jobs. Beyond that, I'm not sure what qualifications would be required, but I don't have any admissions or financial aid experience, so I'm not sure that I would be the best candidate (?).

As for the rest, I'm not sure the discussion about "honesty" and nepotism is very useful. The tenure process is full of nepotism, and being a professor means defending your department at all costs (for example, in my dept., we are short on numbers, so we are supposed to encourage students not to switch majors, even if it's obvious that the major is not right for them, and there are also at least two departments with which we are "feuding", so we certainly are not encouraged to send students to them). I have no expectation of these factors being absent from administrative jobs, but they are present in most jobs.