Confessions of a Community College Dean

We have "young" deans at our cc. I think your point has merit, and I wonder what the real picture is nationwide.
 

I dunno, but this sounds like some of the things that would also need to be done to address racism.

Seemingly arbitrary barriers are indeed frustrating.
 

Just to stick up for NK for a second... I didn't go back and look at her post again, or look at the comment thread, but I thought the meat of her question was about how a person could be qualified for the job at 36. In other words, how could this person be tenured, have accomplished all he/she said she did, etc., given the length of time it takes to accomplish anything in this profession. Thus, the question wasn't, "How could anybody in their 30s do this because there is something innate about 30-somethings that makes them incapable?" It was a logistical question, first, followed by a query to readers about how they would respond to such a candidate.

Now, asking those questions may be discriminatory. But, coming from a field where time to PHD is conventionally very long, these questions might come to mind (NK is in history). In English, I made it through with what many would call lightening speed - took no time off between undergrad and grad, had degree in hand at 28, got my job at 28. I'm 33 and still haven't gone up for tenure. Is there any way I'd have the relevant qualifications to move up in the ranks to a position like dean at my institution by 36? No. There just isn't. So it's not that I can't conceive of somebody having those qualifications (and I'd imagine the exact nature of the qualifications would depend on the size of institution as well and any number of other institution-specific factors), or that I wouldn't support somebody, whatever the age, if they did have them. But I think I would be more inquisitive about a younger candidate (which is, I know, discriminatory) because of what I outlined above about my own experience.

It's not right, and I'm not saying it is. But I also don't think it's so simple as you make it out to be in your post. Yes, age isn't something people can control, like race or gender. That said, everyone "has" age, sooner or later everyone's "age" changes, and how old you are does have an affect on how much you may have been able to accomplish in your chosen field (and life). When we evaluate applicants, we are evaluating their qualifications based on accomplishments. If you're in your 30s with no or limited admin experience, and you go up against somebody in their 50s with loads, yes, it's going to be harder for you to convince those in charge of hiring that you're the best candidate, based on CV alone. So is that age discrimination? Is it age discrimination that most faculty job openings in this profession are specified according to rank, which, loosely, relates to age of applicant?

Again, I see where you're coming from, but I think that you paint New Kid's post with a bit of a broad brush.
 

that was also my impression of NK's post--that she was wondering out loud how the person really could have acquired the necessary qualifications. I have the same question in my field, where a terminal master's is required before entering the phd and phd's take anywhere from 5-8 years. that's 7-10 years beyond undergrad, which makes a person at the least 29. If they graduated undergrad young, maybe 28. I'm not going to graduate until I'm 30, which means I'll likely not even have tenure by the time I'm 36, let alone be prepared to be a serious candidate for a deanship.

I do resonate with your point about what accomplishment looks like. The president at my undergrad was obese and (being a christian school) i heard lots of "how can he be qualified, he obviously has serious issues with self control" and the like. So I do think people get a vision of what smart and capable is and they won't deviate from it. Smart is not fat, black, brown, female, too young, too old. That's clearly just plain wrong. But discrimination on those bases does happen.
 

Stop with all the reference to your age, DD, you're making me feel old!

Seriously, I've seen people achieve the rank of dean at a pretty early age and more than once, although I've observed that there's a direct correlation between age expected of deans and the relative prestige of the institution (the fancier the R1, the older the decanal candidates). As others have noted in NK's comments, some places expect a dean to come in at full professor rank and with a shelf full of publications -- hard to achieve at 36 unless you're devoting yourself almost entirely to scholarship at the expense of administration. As well, if the expectation is that the dean will step down to a tenured professorship after a term, that probably ups the ante in terms of hiring for publications as much as administrative ability.

I'd like to see more recognition that deans are not just uberprofs, however, but academic administrators who don't have to be superstars in terms of publications. We all know that some of our most prolific colleagues are far from equipped for admin work! And using age as a stand-in for experience and ability never does anyone good, so I'd hope that hiring committees don't get caught up in the image of the office.

That said, I did muse in NK's post about the effect of Ryan's applications coming, now, from outside academe. It's often hard to break back into the game if people assume you're out of play. That and her references to a disastrous previous administrative tenure might mean that she's not being seen as a good risk by committees. And, who knows?, she might be better served to seek out academic admin work of a different type (program directorship? dean of student affairs? an admin in computer services?) that'll get her foot back in the door if that's her aim.
 

Consider a couple of cases local to me:

The Superintendent of "State Capital School District" who is in her low/mid 30's. How did she get her qualifications? She worked her ass off in large urban school district, that's how.

Or the low-40's VPAA at my college. Same deal. It won't be long before he's a mid-40's President at some college.

It's ironic that the same boomers who didn't trust anyone over 30 are the gatekeepers saying "no, you are too young." Now it's "don't trust anyone under 40."

And people wonder why Gen-X'rs like me are suspicious.....
 

At the federal level someone can't claim age discrimination until they're 40. In other words, the laws are to protect those who are older, not younger. I don't know what the specific state laws where she is at are and this doesn't address the ethics or wisdom of this form of discrimination, just the legality.
 

I finished my doctoral at 26. Not just 26, but a very young-looking 26, just because I've always looked younger than my age. How? I worked my friggin' ass off. Are there jobs out there for me? Apparently not. Nobody hires professors who are 26 and look 18.

It's making me bitter, as if excellence is a crock; it's going lockstep with the herd that gets you in where you need to be. Don't excel until you've secured a permanent position or you'll be punished for it.
 

I work in a profession where most people are in their 50's. I was just at a conference where everyone asked me what school I was enrolled in - aka, I'm a student (obviously) - not a teacher with 10 years experience. I used to find it depressing - now I just smile while I explain that I'm a prof and am filled with inner glee while they squirm in embarrassment over their mistake.
 

To respond to Ancarett: My institution, by no means an R1, expects deans to come in with significant admin experience (years as a dept. chair at minimum, or work in a dean's or provost's office at a lower level, or both) as well as full professorship. Publications aren't huge, but again, if the person's coming in with tenure they'll have at least a few of those. Again, I'm not at all at an elite institution. And I'm telling you, I would not be qualified for a dean post within the next three years, and I've done a lot, including some limited admin stuff. I'd say to have the kind of experience that we'd expect that a person would need to be in his/her early 40s at the youngest. Again, not because people who are younger aren't great and talented, but because the requirements for the job are pretty impossible to have attained younger than that.
 

An interesting point is made - does publishing equate with good administrative skills? Often the professor who does the best negotiating departmental and university-wide committees is not the same person doing the most publishing yet what that person gives the department/university is just as important.

Now, if you want to be the graduate dean, you do need the publication AND grant record to do that.

Because of the same "graying" effect that Dean Dad mentions in academe, K12 education has been hiring 20-something administrators with maybe only a few years in the classroom because of a shortage of administration-interested faculty.

It is still too bad that to be promoted in any level of education often means you are put further and further away from the classroom.
 

At my institution, a full professorship is a stated requirement in order to be a dean, and in practice it needs to be an "earned" promotion (the initial appointment as dean can't be the first at the full level).

That said, I was appointed dean at a major research institution before my 40th birthday, with the requisite "shelf full of publications," and I was quite far from the youngest ever appointed here. But such cases (including mine) are flukes, accidents of being in the right (or wrong!) place at a key time. I could never have been successful if I had decided (at, say, 26 when I got my PhD) to be a dean at this type of institution at 40 and set out to build a CV that could support both the full prof promotion and the dean appointment. But I did have time to build enough credibility to be asked to step into an unexpected hole, and then to demonstrate administrative competence and leadership through some tough challenges.
 

Dr. C. -- your first comment misreads my post. "If you're in your thirties with no or limited admin experience..." That's the case neither for Ryan nor for me. (Note my reference to 'performance and talent,' as opposed to just 'talent.') Nor should that be the case for anybody who made the 'interview' cut. If we have the admin experience, then the fact that we got it relatively early shouldn't matter.

It's fair to say that what's involved in, say, an academic deanship will vary by institutional type. I don't bother applying for gigs at R1's, since my experience has been at teaching institutions. If you're looking for someone to bring in gazillion-dollar grants, that's the experience you'd look for.

That said, I like Kelly's point a lot. Administration is a unique task, calling on a different skill set than either teaching or research. Single-mindedness can be a boon for research superstardom, but it's death in administration. Similarly, the need to be the center of attention can pass for 'charisma' in a classroom, but it would be fatal in administration.

Deans do different tasks than faculty; it shouldn't be surprising that different skills are required. To my mind, academic deans should have faculty experience, so they'll know the reality of the faculty job. But do they need twenty years of faculty experience to get that? I'd need proof before I'd agree with that.
 

A lot of what I might say appears to be in the comments, but there is a point that might best be made snarkily. Someone who describes themselves as "mid career" at 36 could come off as sounding like they plan to retire at 42, maybe 50 if the PhD was completed at age 22. That will not come off well. [Candidate for med school is asked "where do you see yourself in 10 years". Answer: "It is wednesday, so I will be playing golf".]

A coal miner is at mid career at 36, with 16 to 18 years on the job. An academic who has held 3 or 4 positions for a short time each could look like a dilettante to a search committee.

The one thing I noticed in the CHE article as the word "tenure track", not the word "tenured". In most cases, universities want someone who has earned tenure making the decision about whether to grant tenure. That said, I do know of one R1 where the President came out of the admin side, and had to make a very special case to convince the faculty and board that s/he had the relevant skills.
 

I think all of this talk about what experience is needed to qualify one for an administrative position is fine. However, NK's post clearly goes beyond questioning whether in this particular case the individual has the needed experience. Instead, it reminds me of the older student who once told me "I'm old enough to be your father, so why should I have to listen to you?"

It may sound like I've got a chip on my shoulder, and well, that's not that far off. All of the comments here and on NK's blog seem to track along the posters age and position in the academy. That's probably more than a coincidence.
 

I didn't misread you, DD, I was just going off on a tangent inspired by what you said. Sorry about the confusion!

To the anon commenter who writes, "All of the comments here and on NK's blog seem to track along the posters age and position in the academy. That's probably more than a coincidence."

What kind of consensus are you noticing? Because both DD and I are in our 30s, so you'd think we'd have the same opinion, from what you post, and we don't, yeah? And New Kid's in her 30s, too. So what is the trend you notice in the comments? Here's the thing: I do think that any qualified applicant should get fair consideration for a job. I suppose that my response to DD's post comes very much out of my own institutional context - NOT an R1 - where in order to be dean one has to have a great deal of experience AND to be a full professor. (We just ran a dean search, and I think the youngest candidate was in his/her 40s.) I grant that it could be possible to achieve that maybe even by one's late 30s, but I think it would be very difficult to manage it before that, given the ages of most starting academics.

Also, I will say that a good faculty member does not necessarily a good administrator make, but no, I don't want somebody without tenure making my tenure decisions.
 

Dear Anon re "All of the comments here and on NK's blog seem to track along the posters age and position in the academy." My comment at NK's, and several others, make the assumption that "position in the academy" is deeply relevant to being qualified for a deanship. Conflating position with age is not going to give you a very clear picture of whatever ageism does exist.

Dear 26-looking-18 anon: my anecedotal data does not bear out your experience.
 

Oops, I might have totally misread what "track along" means.
 

Ageism is alive and well in college hiring and I have alot of experience in this department. I have posted before, but to protect myself I am keeping anon. Here is one of my experiences.

Me and another individual were hired simultaneously as adjunts. I have a few less years of business experience (due to age difference - 17 years. I had 7 years college teaching experience while the other candidtate had 6 months. I have a masters degree, the other person does not. The other candidate received two courses, I received one. You do the math. It makes absolutely no sense that this person was offered more courses to teach. In all honesty I look young, sometimes confused for a student even when I am in a suit - which makes no sense.

What makes even less sense is that my subject area is very techie therefore it would be common that younger people have more current skills.
 

The original isn't really specific enough to tell exactly what sort of dean we're talking about. However one thing I see missing here at least is a consideration that one of the things that deans have to do is lead the faculty. and authority by job title only gets you so far. this may be part of what dean search committees are after, an easy time getting their faculty to accept a new dean.

of course, the analogies are obvious. but still, as of yet the young are not a protected class
 

Anon 26-looking-18--I can name at least three women who got their phds around age 27 while appearing about 19-20, maybe younger, all of whom got decent jobs. So I think there might be more going on than pure age--maybe the standards are different for women, maybe it's the type of institution or student body, maybe....
 

I find it baffling that the young are a protected class in terms of labor laws pertaining to limiting hours, but not for opporunities.

It seems to me that the very same people demanding respect for being older and more experienced are not rendering it upon those younger. Another possibility is that some of these academics were pushed out of the professional sector for lack of keeping up to date technologically (this pertains to my area of computers) and are using colleges as a safe haven. We all know tenure can be a major safety net. I am not saying this is right or wrong, but one college I taught at restructured their courses from the classroom to computer lab to bring on current and younger professors. It has been my experience that departments which are under the gun to keep current tend to be dominant on younger faculty, not necessarily chairpersons though. But even the chairs, regardless of age, are progressive thinkers. The departments that have alot of tenure and focus on keeping the status quo are heavier on older faculty.
 

older people are never progressive thinkers? my greatest allies are a full professor in his mid to late 40's and an associate professor who is a second career PhD probably in late 40's, both of them extremely progressive in thinking, enough to support an oddball like me. So I don't think young = progressive. To suggest that it does sounds a bit ageist to me. There are stodgy types at every age level.

In a field related to technology, it may mean something to be younger and more in tune with new trends. That said, my husband works as a software engineer and he's constantly updating his knowledge as are his colleagues. The only reason folks aren't up on the latest is if they transition to managerial positions where technical skill matters less.

I agree that it may not be purely an age issue.

As I understood NK's question, it had to do with how it would be possible to have the necessary qualifications and yet be so young. It varies by field and institution. Dr. Crazy is, I think, making the same point, based on her field and institution type. In her corner of the world, it would be more than a little difficult to have the goods. Nothing to do with age per se and everything to do with having had time to gather the skills. Not that it couldn't happen.

In my field, you would have to graduate from college at 20, go straight to grad school for a 2 year master's and then finish your PhD in four years--something that happens, but 5 or 6 is more average at my institution--in order to get out by age 26. I'm not saying it couldn't happen. It's just...it would be a little unusual.

This is sort of a tangent but I'm also not totally convinced that getting done faster earlier faster earlier is the best thing. At the least, it isn't something to be valued for it's own sake. That's just my two cents.
 

Dean Dad, thanks for your response. Yeah, I realize my comments are ageist in many ways. But I meant exactly what Dr. Crazy describes. When you claim that she's misread you and state: "If you're in your thirties with no or limited admin experience..." That's the case neither for Ryan nor for me. - well, I'm honestly just not sure what Ryan's academic experience is, that would make her qualified for the positions she describes, given the institutions with which I've been involved in my academic experience (which, granted, is by no means all kinds of institutions).

Basically, what I could have said more briefly is this: all the deanships in the schools I know expect one to be a full professor to be a competitive candidate. Ryan states that she was on the tenure-track, but not that she's tenured. Is it likely that she's a full professor by 36? It's possible, sure, but is it likely? and if she's not, is she as good a candidate as she claims she is? That's my concern about her experience being limited - that she's not reached the appropriate rank - not the actual admin part. (Now, one could argue that full prof. is an unfair expectation for a deanship if someone has the relevant experience, but that's a different question.)

What I didn't consider and your post makes a really good point about is the fact that different kinds of institutions would have different expectations for experience (e.g. if you're in a community college system that doesn't have tenure, you're probably not all that concerned about whether the candidate has tenure or not).

Because Ryan was vague about 1) her academic rank and 2) the kinds of institutions she was targeting, I plugged her into the context of the institutions I know. That may be completely inaccurate.

As for my question, "Would you, personally, support the candidacy of a dean who was 36?" - that was an honest-to-god question, not meant at all rhetorically or snarkily. I really wanted to know what my readers felt about it, because I had a knee-jerk reaction that 36 is too young to be a dean, and I wanted to know if that was a purely ageist response or if there was anything in academia that would in fact make being a 36-year-old dean hard to achieve.

People gave great examples of exceptional deans who have been in their mid-30s, and that helps me out a lot. But the truth of the matter is that at least in my field, very few people have reached full prof by age 36, and that was the academic model on which I was working. Although I didn't express it well, that was the concern I was trying to get at in my post.

And while I understand your point about academe having the highest barriers to entry of just about any profession, I think comparisons to lawyers and doctors and especially the founders of Google are just invalid, since the industries are apples and oranges. It may well be that academia as an industry should change (though I don't see it happening any time soon). But I was curious about Ryan's situation given academia as it is, not a hypothetical academia.

I hope I'd have no problem accepting the candidacy/hiring of a 36-year-old dean who had reached the appropriate rank for the position in a given institution (and Ryan may have - she just didn't say). I also really agree that we should NOT just keep hiring the same old faces for administration. I guess I just think there's a bit of room between the gray-haired AARP member and the 36-year-old (if the latter hasn't yet reached the requisite academic rank).

(As for the comment about responses tracking along age/position - well, my position is pretty darn low down on the totem pole. Pretty much everyone in my institution is superior to me. So I'm not some kind of full professor harrumphing about whippersnappers these days. Granted, I might be a bitter underachiever who resents someone with actual talent - up to you to decide that.)

Now, whether or not the skills that get you to full prof (in those academic contexts, which are many, where such is the expectation) are at all related to the skills necessary to be a good administrator is a good one, and probably they're not always. But in light of the reference to a candidate for a presidency who came purely out of the admin side having to make a hard sell of their qualifications - one thing that faculty are concerned about, I think with justification, is the possibility of getting "chief academic officers" who don't follow an academic model as much as a business model - someone who's been in academic administration and not a faculty member may not fall into this category, but they might. Concerns about faculty governance often translate into a desire to have leaders be firmly in the academic camp (at my last job, there was much resentment of the president's right-hand person, who was not an academic and did not have a Ph.D., yet wielded an immense and ill-defined power over academic decisions. Again, such resentment might be misplaced, but it's a fact of academic life). So I think a lot of concerns about having a dean who's been a full prof are not about age but about the implications for faculty governance (unfortunately this ends up having implications for how people think about age, too).

In any case, as always, thanks for the discussion. My ageist tendencies have been called out and I will be on guard against them.
 

Great post. I referred it on my blog.

True, attorneys can start their own practices during their 20's and 30's. But there is still the perception that they are too young to be a lawyer or do not have enough wisdom to handle a case. There is still the perception that attorneys are older, While males. I started my own law practice when I was in my early 30's and experienced that first hand.

I just don't believe that one should make apologies for ambition. If they got the skills, then let the fly.
 

The issue seems to rest on the fact that the "older" generation don't want to have a "youngster" telling them how to do things. I think in this day and age we should realize that age limits nothing and experience is truly the denotation of a great leader or candidate for any position. As a college administrator at a highly selective university I sit in a position which some may say should be held by a much senior individual, but the reality was that there were no "older" candidates who had the skill-sets I held/hold.

I was recently passed up for a true promotion because I was seen as "new to the profession"--an industry I have been in for the last 6 years. The notion of new was simply to state that in relation to the management team I would have sat on that I would have been the youngest, in age, by 10 years--however my skills were/are directly in line with the functions of the position. So, I didn't get the promotion, but I was given the extra responsibility and told that I am now to report to a "veteran" in the field and be a strong right-hand man.

I rather someone with the ability and know how than someone just because they "look" the part of a senior college administrator.
 

Anon number 2 - I think we're at the same school.
 

I find it fascinating that people to prefer an older administration, but if someone is good at his/her job it should not matter. In fact if people do not respect the person the fault lies in their own prejudices. That being said, I wanted to bring up physicians. Here are peole that attend the same years of college, residency and fellowships and after starting private practice are teaching professors of residents. This is a personal preference, but would you want a doctor who is most up to date and currently board certified. In this case experience applies to the number of patients with various ailments a doctor has. From my perspective medical research studies don't hold alot of water due to such a low number of subjects compared with the populace. Anyway, I just thought I would bring this up since there seems to be a preferance for the older academic.
 

This is my first to replying to a blog. Mainly b/c this is the first time something has struck a chord with me. I am young PhD'er in my early thirties and when I go on interviews for higher ed. , I always get those round about age questions. For the most part I feel ashamed for having to conceal my age or invalidate their concerns with my career outside of education (i.e. Military, non-profit, entrepreneur). Most of the time the resistance and comments come from my older students, whom I teach educational leadership classes to. They always ask about my age and I say, "I am old enough to know better". What I really mean to say is, “ I know better than to tell you.” Then they go into their spill about how they think their son or grandson is about my age and are you sure you’re the instructor for this class. That really gets me on my soap box and I lead in by saying, “You do not have to be old to do a great job”. Society may have a different picture of the professors but if you have experience it really should not matter. Nonetheless, people are so quick to invalidate someone based on age. If one my of my business instructors were one of the young founders of Google, do you think it would matter? I would listen up and learn all I could. Evidently they have learned something early in their career that I need to know now. In my educational career I have been everything from a substitute teacher to a school Principal and I didn’t get there by accident. I think in the higher ed. arena gate keepers believe higher ed. is equivalent to higher age.
 

Thank you so much for this post. I was a non-traditioinal student in my 30's who graduated from college in 2006. I almost didn't get my current job because of my college graduation date. At first, they failed to notice I have 20 years of experience and graduated from high school in 1987 (both of which were listed on my resume). Obviously, I was highly qualified (if not overly qualified) for a secretarial job; but almost didn't get an interview because the first thing they looked at was my college graduation year.

Now, of course, they're glad one of the panel took a closer look at my complete resume instead of stopping at 2006. :-) Needless to say, I was completely shocked to find this out after I was hired.
 

I recently had an interview in which I was told I "behaved too young" for the Director level job for which I applied. I'm 66 and recently retired from an R1 institution with almost 40 years experience as a faculty member at R1 and R2 institutions.
 

There Is Obviously a lot to know about this. I suppose you made Some Great points in the Feature also.
 

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