Academic administrators find leadership training helpful

Two UConn administrators spent almost a month this summer attending classes, workshops, and seminars to learn more about higher education – and themselves.

Andrea Hubbard, associate dean in the School of Pharmacy, and Lin Klein, associate dean in the School of Business, participated in the HERS Bryn Mawr Summer Institute for Women in Higher Education in July.

Held on the Bryn Mawr College campus in Pennsylvania, the residential program offers female administrators and faculty intensive training in education administration.

Seventy women from 30 states, Guam, and South Africa were selected for the Institute. They came from four-year liberal arts colleges, major research universities, and community colleges.

Participants were in class for at least six hours a day, including several hours on weekends.

“We got to interact with successful administrators who talked about what contributed to their success,” Hubbard says, noting that living on the campus for nearly four weeks was an advantage. “We were immersed in the experience and got to interact with many different people.”

Hubbard says the institute originally started “when women’s traditional roles were expanding. Women were moving into more non-traditional fields like law, business, and medicine. There were few women in leadership positions at universities, and the idea was to give women the tools to move up the ladder.”

Hubbard came to the University as an assistant professor in the School of Pharmacy in 1988.

In 2004, after an internal search, she was offered the job of associate dean. So that she would be better prepared for the position, the dean of the school had her “shadow” the retiring associate dean for a year.

Robert McCarthy, dean of pharmacy, says such shadowing is useful for someone moving into a new position.

“I think it really helps prepare and develop skills,” McCarthy says.

“Placing a faculty member in an administrative position without the proper training can be overwhelming. Oftentimes, we take faculty who are very good at what they do and put them in administrative positions without giving them the tools to help them succeed. That’s why leadership opportunities are so important.”

Hubbard says she took away a lot of helpful tips this summer. One of the discussions she found particularly interesting was knowing when to say yes to a challenge, and when to say no.

“Very often women are chosen to serve on work-intensive, low-visibility committees because it’s known that they will get the work done,” Hubbard says.

“Women are good at multitasking. But who gets the recognition? Learning to say yes or no to those kinds of requests is an important skill.”