Before you started up the ladder of higher education administration, you had an active life as a researcher and professor with appointments in places like Rome and Paris. Why did you make the switch to administration?
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| Sharon Brehm is Indiana University vice president for academic affairs and chancellor of the IU Bloomington campus. Photo © 2001 Tyagan Miller |
You know that wonderful book The Accidental Tourist? Sometimes I feel like “The Accidental Administrator.” If you had asked in the early 1980s if I would become an academic administrator, I would have been completely nonplussed by the question. When I did go into administration, my faculty friends thought it was quite a strange choice! For the most part, it was my interest in having more involvement with undergraduates that led me into administration. In the mid-’80s, when I had just finished my book Intimate Relationships, I was looking to do new things. I saw an ad in the University of Kansas newspaper for the directorship of the College Honors Program, which interested me because I had worked with honors students and enjoyed those interactions. So I applied and got the job. When I look back over my career, I realize that was one of the most interesting and satisfying positions I’ve ever had.
What has kept you in academic administration?
There are many things about being
an administrator that are similar to what one does as an academic. One similarity
is the need to digest a great deal of information, then find the principles
in that information, and be able to apply those principles in meaningful and
useful ways. When I’m working on a project, I’m constantly going
back and forth between what, as a scholar, I would call theory—the institution
as a whole—and data, the facts, what’s actually happening. The whole
process involves trying to deeply understand how programs and issues fit into
and affect the larger whole. To me, there is an enormous intellectual challenge
in administration. I love going into an unfamiliar institution; I love the
learning phase. I’m happiest, actually, when I have very complicated
problems to solve. I’m not good at repetition.
Your area of scholarly expertise is social
psychology and the psychology of relationships. How does that expertise affect
your approach as a university administrator?
I was initially trained as
clinician, and many people have said, “Well, being trained to do psychotherapy
must be useful as administrator.” I’m always careful to say that
I don’t practice without a license! Seriously, I think my training plays
an enormous role. In the view of social psychology, fundamental human behavior
is a function of the interaction between the person and the environment. That
sounds simple, but actually, it’s a profoundly meaningful insight. All
of the issues we encounter, in the university or any other setting, are connected
somehow, some way, with specific individuals. So in order to address the issues,
first we need to understand the individual involved and also understand each
person’s specific situation. The mistake is to believe that it’s
all a personal matter, or that it’s entirely the outcome of situational
factors. It’s both. More generally, I think having a social scientific
background has been very helpful to me as an administrator. As a social scientist,
I’m comfortable with data— actually, you could say I’m uncomfortable
with it!—theory, and application, all of which are necessary for administrative
work. My own field of psychology has also been particularly useful. Psychology
is an incredibly diverse field. I’ve always felt comfortable with the
full range of disciplines because psychology has some piece of almost all
of them.
You were the first woman provost at Ohio
University, and you are the first woman chancellor at IU Bloomington. You’ve
edited a book about women’s roles, including professional roles. What
are your thoughts on being the “first woman” in these positions
and your observations about women in the academy today?
It’s a highly desirable development in our society that more and more
positions, occupations, and activities are not seen as gender-segregated.
They are open to men and women with the appropriate skills and talents. I’m
very pleased that the positions I’ve held have constituted another step
toward gender equality. In the university, as in all organizations and throughout
society, the fact that women can now be free participants in world of work
is a truly revolutionary change. We’re still struggling with many issues
that are raised by this transformation, particularly how these changes affect
traditional notions of family life. How do we build a society that is both
gender-equal and family-friendly? How do we support individuals (in couples)
who both aspire to careers? Is the tenure clock appropriate for women, who
have a reproductive activity that men do not? Obviously, these sorts of issues
really deserve the full attention of not just the academy but society as whole.
As the new head of the IUB campus, you’re
undoubtedly being inundated with advice from all quarters, much of it likely
contradictory. What principles or strategies do you use to navigate among
competing suggestions?
Basically, I follow a relatively casual form of the scientific method. I’m
always testing hypotheses. As data begin to come in, you have to form some
sort of hypothesis. You begin to see some general patterns and inferences.
But it’s really critical to see it as a hypothesis, not a proven fact.
That’s a struggle, because all of us like to solve problems quickly.
But whenever you’re in a new environment, it’s especially important
to suspend judgment and stay in a hypothesis-testing mode, to get as much
input as possible and then gradually begin to make judgments and draw conclusions.
Sometimes, of course, you’re going to make a mistake. And because we’re
all fallible, the ability to be open to disconfirming feedback is important.
Human beings don’t like disconfirming feedback, but the mark of a true
scholar—and good administrator—is when that feedback is taken seriously.
You’re living at 1321 E. 10th Street,
a residence that IU Bloomington faculty, staff, students, and alumni associate
strongly with the late Herman B Wells, IU’s University Chancellor. What
are your thoughts about living in Wells’s former home?
I want to make sure that the spirit of Herman B Wells, as best I understand
it, is manifest in the way that I live
in the house. The chancellor’s house should be seen as truly a part of
the life of the campus, not just a place where an individual lives. It should
be a busy, active place, with many events held there, open to students, faculty,
staff, alumni, and the community. I hope making
it possible for people to feel at home in the chancellor’s house will
be consistent with Wells’s love of community and conviviality.
I’ve read that you like Harry Potter,
Bob Dylan, opera, and very fast planes. What does this say about you?
I’m not sure. . . . That’s an interesting array, but I’m not
a good enough psychologist to put all those things together!
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