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Of course, this is a story, based on her lifetime of interviews, actions, and what she shared of her beliefs. But I find the story rings true so I don\u2019t blush in sharing it.<\/p>\n
And I would encourage my faculty in this way\u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t worry about what your completion rates are. Students will be students.<\/p>\n
But the email at the top of your Inbox–that is the person closest to you. Help them. When your phone rings, and it is a student struggling and they can\u2019t understand how to be successful, that is the person closest to you. Help them. When it is your turn on a Help Line and a call is routed to you, take the call. Help them. Help them like they are the only student you\u2019ve ever met. This is how you approach numbers. If you do this with each student that appears in front of you, I\u2019ll provide cover from every other force at this university. I\u2019ll provide resources, time off, and respect for your work.”<\/p>\n
And none of my faculty were ever fired or let go for their performance numbers.<\/p>\n
Indeed in the 14 years I was at that university, the Satisfactory Academic Performance rate (SAP) never moved from 72%. Students always completed, on average across the entire university, about \u00be of their work each term. <\/p>\n
And I\u2019ll share this tidbit with you\u2013just to show you that it\u2019s all fine to boast but\u2026was there really any danger?<\/i><\/p>\n
Yes. Every year I was a leader, I only met half of my goals. 50%. Every year I submitted my own performance evaluation, I\u2019d laugh and feel like I was tossing my own \u201coh well\u201d paper into an inbox of some class I just would not master. That 72% held firm. We weren\u2019t going to move it and I wasn\u2019t going to make my faculty die on a battlefield that we were not going to win. It was an infinite game and I played to keep my faculty going (to stay employed) so that they would keep helping students, so that students would keep being successful. Yeah, not every student, we could not save them all. But we did not fall on our swords so that performance numbers would go up. The courses were hard and we were teaching math and science to non-majors. Said another way, our student could not have cared less for the material. Just passing was their goal and I respected that.<\/p>\n
(Another leadership rule, after EVERYONE IS A LEADER and GROW UP MORE LEADERS is PICK YOUR BATTLES. Don\u2019t fight all of them. This one\u2014the numbers, the data\u2014wasn\u2019t worth fighting. So I refused.)<\/p>\n
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