Don't decide you can't do the job based on an observation of one
Kathryn Birkeland was sure she would never be a dean. Then she stopped judging the role by the one person she had watched do it.
For years, she was sure the dean's job was not for her
Kathryn Birkeland took the traditional academic road. Faculty member. Tenure. Department chair. Associate dean. For a long time she thought the dean's job simply was not for her.
Then, moving up, she started seeing the decisions up close. The one part that worried her was fundraising, so she went and learned it on her own, doing development work for United Way and local nonprofits until it was a strength.
Each time she watched a decision get made, she found herself thinking she would do it differently, maybe even better. And she was honest enough to say so out loud. As she tells it, if you offer enough ideas, eventually someone says, well, maybe you should do it. So she did. A tip from a high school friend pointed her to the open dean role at North Dakota State University. She applied, interviewed, fell in love, and the rest is history.
The mystery fell away
What gave her the confidence was seeing behind the curtain. The more she watched how decisions actually got made, the more the mystery fell away.
Her first taste of WIBE was a plane ride
Kathryn's first real taste of WIBE was not a webinar. It was a plane. She and Lisa happened to sit next to each other on the flight to a Dean's conference in Barcelona, and they talked the whole way there. They have not stopped since.
By the time she landed for the New Dean Seminar, still figuring out how to do the job, she was already inside the community. Do you need a ride? Do you know how to get here? Can you come to dinner with us?
A network that reaches far past her own bubble
WIBE connects her with deans far outside her own university and far outside the Upper Midwest, on the East Coast, in the Mountain West, in Texas. People who remember her name. When she has needed a real answer, how another college handled a recruitment problem, how peers adjusted a program, she has reached out to members she is connected to in no other way except WIBE, and simply asked for thirty minutes.
In a lot of organizations, the invitations keep coming only as long as you stay active. In WIBE, when she goes quiet for a couple of months, the message is not, I guess you are not interested. It is, are you okay, can we help.
Now she holds the door for the next dean
Kathryn pays for her associate deans, her chairs, and her faculty to be part of WIBE. She stepped into the Leadership Council, mentoring newer deans, including Liz Cartier (read her story here), and serving as one of the faces of the community's values.
She believes deans owe something to higher education as a whole, not just their own institution. And she is honest about why the network matters so much. There is often no one inside your own college facing the exact problem you are facing. The people who understand it best are the other deans, the ones who can take a hard question and say, yes, I have been there, here is what I did.
Before, and after
Ask her what the job felt like before this network, and she does not hesitate.
Ask her to finish the sentence, and the answer is pure Kathryn.
And the line that ended our conversation, for every associate dean who is judging the role by the one boss they have watched do it.
Your next chapter starts in the room
Every member story began with one decision to stop doing it alone. Yours can too.
Explore Membership