How to Train Your New Dean: Reimagining Effective Relationship-Building Skills

Presented by Tony Fraga, DD Agency; Linda Dews, University of San Diego; Kimberly White-Smith, PhD, University of San Diego

Recorded by Marcus Hanscom, Roger Williams University

The arrival of a new dean can often be a tumultuous ride, both for academic leadership and administration. Dean Kimberly White-Smith and Assistant Dean Linda Dews, both of the University of San Diego School of Leadership and Education Sciences, came together to share some of the best advice they had for making the most of the arrival of a new dean. Tony Fraga, CEO of DD Agency and a partner of USD, moderated the session.

Dr. Dews shared some of her experience working formerly in a law school, where she had three different deans in a short time. Her experience with Dean WhiteSmith has been different, she said, largely due to strong, open lines of communication and transparency.

Part One: Lessons Learned – Dr. Linda Dews

Listen

Dr. Dews discussed how important it is to listen to constituents, particularly those who are concerned about losing their jobs as new leadership comes in. “There’s a lot of angst,” she said. And it often comes from insecurity and uncertainty on what a new dean wants to accomplish. What can faculty and staff do? Attend open forums or presentations by the dean during the interview process.

Manage Expectations

Emphasize the things we have control over. We can control our own performance and our links to established priorities. Dean White-Smith shared how people often sent her articles to read to help understand institutional culture and shared important research, past event flyers, and opinions that would help her as she started her new role.

Learn about each other

Dean White-Smith and Dr. Dews discussed how helpful it was for them to learn about each other as the new role emerged. They had shared views on trust and cooperation, transparency, and work priorities while also spending time on learning each other’s work styles and communication habits.

Dean White-Smith shared some reflections with the audience now that she’s been in the Dean’s chair about eight months: “You need to not let people influence your spirit. We need to treat people like the folks we want to develop them into.” She remarked that a dean is not only a manager of people and students, but also of relationships.

Part Two: Q&A and Discussion with the Audience

1. To Dr. Dews: What were your first thoughts when you heard there was a new dean?

“Will a new dean be collaborative?” Dr. Dews asked. She also expressed some challenges in deciphering who on the faculty or staff will be supportive of the new leadership.

Deans and staff also felt like they had to prove what they’re doing: “We are committed to our jobs, but now we have to prove again we are committed to our jobs.” – Dr. Dews

2. To the audience: What does a new dean need to know about what you’re doing [in enrollment management]?

There can be challenges with deans who are serving both as deans and faculty members simultaneously, but have limited connection to or understanding of enrollment management. “We have to help them understand the machine behind the administrative world,” one attendee shared. The discussion among numerous contributors underscored that deans often did not understand the scope and depth of enrollment work until they are apprised of day-today operations.

Other attendees discussed how deans often were focused very heavily on undergraduate initiatives, often at the detriment of graduate programming. One attendee shared that a year’s-long mapping of the graduate student lifecycle for a dean led to pressure to actually reduce the number of responsibilities undertaken by GEM professionals at their campus.

An audience member shared, “When a new dean comes onboard in our space, the focus is getting caught up on undergrads and undergraduate programs, but then there’s the expectation for graduate programs to keep us financially afloat. So you’re expecting the influx of the revenue from us in graduate admissions, but you don’t know anything about our programs. There’s so much to get caught up on with undergrad that it’s hard to get to the graduate portion.”

3. To the audience: What role do vendors play in updating new leadership?

Some audience members talked about how critical it is to provide high quality data for deans on marketing your programs. “One of the first items on a dean’s agenda is budget. And they should be asking if this relationship is worth what we’re paying in the contract, what’s the return on investment. Those are all legitimate questions,” one attendee shared.

The panelists and several in the audience advocated for vendors to have a seat at the table as new deans (or vice presidents) are onboarded. Vendors can provide an eye to best practices and some of the most critical data in marketing graduate programs.

4. To the audience: What is the hardest thing about having a new dean?

Attendees expressed how there can be a disconnect between faculty and deans who are experts in their field, but may not have experience in admissions, enrollment management, marketing, or recruitment. Deans can also be visionary, but not always engrained in the day-to-day operations to understand how ideas can come to fruition.

Others discussed how the role of “dean” can vary from institution to institution. New deans can sometimes try to apply what they had done at previous schools, while there can be resistance from internal audiences on expectations of the dean role, creating tension.

Part Three: A Dean’s Perspective –Dr. Kimberly White-Smith

“I hear a lot of us vs. them,” Fraga shared as he introduced Dr. White-Smith to discuss some of her perspectives coming into a new environment as a new dean. He stressed how the victim mindset of “us vs. them” can really kill progress with new deans. “You are the bridge,” he argued, suggesting that graduate enrollment professionals can provide a healthy connection between faculty and deans.

The third portion of the session was deliberately designed for Dr. White-Smith to not only share her experience, but also reflect on the thoughts shared by the audience in the middle section of the presentation.

“I suggest you extend grace to new deans,” Dr. WhiteSmith shared. She noted that since the pandemic hit, the roles and responsibilities of deans have changed dramatically.

“There’s been this shift from maintaining the status quo,” she said. “People go into the deanship expecting it to be one thing…the deanship is in the process of redesigning itself.”

She shared how the enrollment cliff is weighing on deans, particularly at tuition-driven institutions like the private institutions where she has spent much of her career.

“We also need to understand the enrollment trends. The growing demographics across the country are Latinx and adult learners, which bodes well for graduate programs,” she said. “This is where we can really lean in and really become the experts and expand graduate programming.”

One of the critical challenges, she noted, was that a lot of our students are coming to institutions with trauma and learning differences. GEM professionals can play an important role in identifying these issues and helping deans to address them when they come onboard.

Dean White-Smith encouraged attendees to become information resources for new deans and demonstrate that you are a partner.

“We’re trained to be academics, and administrative roles are put upon us as we make our way through our careers because that tends to be the trend that happens. There are a lot of administrators that are putting the plane together and flying it at the same time. They are learning these traits that will make them successful deans. Everything I’ve learned is not intuitive,” she said.

Dean White-Smith expressed that because enrollment management models vary from institution to institution, there can be ambiguity on how data is derived or measured. She also said that it’s helpful for enrollment units to educate new deans on all of the institution’s prospective audiences, target markets, potential partners, marketing tactics, and other information so that deans can understand how enrollment comes together.

“Deans need to understand what are the tools at our disposal that help drive traffic to our programs, to our faculty work, to the work we’re doing in the community, and ultimately getting folks to come to our institutions and want to be students,” she said. n