Ex-Administrators Reveal the Secret That Eased Their Return to the Faculty

Professors who make the move into academic administration can find plenty of advice and research on navigating the managerial ascent. But those who have crossed back from “the dark side” say the return transition is far trickier and guidance is harder to come by.

“People are on their own to sort this through,” said Carol J. Pardun, who directed the University of South Carolina’s School of Journalism and Mass Communications for six years before returning full time to the faculty.

When she stepped down in 2014, after realizing that an administrative promotion was unlikely to meet the workplace criteria she had set for herself, she took a yearlong sabbatical to think about what she wanted the last third of her career to look like.

“That was probably the most helpful, as far as moving into becoming a professor again,” Pardun said of her time off. “I read a lot. I had a chance to just wallow in the literature. I was really fortunate to be able to do that.”

Pardun had also planned ahead, teaching at least one class a year to stay in practice. But teaching what she wanted to teach in a time slot that worked for her didn’t quite prepare her to take on her current load of two classes per semester.

“I’ve been teaching all new classes. Prepping for them and getting the expertise I need to teach them, it’s exhausting,” said Pardun, whose courses this fall include a new class she created, “Minorities and Women in the Media.”

Former administrators like Pardun must adjust to a work life with fewer perks, less power, and different expectations from colleagues. In addition to reacquainting themselves with teaching and grading, many ex-administrators must jump-start their research after a lengthy hiatus.

Don Chu, an academic-leadership consultant, says administrators are too busy managing other people’s problems to focus on their own priorities. That’s why former administrators are unlikely to successfully transition back to the faculty if they don’t take time to plot the move, said Chu, a retired dean. He held that position at three colleges over the course of his career, most recently at National University, a private nonprofit institution in California.

“The semester — if not the year — before, they need to start getting up to speed again,” said Chu, author of The Department Chair Primer: What Chairs Need to Know and Do to Make a Difference. “You don’t want to be starting from ground zero. It can take years to step back into the role of research and scholar if you do.”

Even efforts to get ahead don’t always succeed right away. As a professor, Pardun had a track record of landing grants and publishing, but times have changed. “Doing meaningful research is just getting harder and harder,” she said. “I’m sending grants out, and having them rejected over and over again is a little bit of a new experience for me.”

Pardun’s colleagues — young faculty members in particular — have stepped up to collaborate with her. “I’m fortunate that there are a number of people here who want to work with me,” she said.

Dodging a ‘Big Jolt’

David J. Burrows is another former administrator who methodically laid the groundwork for becoming a full-time professor again. He knew teaching would be a key bridge back to the faculty. A former dean of the faculty and provost at Lawrence University, he purposely taught a high-enrollment introductory-level psychology course for the 12 years he worked in administration.

“I wanted to know what our students were like and continue to be in contact with them,” said Burrows, who joined the Lawrence faculty as a professor of psychology in the fall of 2017. “I thought, eventually if I return to the teaching, I didn’t want that to be a big jolt for me.”

Burrows said that so far, teaching has gone well — even the cognitive-psychology course that he had last taught two decades ago. (He spent a winter-term sabbatical reacquainting himself with the material.) What did throw him for a loop was having to serve as a faculty adviser, a role all professors take on at Lawrence. Ironically, he said, he wasn’t well-versed in some of the rules surrounding registration.

“It took me a while to get up to speed,” Burrows said.

But what he understood well was how to manage his interactions with people as provost and dean so that they wouldn’t be problematic for him once he left that job behind. In short, “whatever decision-making you do, how ever you go about doing your job, someday those people are going to be your colleagues,” Burrows said. “Adopt a style in which you show respect for the faculty governance system. You might have to be harsh with some people, but you want them to be able to think, ‘At least he was fair.’”

Life as a faculty member has yielded an unexpected positive development for Burrows. He now has time to do research again in his field and “think conceptually about what I see as large issues in higher education,” he said.

‘Looking Like a Faculty Member’

Rosie Phillips Davis has enjoyed similar benefits as a former administrator. Pivoting from her role as vice president for student affairs at the University of Memphis gave her the time and flexibility to run for president of the American Psychological Association. She is now president-elect.

Davis’s path to becoming a full-time faculty member was made possible by her commitment to teaching, doing research, and presenting at scholarly conferences even though she shifted into full-time administrative roles not long after getting hired as an assistant professor of psychology in the late 1970s.

“Looking like a faculty member was intentional on my part,” said Davis, who stepped down as a vice president at Memphis two years ago. “I ended up with a very strong publication record. The entire time I was vice president, I taught, even though I wasn’t paid.”

Davis said she loved working in student affairs at Memphis, but after 13 years, she believed her work there was done. Still, she wasn’t ready to retire. So in August 2016, she went on sabbatical and then the following semester she made the transition to working as a full, tenured professor of psychology. “I didn’t enjoy being a professor the first time around,” said Davis, who teaches graduate level courses in the counseling-psychology program. “Now I love it.”

Some perks disappeared from Davis’s life when she left her vice presidency. She had to give up her free tickets to Memphis basketball and football games, and her travel budget shrank. She also pays for parking now. And it’s not possible to cultivate and maintain the deep connection she once had with undergraduate students in her former position.

“I really liked having a place that they could come to,” Davis said.

Some former administrators, particularly those who were at the senior level, also miss being in the information loop. But they’ll need to get used to it, Chu said, along with distancing themselves from the affairs of their successor.

Davis is perfectly fine with that.

“I’m in my building doing things with my department and my students,” she said. “Being on the faculty is a different kind of hard work. It’s not a walk in the park. You’re a part of the team and you need to carry your load.”

Audrey Williams June is a senior reporter who writes about the academic workplace, faculty pay, and work-life balance in academe. Contact her at audrey.june@chronicle.com, or follow her on Twitter @chronaudrey.