I live in Jupiter, Fla., a coastal town about 90 minutes north of Miami. Jupiter is graced with a classic 19th-century brick lighthouse, gorgeous beaches, and famous residents straight out of celebrity newsstand covers. It’s a rough life. Because of our weather, we also are home to the spring training camps of two professional baseball teams, the St. Louis Cardinals and the Miami Marlins.
Each January, the Cardinals host a fantasy camp, where mostly middle-aged men plunk down hard-earned money to don uniforms and become Cardinals for a week, performing drills and playing scrimmages intermixed with retired big-leaguers. The testimonials I’ve heard from participants are quite gushing, with comments like “a dream come true” and “life transforming” being common, along with an extra bounce in the step as they head back into real life. The money is well worth it, most would say, because the fantasy camp experience allows them to rethink their lives and how they view themselves, while reliving their youthful passions.
Administrators have our own version of a fantasy camp, although to faculty members it might seem somewhat less thrilling than a baseball camp. When I started the administrative portion of my career (as a department chair), one of my mentors told me that if I ever joined management full time, I should include in my contract terms the cost of attending one of Harvard University’s summer programs for administrators. “It will change the way you think,” he said with an utterly serious tone, “And it will change how people think about you as well.”
When I was offered my first position as a chief academic officer, I followed through on that advice, insisting that the training program would help both me and the institution. At that time, several of my administrative colleagues had attended such programs at Harvard (and elsewhere), so the request was neither unheard of nor viewed unfavorably. That fall I applied for one of the workshops and was accepted. It was, as the fantasy athletes would say, “a dream come true.”
Growing up, I had never known anyone who had attended an Ivy League institution. Most of us went to flagship state universities or rural public colleges. Of course once you become a faculty member, names like Harvard, Oxford, Princeton, and Yale have an immediate mystique, as anyone who works in higher education can attest. I’ve hired my share of faculty members with Ph.D.’s from elite programs, and I know what happens when Ivy League credentials are noted in the closed-door conversations of search committees.
Heading to Cambridge for my two-week fantasy camp, I had connected with my cohort in advance via email and social media. We’d introduced ourselves, and I was impressed with the diversity of institutions we represented: large and small state universities, historically black colleges, small religious ones, and several international programs from at least three different continents. At Logan International Airport in Boston, several of us met up in the terminal and shared a shuttle to the hotel we would call home for the next two weeks. We checked into our rooms and realized that we were on the banks of the fabled Charles River that has provided a backdrop in so many movies.
That evening, we loaded onto Harvard shuttle buses and attended our first plenary session, 100 or so “students” strong, where we received massive notebooks filled with numerous case studies and background readings. Most nights I was up until 1 or 2 a.m. preparing for class. Some of the material was quite dense and the case studies demanded that we engage in close readings similar to that of a graduate poetry seminar, scanning for details and subtleties that defied cursory skimming.
As the sessions started, we quickly dropped into a routine. We had assigned seats with name cards so we could learn each other’s names. We had study groups for formal analyses of the case studies, teams that were intentionally designed to foster well-rounded, thoughtful responses. Our meals were generally included in our fees, so we all milled around the dining area. I personally tried to avoid eating with the same people more than once. I wanted to hear everyone’s stories.
A part of our time was spent geeking out on the locale. We had a lengthy tour of Harvard Yard and its environs, which emphasized the history and personages rooted in the ancient quad. We visited the Coop, the campus bookstore that had each of us drooling over its superiority to our own campus stores. We were given logo-heavy swag, including an umbrella that still resides in my truck and a leather-clad notebook that I continue to take to meetings.
Always, however, our attention returned to the sessions. We heard from leading experts in legal issues, student affairs, public relations, leadership, and strategic planning. The case studies were laden with epiphanies and generated additional anecdotes in workshop conversations or privately. For those of us who had been away from formal studies for a while, it was a two-week return to the heady bliss of graduate school in the most amazing setting possible.
At the end of the institute, we were called together for a long Q&A session. We were given instructions on how to ship our notebooks back to our campuses, encouraged to continue chatting via social media, and admonished that, while we could say that we had “attended” or “completed” the institute, we were not to call ourselves “Harvard graduates.” We walked across a presentation area in the old gym at Radcliffe College and received our frameable certificates — something to hang on the office wall back home.
I attended the Ivy League fantasy camp four years ago this past summer, but I think about it frequently. I recommend it almost as frequently to budding administrators. I’m a firm believer that the seminar’s cost ($10,000 or more) is well worth it. Here’s why.
One of my pet peeves about higher education is that we are quick to run out and hire expensive external consultants instead of developing and nurturing our own administrative expertise in-house. I hate the way that academe tends to import so-called experts at top dollar rather than make use of management skills on our own campuses.
I can’t tell you the number of times that I have solved problems in my workday by going back to strategies I picked up that summer. It really did expand my mind. It built intellectual and administrative acumen that I had never had an opportunity to develop fully. Even a few weeks ago, I was outlining why I was doing some planning that I believed was important and one of my colleagues asked me why I even knew to ask the questions that I was asking. The answer was that I had been trained — and trained well.
I have a hunch that at the Cardinals’ fantasy camp, many if not most of the campers are looking backward, wondering if they would have had what it takes if the breaks had been different in their youth. It’s a week of fun and fantasy. But a few of them have a different mind-set, one that’s more future-oriented. They are rediscovering a sense of discipline that comes from practice, or thinking about the elements of teamwork that they can import into their businesses.
At my administrative fantasy camp, we, too, were looking toward the future, envisioning scenarios that could help us better serve our institutions in the present. We were preparing ourselves for the known and unknown.
Sometimes when I wear my crimson-and-gray sweatshirt around town, people will ask me if I went there. I didn’t graduate from there, but I did “go there.” I came back with a new outlook and fresh analytical skills. I’m grateful that my institution gave me the opportunity.
