When you become senior enough, you get to (kind of) be temporarily in charge of other senior academics, generally as chair of a committee, or seventeen.

I don’t know if I am finally achieving new levels of maturity, but I’ve acquired some unexpected insights from chairing one important university committee. One such insight has to do with having always felt like I was too uncouth for academia. It turns out there is (probably) nothing wrong with me. I have witnessed people lauded for their tact and composure do stuff I never would, or stuff that, if I did, I would beat myself up over for half a decade. Yet, these other folks don’t seem to be plagued by guilt or shame. It truly is all about how one sees oneself.

Senior academics feel very strongly about things and believe they know best, which makes them challenging to lead. With some, the knowing best manifests as belligerence. With others, it presents as excessive proactiveness, doing something far too soon or doing something that turns out to be a bad idea, then backtracking and causing things to fall into disarray.

I’ve had the previous committee chair, now no longer chair but still on the committee, all but scold me over doing something that is not procedure, just something this person individually feels should be done a certain different way. I responded to the barely disguised written snark with a thank you, then took the issue to the whole committee, where we collectively decided how it would be handled in the future. I owe the former chair some deference, but not limitless deference. Former chair is still just a faculty member, just like myself.

Overall, as challenging as herding cats might be, it has made me feel better about myself as a grownup academic. Seeing others lose their cool, do (minor) imprudent things, and say stuff that is not perfect for the occasion feels vindicating. It also makes me resent all the more the person who, years ago, when I was first starting out as faculty, flat out told me I didn’t have the personality for administration; since the words played into my existing insecurities, I took them as the truth. I hope the person was simply wrong, the way people with big egos are wrong when they assume they know things well beyond the realm of  competence, and not that they tried to manipulate me. Because it turns out my poker face has gotten good over the years, my written-communication game is on point, and I have just the right amount of not giving a fuck on account of my gooey center no longer being beholden to academia that I might be ready for larger herds of academic cats. I might even enjoy the challenge.