“Assistant Director for Academic Initiatives” or ADAI. This is my title and the position that I stepped into here at Ohio State last summer. I often get a lot of questions about what it is that I actually do, and until recently, I felt pretty well equipped to respond.However, amidst all of the changes at the university and in our department, including changes to my actual responsibilities, I find myself sometimes stumbling to give a coherent answer.
So, what would I have told people before? I would have told them about how I work with the Learning Communities in our buildings and am a part of the planning team to facilitate those programs and events. I would have mentioned that I went to one-on-one meetings to build relationships with our hall directors and find out how I can support their LCs and their staffs as well as discover what kinds of academic resources I could provide to them. I would also talk about a number of ways that I helped out with the fiscal side of LC spending. But now hall directors have been empowered to take control of their own LCs and their supervisors, the “other” assistant directors, have been charged with helping their staff be successful, including their work with LCs. (Please note I’m only using “other” to indicate that I have a very different job than the ADs who supervise our hall staff, not that I have any animosity there.)
Don’t get me wrong. I still keep myself busy and find my free time isn’t as wide open as it might sound. I work with some auxiliary assignments including our tutoring and community service initiatives. I still have a role in Learning Communities in an overarching way, and am still a part of a number of big picture conversations. I just don’t know how to encapsulate that when someone asks what I do.
Everyone else can talk about who they supervise and tangible things that they actually produce. Their place in a hierarchy is clear and mine is a bit muddled. I take comfort in knowing I’m not alone (there are two others who have the same title and just work with different buildings and communities), but I also recognize that my peers and I are constantly looking at each other and thinking: “Is that the way I’m supposed to be doing this?”
This doesn’t occur because we’re self-conscious, just because we really don’t know the answer. Our individual personalities, the people we work with, and programs that we support all shape how we are currently working and I can’t say we’re always on the same page, but we often don’t know which page we’re supposed to be on anyway.
Hierarchy is not everything and I have no issues doing things that aren’t in my job description or letting someone do something that is when they might be better equipped to do so. I am just struggling with how I can do my job and help support our mission without stepping on others’ toes. Because my role has changed so much (and after only being in it one year, I really hadn’t fully understood the complexities of it to begin with), I often find myself asking who else should be around the table. When academic partners contact me, I find myself wondering if it’s my job, the hall director’s job, the assistant director’s job, or everyone’s to respond. I know deep down the answer is that everyone has a responsibility, but that’s not really clear-cut. It’s not that I want to be the first one in line to say “Nope, not my job,” but I also find myself confused about where to draw the line and am still wading through to find the answer. I don’t want to leave anyone out of the conversations who should be there or shift the ownership in the wrong direction, but I also want to make sure we work smart, don’t duplicate efforts and at the same time all have the ability to meaningfully contribute.
As a professional, I find that I usually deal well with ambiguity, but every time someone asks me what my job is or what it actually means, I struggle to communicate it in a succinct and meaningful way and remember that I don’t actually know the whole answer. (Which probably leaves some people thinking that all I do is sit in my office and play sporcle games all day long.) Amid all of the uncertainty, I know I’m not alone, that we’re all working to make our own meaning and should spend more time focusing on our shared goals instead of our individual roles. After all, with the changes that have already happened and the assumption that more changes are afoot, I’m trying to mentally prepare myself for the fact that my role and responsibilities might shift again before the dust has settled.
Ball State University has an emerging media living learning community, which is discussed in this short article. We’re not familiar with any other communities like it. However, there’s probably a lot of unusual living-learning communities out there. The often-seen living-learning communities–those based on a major or profession; ones for freshmen; for honors students–are great support systems for those students. But sometimes an unusual theme for a living-learning community can say a lot about the student, staff or faculty population at a certain institution or the area around it. Do you have an unusual living-learning community? Tell us about it!
Click here for RSS feed