Running head: COLLABORATIVE AUTOETHNOGRAPHY: HIGHER EDUCATION
Collaborative Autoethnography: Higher Education
Lauren C. Doerner, Brian W. Hamilton, & Leonard D. Thomas
University of Kentucky
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Introduction
Our team for this collaborative autoethnography was a group of three professionals in
higher education: Lauren Doerner, Brian Hamilton, and Leonard “Chip” Thomas. As a team, we
reviewed one another’s vision for leadership in higher education. While our professional roles in
higher education differ, our perspectives for effective leadership at colleges and universities
share five underlying themes. In each of our positions, one in staff development, one in graduate
student diversity, and one in faculty leadership, we recognized that successful leaders in higher
education understand and utilize (1) conflict, (2) innovation, (3) collaboration, and (4) studentcenteredness to influence change and serve constituents. After providing brief biographical
information on us as leaders, we define each of these five themes and illustrate how they appear
in our work. Finally, we outline the implications for practice and policy through the lens of these
themes.
Biographies
Lauren Doerner (LD) serves as the Assistant Director for Staff Training & Development
in the Office of Residence Life (ORL) at the University of Kentucky (UK). In her role, she
coordinates the semesterly training of student and professional staff. Additionally, LD plans the
development opportunities for staff which include but are not limited to monthly professional
development meetings, ancillary committee assignments, and the new Resident Advisor (RA)
course. Over the course of the last six years, LD has held three different positions in ORL at UK.
She has witnessed immense change, such as the merger of Student Affairs and Academic Affairs
and a reorganization of the department that lasted two full years. Being a part of and affected by
these changes, but not being able to control any of the outcomes of the changes provided her
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with insight regarding effective methods to leading change and influencing progress in higher
education, thereby contributing to and shaping her vision for leadership.
Brian Hamilton (BH) is the Assistant Director for Graduate Recruitment Programs at the
University of Kentucky’s Center for Graduate and Professional Diversity Initiatives. In this role
he works collaboratively with the university’s six health colleges to support their strategic
recruitment and outreach to historically marginalized graduate and professional students.
Additionally, BH designs and implements support and retention programming for
underrepresented graduate and professional students across the university’s sixteen schools and
colleges. BH has served in two different positions in the office over the course of his three years
at UK but has worked in higher education for a total of eight years. Over the course of his
professional and academic experience, BH has specific insight into the experiences of
marginalized students and the hurdles institutions, offices, and professionals face in serving
them.
Leonard “Chip” Thomas (LT) serves as the Behavioral and Social Sciences Division
Head at Jefferson Community and Technical College (JCTC). JCTC, as an open-access college,
offers associate degrees, diplomas, and certificates delivered through an extensive choice of
academic and technical programs both in-person and online. With a Fall 2019 enrollment of
approximately 12,000 students, JCTC is Louisville’s second-largest institution of higher
education and is the leading educator of first-time college students in Jefferson County.
Additionally, JCTC enrolls more African-American undergraduate students than any college or
university in Kentucky.LT supervises 14 faculty members and 10 departments: Education, Early
Childhood Education, Criminal Justice, Human Services, History, Political Sciences,
Psychology, Sociology, Anthropology, and Religion. LT’s responsibilities include preparing the
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divisional semester class and teaching schedules, presiding over all division meetings, managing
faculty and student complaints, hire new full-time faculty, and write annual evaluations of
divisional faculty and staff. LT is also required to teach two classes a semester, in addition to
other faculty duties: advising, participating on college committees, performing community
service, and partaking in professional development.
The Five Themes and Personal Narratives
Theme One: Conflict
Definition of Conflict
Conflict theory reminds leaders that conflict is a natural outcome of learning
organizations. Dahrendorf (as cited in Marion & Gonzales, 2014) explained, conflict is a
“struggle between collective adversaries over scarce resources” (p. 186). Structural-functionalists
surmise that conflict is less about a clash among power groups and more about the laborious
process to meet the needs of the organization (2014). Institutions across the nation are needing to
prove their value to those enrolling in their colleges. Through our collective visions, we as
leaders recognize that conflict is an inevitable outcome of people and groups working together.
Further, conflict is most evident when institutional change is occurring, and people or groups are
struggling over changing or limited resources. Ultimately, though, while conflict can be
uncomfortable for those involved, that discomfort is temporary, and conflict can be a tool for
people to build more meaningful relationships between groups and others individually thereby
creating an environment that can face future conflict more appropriately.
Personal Narratives for Conflict
LD shared her experience with conflict while observing and experiencing divisional and
departmental reorganizations. She explained: “The Associate Provost for SAL and the Dean of
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Students were the key leaders in the reorganizations, and they recognized the need to effectively
manage conflict...One of the most positive actions I saw in the reorganization was Dean
Kehrwald’s ability to recognize differences emerging among our Leadership Team members and
he would organize small group discussions to allow for differing opinions and conversation, a
key element to managing conflict in organizations (Marion & Gonzales, 2014). He recognized
the human side of the conflict and gave space for people to express their frustrations with both
the divisional and departmental reorganizations.”
LD further discussed what these observations indicated to her about her future leadership
style: “Managing conflict during change is often better when leaders can act quickly and resolve
issues that may provoke more conflict, but this quick action is often difficult for a tightly
coupled, bureaucratic system like UK (Burke, 2014)...The structures of UK often prevent our
leaders from making decisions quickly, leaving people fearful for longer and breeding more
conflict. What this reality indicates to me is the need to recognize that communication and
leadership are forever linked and share that recognition with those I lead. While a leader at a
large institution, I may not always be able to make changes quickly, and my decisions will
inevitably upset people while pleasing others. This conflict is part of leading, and a person who
is open to hearing from her staff and is honest about her limitations will assist in managing the
conflict.”
As BH explained, conflict in organizations requires members to be malleable and
adaptive to the changes in resources, often when those most affected have little say in the
changes. Conflict is about power differentials; therefore, leaders need to speak up for the most
vulnerable in their organization, but they also need to teach their followers the power that they
do have. BH explained an example of conflict while he was a graduate student and struggled to
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advocate for himself because of the limited power he had as a graduate assistant. He writes, “As
the bottom rung of the department’s organizational ladder, it became apparent of how little
power graduate students possessed. Power, as defined by Pfeffer, is ‘the potential ability to
influence behavior, to change the course of events, to overcome resistance, and to get people to
do things they would not otherwise do.’ (1992, p. 30.) I had formal authority over my staff and
the residents in my building, but very little in the greater residential life department. Because I
had little formal power in the department, when conflict did arise, the graduate hall directors
were the most unprotected even though the full time staff tried their best to support and look out
for us…[W]hen a complaint was lodged against me by an employee in another department, I was
not in a position to adequately defend myself because I was ‘only’ a graduate assistant.”
BH goes on to explore how leaders can best empower their most vulnerable populations:
“For undergraduate students, [empowering them is helping them to recognize] the power they do
have. What they lack in positional power they make up for in relational and collective power. As
we have seen with recent protests at universities across the nation, when students leverage their
power as interest groups and coalitions, real change can happen. As educators and leaders,
empowering students may look like encouraging their interest groups and advocating for them in
conversations they are left out of. Our relationships with students in turn empower us to promote
change and policy that best supports them.”
LT described specific initiatives within his college that were started because of the
changes to the funding structures for community colleges. Based on the performance-based
funding requirements, his school was needing to prove how they as administrators were
successfully contributing to students’ success, retention, and graduation. LT writes: “In
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Kentucky, college administrators are being asked to improve quality as budgets are reduced and
performance funding is implemented.”
LT goes on to further explain the initiatives that are contributing to increased quality
instruction: “The two major initiatives are the Four Disciplines of Excellence (4DX) and the
Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP). First, my college president is focused on improving student
success rates. Jefferson defines student success rates as the combination of pass, fail, and
withdrawal rates. The president and senior administrators monitor the success rates of faculty
and departments, as well as the Grade Point Averages (G.P.A.) of faculty versus the cumulative
department average...[The 4DX] practice requires teams consisting of departments or division to
choose a Wildly Important Goal (WIG) that addresses one of the sub-wigs, and then commit to
some practice to reach the goal. Every WIG at the college must relate to student success...as a
part of our Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) the college created a new program called Read &
Succeed. Read & Succeed will include lots of opportunities for students to engage directly in
activities, reading workshops, and just reading in spaces that are specifically set aside for
reading. There will also be training for faculty and staff to help students read more and read
more effectively.” This continual struggle for resources can be difficult, but as division chair, LT
has found a way to inspire and motivate his faculty through this conflict and increase student
success.
Theme Two: Innovation
Definition of Innovation
Innovations in higher education need to be reflective of the changing demographics of
students. The characteristics and needs of these students are evolving, requiring innovative
adaptability of colleges and universities (Selingo, 2016). As a team, we each described how one
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solution cannot meet the needs of every student in perpetuity. Staff and faculty must
continuously find new and innovative answers at institutional and departmental levels to support
a student’s education. Leaders, staff, and faculty must engage in professional development to
stay current with trends, and they must understand their students and their constituents
thoroughly.
Personal Narratives for Innovation
LD described the how the divisional reorganization at UK represented a move to stay
current with the needs of students and community constituents. She writes, “For an institution to
continue to thrive in the next decade, they will need to distinguish themselves from other
institutions by ‘tailoring their academic offerings and focusing on specific segments of students
rather than trying to serve everyone with a one-size-fits-all model’ (Selingo, 2016, p. 40).
UK anticipated these changes and moved to reorganize their division and the departments within
them using a nontraditional approach to a problem that many universities face. No longer would
academic affairs and student affairs be two separate entities: one impacting learning in a
classroom, and one impacting learning outside of the classroom. The Division of SAL would not
delineate between classroom learning and residential learning. Instead, faculty and staff would
work together closely to connect what a student is learning in class to what they are learning in
their work-study position, in their leadership roles, and in their residence halls.”
LD goes further in discussing how this merger can influence researcher-practitioner
relationships: “Students should not see the work they do in the classroom as separate from the
work they do outside of it. I am appreciative of this innovative approach to a researcherpractitioner partnership, as it is more far-reaching than just one isolated committee or meeting. In
making this partnership an expectation, researchers and practitioners can feel more comfortable
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in creating collaborative vision and goals. Both faculty and staff will be able to recognize what
benefits we are gaining by working together, how we are helping our students, and ways we can
sustain our partnerships (Thompson, Martinez, Clinton, & Diaz, 2017).”
BH’s description of innovative approaches in higher education focuses on ways to
involve multiple groups of people into instituting and sustaining change. He shares, “While my
vision may be lofty, I believe it necessary to improve the quality of all students who enter our
halls. Actualize and sustaining this vision calls for a change model that brings together members
from inside and outside the organization with the goal of best serving both groups. The
Community Weaving model is “an intricate patchwork of conscientious citizens functioning
interpedently with one another and formal systems in order to mend the tears in the social fabric
caused by fragmentation and shifts in the cultural, economic, and political climate” (Holman,
2007, p. 403). Community weaving combines, or weaves, together the grassroots web between
individual members of a community with the knowledge and skills of formal systems.
Transparency, innovation, and collaboration are necessary in community weaving to be
successful as a change model. Recruiting other “weavers” passionate about weaving community
to bring in members from inside and outside the organization will help sustain results along with
making results easily accessible and affiliating with an existing group or organization. Within
higher education, this is a change process that I imagine will be accepted relatively easily. Many
colleges and universities are creating formal and informal relationships with community
partners.”
LT describes how he encourages his faculty to pursue professional development that
leads to innovative approaches to current struggles: “I motivate my faculty to participate in
ongoing professional development about learning about disciplinary literacy as well as guided
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exploration in articulating the key literacy practices of their discipline, which can then inform
new instructional content. This is strategy makes up my two-part action plan. Research on
disciplinary literacy focuses on making explicit the divergent textual practices of various
disciplines and emphasizes the ways in which faculty as disciplinary ‘experts’ in these practices
play a role in helping students become “insiders” in the discourse community of a particular field
of inquiry (Shanahan, Shanathan, & Misischia, 2011). While disciplinary literacy and related
teaching strategies have been the subject of research in primary and secondary education for
some time, an increasing body of work explores these concepts in the higher education space as
well.”
Theme Three: Collaboration
Definition of Collaboration
Educational institutions serve a number of constituents. While teachers/faculty and
students may be the most obvious, colleges and universities are also beholden to parents,
companies that they may partner with or who hire their students, and the communities in which
they are situated. Relationship building and collaboration amongst these formal and informal
groups of the organization can go a long way toward achieving institutional goals. However, to
be effective in this collaboration, leaders must create a shared vision among all members and
involve all levels in the planning and execution of that vision.
Personal Narratives for Collaboration
Revisiting the divisional reorganization at UK, LD acknowledges how leaving staff out
of the process left them feeling as if they did not have a say in a change that could profoundly
affect the work they do. “Entering the reorganization, many staff members became an informal
group as we had a goal of understanding the purpose and the end goals of the reorg and we
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shared a common adversary—those that were initiating the reorg. Further, as an informal group,
we would engage and communicate about the reorg itself.” If upper administration had
collaborated with and incorporated the informal group into the organizational restructure, they
would be more likely to buy into the change where they had previously felt left out.
LD cites Leader-Member Exchange Theory in further examining her reflection of the
restructure. LMX “contends that three elements influence how leadership is wielded in an
institution: the leader themselves, their followers, and the relationship between the leader and
follower (Graen & Uhl-Bien, as cited in Marion & Gonzales, 2014)... During the reorganization
of our division, there was a lack of focus on the relationship between those leading the reorg and
those most affected by the reorg. Inclusion of all levels would have also shown staff that our
leaders were willing to work beside us instead of above us, a major feature of LMX (Marion &
Gonzalez, 2014).”
On the opposite end of LD’s experience with collaboration, BH reflects on his supervisor
from his first professional position in higher ed positive collaborations with workers in the office
he managed. “Using Path-Goal Theory as a framework, [he] fluctuated between directive,
supportive, and participative leadership. Given how the characteristics of the work we were
required to do could vary wildly depending on the time of the year and the territory we recruited
in, [he] was careful to provide clear instructions, attend to our well-being and needs, or allow us
to participate in decision making where appropriate (Northouse, 2018.)” This approach to
supporting the staff in BH’s former office is noteworthy because of the varying nature of the
work that we do as educators. There is no one size fits all approach to leading workers or
organizations. “Mismanaging workers and/or tasks can profoundly affect follower motivation.
Path-goal theory keeps the processes and dynamics behind motivation at the forefront of the
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leader’s mind (Northouse, 2018). If followers are not motivated to do transformational work”
then BH’s vision for educational organizations as equitable and just cannot be actualized.
LT uses his positionality as a faculty member and leader in his department to frame his
vision and how collaboration impacts the work he does. Once again, the theme of
communication between leaders and followers is repeated. “Being new, I know leading is a
collaborative process. Collaboration with stakeholders and followers involves mutual respect and
shared purpose. Moreover, leadership requires two-way communication between leaders and
followers.” Furthermore, LT cites his organization’s adoption of Franklin Covey’s 4 Disciplines
of Excellence (4DX) and the Read and Succeed program as manifestations of their collaborative
efforts. As one of the organization’s goals is to increase students’ proficiency in reading, the
latter brings together faculty and staff to achieve this goal. “There will also be training for
faculty and staff to help students read more and read more effectively. This is the college’s QEP
to help improve students’ reading because this is an area that our assessment data shows we
could do better—and because students, faculty, and staff agree that reading is important for
success.”
Theme Four: Student-Centeredness
Definition of Student-Centeredness
While educational organizations may have multiple, sometimes conflicting constituents,
students remain at the core of what we do as educators and leaders. A student-centered mindset
at the core of higher educational leadership helps to ensure their future success and our
sustainability as organizations. However, given the history of education in America, students
with marginalized identities often have wildly varying rates of success than their peers with
majority identities. As our nation and organizations continue to become more and more diverse,
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organizations will need to take into account their students’ identities when vision planning and
assessing their organizational culture.
Personal Narratives for Student-Centeredness
LD recognizes how identity factors into the lives and experiences of students in higher
education, but also how it can affect staff and faculty in those organizations. “Trisha, as a woman
of color in Lexington, Kentucky, is often considered a part of a marginalized population, and
therefore she offers a perspective that other candidates and directors in the Dean of Students unit
do not offer...I recognize that if I continue, I need to understand the perspectives of marginalized
identities to stay abreast of needs that I cannot see from my limited perspectives.” Diversity, in
this case the diversity of thought and viewpoint that different lived experiences and identities can
produce, can contribute to successful organizations. Its important, as LD points out, to also
recognize the limitations our identities can have in offering alternative viewpoints and the
additional work leaders have to do to counter this. Additional cultural competency development
opportunities can help leaders begin to recognize their blindspots.
BH moves beyond examining identity to acknowledging the other, often invisible, factors
that can affect students’ success. He cites his experiences as the co-chair for a student
recruitment team that struggled with getting ambassadors to participate. He uses multiple
motivational theories to offer alternatives to why students may not have been participating.
“Using Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, students who failed to have their base physical or safety
needs met would be concerned with prioritizing those versus participating in recruitment
activities. This can also be applied to Luhan’s modified version of Maslow’s hierarchy. The
ambassadors were a volunteer position so students may have prioritized other paid positions.
Additionally, hygienic-motivators could have played a part. Sergiovanni (1967) identified
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motivators like a sense of achievement and recognition for good work (as cited in Marion &
Gonzalez, 2014.) If students were not receiving this from their time spent as ambassadors then
they would not continue to volunteer for admissions’ events.”
This refocus on students’ most basic needs can be seen at UK in initiatives like the Big
Blue Pantry and the Community of Concern. As educators and leaders, we cannot expect
students to participate in programs that benefit them if their basic needs are not met.
The theme of student-centeredness shows up for LT influenced again by his positionality
as a faculty member and by his work at a open-access institution. Student-centeredness is best
summed up by his teaching philosophy of “every student is an A student.” He writes “my liberal
arts objectives include teaching critical thinking and fostering personal development through
writing skills and oral skills. To foster written skills in my class, I require my students to submit
a term paper. For assistance, I give my students an exhaustive rubric and throughout the semester
I discuss good writing habits and proper citation.”
LT’s focus on the whole student also shows up outside the classroom and in his own
professional development. He continues “First, I routinely seek out opportunities to remain
pedagogically up-to-date to improve my focus on student success...Second, I maintain my
membership with the American Sociological Association (ASA). As an instructor, I know the
importance of having a creative, interactive classroom, which is why I subscribe to ASA’s
Teaching Sociology journal, which publishes articles, notes, and reviews for teachers...I believe it
is important to remain current in my discipline to benefit my students and myself.”
Implications for Policy, Practice, and Research
As mentioned in our personal narratives, the needs of our students and the ways in which
institutions respond to those needs are rapidly changing. Our visions as a team reflected how
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leaders, staff, and faculty manage those changes in their organizations. Further, we explored the
ways in which conflict, innovation, collaboration, and student-centeredness manifest in our and
our leaders’ responses to these changes.
One of the ways that we found in our collective visions is that collaboration between staff
and faculty is a practice that many departments and institutions are pursuing; collaborative
initiatives with these two groups is a goal that we have been tasked with meeting in our current
roles. Future research should include deeper exploration of the barriers to that collaboration,
inclusive of but not limited to the overextension of junior faculty, the weight of tokenism for
faculty and staff from marginalized populations, the various ways that the two groups define
collaboration and expectations of collaboration. Finding answers to these types of questions can
help guide staff and faculty when they are creating curricula for both inside and outside the
classrooms.
While each of us holds very different positions in very different types of departments and
institutions, we each recognized the impacts that revolutionary change or evolutionary change
can have on the staff, faculty, and students. It is necessary for us as leaders to evaluate which
large-scale initiatives need to be introduced incrementally and which need to be immediate
overhauls of policy and practice. This decision can have major ripple effects on the constituents
that we serve. It is imperative that our practice in initiating change is thoughtful and done with
care for all involved while recognizing that the process may be difficult, and we will make
mistakes. Future research should include how the cultures of different types of higher education
institutions evolve through change-- exploring the practices and methods leaders can use that
best introduce change, persist through change, and sustain the change.
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