First Faculty Meeting

I am delighted to be with you today in this first faculty meeting, and to wish you all a Happy New Year.  In the space of about 20 minutes, I want to talk with you about two things, and then give you a chance to ask me whatever you want to ask.

To begin, I want to tell you about myself, and what attracted me to the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development at NYU. Then, want to tell you about the three priorities I have set for this year, priorities that I hope you will help me achieve for the good of the Steinhardt School.

So, who am I and what am I doing here?  Six months ago, I would not have predicted that I would be standing here with you.  Nearly all of my professional career has been at Boston College, where I began as an assistant professor 23 years ago. 

I have had a full and productive life as a research psychologist and faculty member there. I admit that I have always found the title “faculty” more comfortable than “administrator.”  So that even while deaning, which I did as associate dean and dean for almost ten years, I managed to keep some embers of scholarly work lit.  (If you want to see my scholarly and teaching interests you can go to my NYU web page.)  I view academic administration as an extension of the tripartite faculty commitments of teaching, research and service:  When deaning, service is in the ascendancy.

Six months ago all was going extremely well in the Lynch School. We were waiting to hear from the Carnegie Corporation about its by-invitation only grant, Teachers for a New Era.  We received a 5 million dollar grant that would achieve Vartan Gregorian’s vision of having universities put teacher education at the center of their mission. Though not our biggest grant (Lynch School faculty represent 10 percent of the BC faculty but generate 30 percent of the externally funded research dollars), it was our most prestigious, and through it, the Lynch School will  transform the university.  Through deep collaborations with arts and sciences and local urban schools, and with the resources from the Carnegie grant, the faculty will structurally change the way the university does its business in such mundane yet essential areas as course scheduling, faculty load and tenure.  It is important to note, these structural changes will be driven by the academic necessities inherent to quality professional teacher preparation.

And, six months ago, I was about to complete the hiring of the best group of faculty we had ever attracted to the Lynch School—faculty who would be welcome at any university in the country. And the Lynch school would soon be home to the president-elect of both the American Educational Research Association and the American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education.

I had a good job, and I really didn’t think I would leave BC.

And yet, the place that has been called “The success story in contemporary American higher education” required at least a look-see. And as I looked into NYU and the Steinhardt School, I became intrigued by the possibility of a match between what you are doing and what I care about.

I have spent my professional career, trying to make things better for urban children and families—and here was a university in  the most important city in the world,  with a president who says he wants New York University to be “of the city and for the city.”  

I have spent 10 years in the dean’s office building inter-professional relationships among the schools at Boston College, so that lawyers, teachers, administrators, nurses, psychologists and social workers can work together.  So that we can close the professional gaps that children, youth and families, particularly urban, poor children and families, often fall through.

And here in the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, teachers and administrators were learning with health care providers, nutritionists and communications, media experts.

I watched the tape of your 110th anniversary of education at NYU, and the naming of your school in 2001. I recall Dean Ann Marcus’ observation in that film: “Our future is guided by traditions of the past.”  It is a past I find exceptionally attractive. One that has laid a strong foundation for the future that we will build together.

You were the first in the country to have a professional school for the education of teachers of teachers and school administrators.  And you were first in a lot of other things as well: 

First to prepare business educators for schools; first in Ph.D. in Occupational Therapy and Physical Therapy.

Here at New York University faculty understood as early as 1890 that applied psychology was important to both teaching and child development.  And you acted on your belief that health and wellness, food and nutrition are essential to human development.  And, more so than any other school of education I know of, you have placed aesthetics—music and art—at the core of your understanding of what makes us human. Here in the Steinhardt School I saw an inter-professional school of education, an interdisciplinary faculty and student body that was diverse in every imaginable way, and yet, somehow is living and laboring together as a community.

So, when John Sexton called and asked me to come to New York for a chat about the university, the Steinhardt School and his hopes and aspirations for each, I said “Yes” and for the first time ever, I applied for a deanship outside of Boston College.  Let me take this opportunity to thank Niobe Way and the members of the search committee who brought me here, and have since welcomed me so warmly.

I want to now turn to my priorities for this year.  My first priority for this year is to engage in a conversation with you about the traditions of your past and how  they can and  will inform our future.  What do you want of and for your school?

What do you want of your school?  I asked that question of Michael Steinhardt, whose generous gift will support the future work of the school.  He paused for a moment to consider the question, and then replied:  “Three things. First is quality. Whatever you and the faculty do should be of the highest quality.”

Second, he said he wanted whatever work the faculty and students took up to be useful; he wanted work that was relevant to this city, work aimed toward making things better here on these New York streets.  This wish resonates with your president’s aspiration that this be a university “of and for the city.” It echoes the aspiration of NYU:  “A private university for a public good.”

And third, Michael described a principle that had guided his work in the financial world, something difficult to capture with words.  He noted that he made his fortune by studying the big picture, determining where the economy and the markets were headed, and then developing strategies to stay apace with that future. Michael Steinhardt was describing what Wayne Gretzky said:  “Skate to where the puck will be.” 

I think these are three solid design principles for building a great school of education: Quality, usefulness and skating to where the puck will be.

These three design principles are familiar to you already: Your quality, reflected in the statistics on faculty and students, has improved every year, especially over the last decade in the tenure of Dean Ann Marcus. I saw the charts and their trajectories were going north!

I repeatedly heard your commitment to Michael Steinhardt’s second design principle: doing work that is useful. I heard that pledge expressed in the words of the chairs, directors, faculty and staff I encountered both during the search process and since announcing my decision to join NYU and the Steinhardt School. 

Some of you talk about it as the “theory-practice” link, teacher-researcher or scientist-practitioner. Others call it a “social justice” stance.  Some speak about the essential role of critique in a society that is currently driven by individualistic, materialistic forces.  Some describe it as work with kids in schools to increase their chances in a rough world.

Some talk of giving people better lenses to view the world through engagement with the arts.  Some speak of “wellness”—the complex, dynamic relationship between health, human development, our physical bodies and our world.

But nearly everyone at the Steinhardt, no matter his or her particular focus or perspective, speaks clearly about commitment to work that matters in this fragile yet brave world. I believe that this school is positioned better than any other unit in the university to help NYU become a university in and of the city. Steinhardt is a school linked to the “real world” for which we are preparing professionals, scholars, musicians, artists and policy analysts—professionals that this great city and the country need.

And Michael’s third design principle:  you have been skating to where the puck will be for over a century.  I will ask nothing different of you.  I only ask that we skate as a team of diverse faculty toward goals that we have yet to define.

Our conversation about the future of the school, my first priority, will occur in a year of many challenges.  As the task forces of deans and department chairs begin their work of looking across the programs to ask the question:  How should music and art be structured at NYU?  How should health care and communications be structured at NYU? We in the Steinhardt School also need to ask, how should the Steinhardt School be structured at NYU?

This is a question the Strategic Assessment Committee has been exploring.  Its work must be informed by the faculty as we move through our conversations designed to bring your ideas to the table.

Matina Horner is leading the discussion of the Strategic Assessment Committee, and I am very grateful to her for her generous gifts of time, her extensive experience with complex organizations, and her skill at facilitating the group’s efforts to advance its agenda. I am sure there are many questions about the assessment process, and Matina has agreed to hold a town meeting on Tuesday, October 14th—we will send you information on the time and place—to describe what has been accomplished, answer questions and hear your concerns.  And I will be sending you a list of times to talk with me and colleagues about the future of our school. 

In moving forward I realize that all of us, including the deans’ offices, have to be self critical. I am enormously grateful to LaRue Allen and Tom James who have helped me think through the structure of the dean’s office in a time of transition. The process begins with an honest look at myself : who I am, as incoming dean, and more importantly, who I am not.

Tom James, who has been such an able vice dean and interim dean, will leave for “the southern part of heaven,” as the University of North Carolina, is called.  Tom has accepted the position of dean of the school of education at UNC.  I ask that you note your calendars when we will have a chance to thank and bid farewell our colleague and friend, Tom James.

LaRue Allen has served generously and ably as associate dean. She and I talked about the professional perspectives we share as academic psychologists and found much similarity in our academic commitments. Yet, we recognized a need for a wide range of professional lenses in the deans’ office.  As the Raymond and Rosalee Weise endowed chair in Applied Psychology, director of the Child and Family Policy Center and accomplished scholar, LaRue suggested that she help me transition to the deanship and then step aside for another scholar of the Steinhardt School who can help lead this polymathic school into future.

So, now I ask you, the faculty, for your suggestions on a faculty scholar who can join with me and the others who serve you in the dean’s office.  Dr. Allen will continue to serve as a special advisor to the dean, helping me learn my way into the Steinhardt School.  I am committed to finding a chief academic officer who can be as generous, as helpful and as committed to the well being of the Steinhardt School as Dean LaRue Allen has been. Thank you LaRue.

I also believe that strong organizations are those that are “leaderful.”  That is, leadership is shared and found at all ranks.  For that reason my second priority is to work with you to build a leaderful school that can support the complex and multifaceted work of the faculty and students.  To that end, I will be designing a dean’s transition team that will advise me during my learning months.  I ask for your recommendations of members who reflect all the rich dimensions of the school who might be part of this transition team.

Our diversity in professions, different emphases research/practice/performance, differences in methodologies and rules of evidence, and multiple and sometimes divergent scholarly interests—all of these diversities provide a rich source for dialogue and creative problem solving. 

Yet, these same strengths can create barriers of distrust and mis- or lack of understanding.   We need to reduce those barriers, and I hope the transition team will help me think about how to do that.  In part the answer is in better internal and external communications. In part it is transparent processes.  I am working on an organizational chart of the dean’s office to make it clear who is responsible for each of the many tasks of our operation that supports your work. I believe that healthy organizations are transparent in regard to processes.  In part, I suspect, the answer is that conversation which is my first priority:  to begin the difficult task of deciding who we, as a school, are and what we, as a united entity, aspire to be.

If we can engage in a school-wide discussion about the common purpose of our school of ed. and honestly set some collective priorities and goals for ourselves as a school.  Then, I believe, we can examine other issues:
- what can we/will we give the urban schools,
- what are our strengths as a faculty:  where are we deficient; what do our hiring priorities need to be? 
- what is our commitment to diversity and how ought it be manifest within the Steinhardt School? 

And the nitty gritties: How do we structure faculty time (faculty workload) and resources (salary increments) to achieve our mission. In part, the answer is resources.

Of course obtaining resources is the third priority:  Fund raising.  That is my job: to procure the resources, internal and external, that you need to do the work we decide upon.  I will need your help.  But when we have completed our conversation, identified the unique and valuable assets of this great school, and as we build the structures to support that work,  I pledge to you, we will raise the money.

Together, we will develop the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development niche that can make us unique, attractive to students and faculty and funders who share our mission and values, and identify us as a leader in school reform, community revitalization, and reclaiming the arts for society as critical human attributes and ways of making the world better.

Thank you for welcoming me.  I am eager to begin our journey and our work together.  

Dean Mary Brabeck