Monday, March 5, 2007

Position: Provost, Alexandria campus, Northern Virginia Community College, the largest institution of higher education in Virginia and the second-largest community college in the country. The school has six campuses -- Alexandria, Annandale, Loudoun, Manassas, Springfield and Woodbridge -- with more than 60,000 students.

Career Highlights: Dean, school of business and public service, State University of New York at Canton; adjunct faculty, school of management & school of education, Lesley University; associate professor, management, Wentworth Institute of Technology; assistant professor and director of program development, school of management, Lesley University; associate dean, business and careers program, Massachusetts Bay Community College; chairman, department of business administration, Newbury College; instructor, business, hotel and restaurant management, Newbury College; accountant and consultant for small farms and business (self-employed); retail manager, Christy's Market, and assistant recruitment officer, Water & Sewerage Authority (Trinidad & Tobago).

Age: 48

Education: AAS, business administration, Newbury College; BS, business administration, Providence College; MBA, University of Massachusetts; EdD, planning and leadership, University of Massachusetts.

Personal: Lives in Alexandria with wife Josephine. The couple has two daughters in college, Joy, 23, and Joanne, 21, and a son, Julius, 8.

How did you get to where you are?

Sometimes I flew and sometimes I drove. But seriously, the path to this position has been somewhat intentional and somewhat by pure happenstance. I think that a lot of times as we rise from one level to the next, we take credit for things that we had very little intentional output. In other words, we take credit for things that would have happened with or without our help. For example, my start in higher education. I began as a volunteer tutor at a community college. And through encouragement and guidance of someone who believed that I would be a good faculty member, I took a full-time faculty job with part-time pay. But, I was committed to that and the only thing I asked for was health benefits because my kids were very young at the time. But once I got into higher education, I realized two things: I love teaching but I didn't know anything about it. The intentional part of getting me to where I am had to do with learning more about education. But I saw lots of opportunities to try and change some of the things that were happening within education. So if one looks at my career path in education, you will see that I have gone in and out of administration and teaching. And I think that is very, very important because administration sometimes gets so far removed from students that we can sometimes forget what happens in the classroom. So this was another piece of the intentionality.

Another intentional thing to some degree was my own attempt to have my feet in a variety of institutions. I worked at two-year public and private as well as four-year institutions. And that's a critical piece for me because by me having an opportunity to work in those institutions I was able to see as many facets of higher education, so I could sit at the table with folks from many different types of institutions. Longer term, I've always been interested in new ideas, entrepreneurial ideas and creative ways to do things in general. I've been very interested and involved with a variety of community activities, assessment and entrepreneurial activities and distance education issues. While I was at SUNY Canton, I had a great opportunity to try out some of these ideas. And this sort of gave me the impetus that I needed to think beyond that institution to where I needed to be next. So getting here was a journey. It was a struggle and along the way I've had to deal with faculty union, faculty work-to-rule and a variety of fiscal austerity measures such as cut backs in funding. But those have been very valuable lessons. One of the things that I've been able to deal with successfully is working with a little and gaining a lot. But how you do that is not through policies and procedures. It's through personal relationships. The other thing I recognized is that change is very difficult and in order to have successful change you have to present it as opportunity. But as a leader you need to get your hands dirty. You cannot be aloof from the change process. And this is one of the things that I like to remind people. I consider myself a high school coach. I've coached soccer and I've officiated soccer for many years. The reason I consider myself a high school coach is simply because high school coaches do not have the luxury of going to the next town to recruit players. The only players you can use are the ones who live in your school district. Therefore, as a leader, for me the first thing I have to do is to find the strength of every person on my team and use them accordingly.

I grew up on a dairy farm and this helped me to build patience and character because you learn quickly that everything is a factor. If it's too hot, there is a problem. If it's too cold, there is a problem. If it rains too much that can also be a problem. Since nothing is ever perfect, you learn to be patient and to develop the fortitude to deal with many changing circumstances.

-- Judith Mbuya