Posts by Diana

How Do We Create Better Departments?

Some of the work I’ve found most rewarding lately is thinking about how to make academic departments better – for faculty, for staff, for deans, for students. In this 6 minute video, I talk about concepts from our new Better…

Why Some Faculty Choose Leadership

Interest in administrative roles is often held with suspicion by academics. And yet, many high functioning faculty find themselves well-suited to leadership and wonder how they might do more. In fact, academic institutions and disciplines thrive only because of this…

The Importance of Faculty Transitions

The primary stages of a tenure track career are predictable, marked by a small number of highly significant transitions: the degree, an academic position, tenure, promotion, and retirement. Other momentous faculty transitions include changing institutions, shifting research directions, and stepping…

Dissonance as a Driver of Change

Dissonance drives change. The work of Piaget, Festinger and Lewin (among others) demonstrates that without dissonance, and the equally important process of resolution or integration, it is unlikely that people or organizations will let go of prior ideas and embrace…

Faculty Experiences with Coaching

“When I signed up for coaching, I didn’t know how this would help.  I’ve been pleasantly surprised, especially by how helpful it’s been to talk things through – and for the ways it’s shown me where my head was stuck…

A New Mission

We’ve been pondering the question: Is academia worth it? It’s because of deadlines and emails accumulating until there’s no time left at all, faculty meetings that go nowhere or make things worse, toxic colleagues that no one seems able to…

Ruminations from Diana

I’m organizing a coaching group, or a community dialogue, or a respite space, or maybe it’s a revolution. It’s a way to respond to the growing number of faculty who contact us with the question, “Is this worth it?” They…

keyboard_arrow_up