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UBJ
FOCUS ON LEADERSHIP
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12.19. 2014
Furmanâs 12thâand first femaleâ president brings unique perspective to her new leadership role
EMILY PRICE | STAFF
eprice@communityjournals.com
This academic year marked a new era in the 188-year history of Furman University, as Dr. Elizabeth Davisâformerly the executive vice president and provost at Baylor University in Waco, Texasâarrived in the Upstate to become the schoolâs first female president. In 188 years, Furman has had only 12 presidentsâthree since 2013âs spring semester, when former president Rod Smolla resigned for personal reasons after three years in office. (Carl Kohrt, a 1965 graduate, was named interim president until the search for Davis was complete.) Davis embodies a mix of influences to guide her new leadership role. In a time where many financial-related questions permeate higher educationâparticularly concerning ever-rising tuitions and measuring value and ROI as nontraditional education models continue to emergeâshe has a doctorate in accounting from Duke University. UBJ had the opportunity to sit down with Davis to discuss various aspects of management and leadershipâfrom being a female in such a prominent career position, to differences in academic versus
industry organizations and how her studies in accounting have prepared her to lead a university.
What is your personal definition of leadership? A leader is someone who can cast a vision clearly, that others want to join and be a part of; but then also who has the realistic optimism about what can really happen, so that the people in the organization can feel success when that visionâs accomplished.
How has your leadership style evolved over the years? When I first started working out of college, I was a terrible delegator. I always tended to be a really fast worker, so it was just easier for me to do someone elseâs job, too, because I could just get it done before I could explain what it was that I wanted. But eventually that will just wear you out, because the higher up you go, there are more levels, and you canât do everyoneâs job. So I think what Iâve been able to do over time is to develop ways to engage in conversation about why we want to do particular things. If a managerâs always telling people what to do, and they donât understand why, they donât know how to adapt when something unexpected happens. And as a result, then the manager might feel more compelled to micromanage. But if everyone can
Photo by Greg Beckner
Strength in numbers understand why we are trying to accomplish particular things, then you can leave the what up to others to figure out and then at the end, take a look at it.
What are some similarities and differences in leading an academic organization versus a more traditional business organization where ROI is the bottom line? Well, the similarities are still working with people, and getting everyone to understand how their particular part of the organization contributes to the mission. So thereâs still that clarity of purpose, communication and some type of feedback loop that says, âOkay, hereâs what we said we were going to do, hereâs what we did, and how did it work out?â So those kinds of things are similar. In academia, ROI is not as easily defined. I am a firm believer that education is one of, if not the best investment someone can make, but itâs not always measured in terms of a dollar return. So learning how to have a conversation about, âWhat is value? What is a return on an investment?â is different in higher education. The shared governance model in education, where faculty, administration and the board all together have different responsibilities in carrying out the mission, means that things donât >>