Show notes
Student affairs professionals often encounter interim leadership positions, which can significantly impact a university's trajectory. This podcast episode from "Student Affairs Voices from the Field" explores the nuances of interim leadership with insights from Dr. Jen Myers Pickard and Dr. Leanna Fenneberg. What is Interim Leadership? Interim leadership occurs when a temporary leader steps into a role during a transition period at a higher education institution. As Dr. Jen Myers Pickard explains, there are typically two types of interim leaders: those who come from within the institution and those brought in externally. Internal interims can offer continuity, while external interims bring fresh perspectives and prevent internal disruption. The Purpose of Interim Leadership Dr. Pickard and Dr. Fenneberg articulate the goals of interim leadership. Universities may choose interim leaders to maintain momentum on strategic priorities, provide specific expertise, or mentor existing teams. Interim roles can also facilitate necessary changes without long-term commitments, allowing institutions to address pressing issues such as restructuring or leadership challenges. Inherent Challenges and Considerations For many institutions, the decision to bring in an external interim leader raises questions about its impact on current staff. Concerns exist that an interim leader might delay significant initiatives or focus solely on maintaining existing processes. Dr. Fenneberg shares her experiences, emphasizing the importance of addressing such concerns through active engagement and transparent communication with all campus stakeholders. Transitioning from Interim to Permanent Roles Some interim leaders see their positions as stepping stones to permanent roles. Dr. Pickard advises having candid conversations with supervisors about potential long-term opportunities. Understanding the contractual terms of interim placements can also influence whether one can be considered for the permanent position. Deciding on Interim Leadership Choosing interim leadership as a career step can be strategic. Dr. Fenneberg discusses her decision-making process, which involved balancing the need for employment and her commitment to family. She underscores the role of networking in finding interim positions, while Dr. Pickard emphasizes reaching out to placement firms to explore opportunities. Embracing the Interim Role Fully Dr. Fenneberg and Dr. Pickard agree on the importance of fully engaging with interim roles. By adopting a proactive approach, interim leaders can make meaningful contributions to their institutions. This includes mentoring teams, sustaining strategic initiatives, and exploring opportunities for personal and professional growth. Interim leadership in higher education presents unique challenges and opportunities for growth. By engaging fully and understanding the context of their roles, interim leaders can significantly impact their institutions while setting the stage for future success. TRANSCRIPT Dr. Jill Creighton [00:00:01]: Welcome to Student Affairs Voices from the Field, the podcast where we share your student affairs stories from fresh perspectives to seasoned experts. Brought to you by NASPA, we curate free and accessible professional development for higher ed professionals wherever you happen to be. This is season 12, continuing our journey through the past, present, and future of student affairs. I'm Dr. Jill Creighton, she, her, hers, your essay voices from the field host. Today on essay voices, we're exploring the topic of interim leadership with two wonderful colleagues, Dr. Jen Myers Pickard and Dr. Leanna Fenneberg. Based in Tucson, Arizona, Jen brought her skills to Whit Kiefer after nearly two decades in academic and student affairs roles at AAU institutions, first at Northwest University and the University of Maryland and later at the University of Arizona. Jen has a broad insight into the inner workings of higher education institutions and is driven by passion to find the right leaders for specific client needs. Her search expertise includes presidents, provosts, deans, and leaders in a wide variety of administrative units, including student affairs, student success, research and innovation, and finance and administration. Dr. Jill Creighton [00:01:05]: Jen joined Whitkey for after nineteen years in higher ed, most recently serving as the AVP for divisional initiatives and planning within student affairs and enrollment management, academic initiatives, and student success at the University of Arizona. In this role, Jen functioned in a chief of staff capacity, extending the vision and capacity of senior institutional leadership through work on change management initiatives, executive level talent acquisition, oversight of institution wide assessment efforts, and leadership of faculty student engagement and success programs. Jen is very proud of her leadership and administrative roots within the field of education. As such, she's deeply committed to the cultivation of emerging higher education professionals, continuing to develop and facilitate leadership institutes and conference sessions, and being active in NASPA along with other higher ed organizations. Additionally, Jen joined the board of the International School of Tucson in January of twenty twenty and was named board chair in June of twenty twenty one. Dr. Leanna Fenneberg is a recent NASPA pillar of the profession and has dedicated over twenty five years in higher education and student affairs. Committed to advancing the potential of all students, Dr. Feeneberg's leadership focuses on diversity, equity, and inclusion, holistic student success and well-being, and the role of campus partnerships in transformational learning. A servant leader, colleagues describe her as a source of energy and purpose, driven by integrity, care for others, and an unwavering work ethic. Dr. Jill Creighton [00:02:19]: Dr. Fenenberg serves as senior vice president for student life at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, following a career spanning functional areas, including housing, first year experience, and student success, earning early recognition as an astounding first year student advocate by the National Resource Center for the First Year Experience and Students in Transition. NASPA has been a primary professional place of inspiration and connection. She's served on the NASPA board of directors as director of knowledge communities, as cochair for the Women in Student Affairs WISA, and the student affairs partnering with academic affairs SAPA knowledge communities, and recently the director for the Alice Manaker Symposium. Her expertise is evidenced through peer reviewed articles, countless national presentations, and instruction in masters and Dr.al programs in higher education administration. As a first generation college graduate, Dr. Fenneberg holds a PhD in higher education administration from Saint Louis University, an MEd in student personnel services from the University of South Carolina, and a BA in communication from Marquette. She's a devoted wife, mom of two sons, and two cats, and finds joy in travel and reading. Welcome to Essay Voices. Today, we have Jen. Dr. Jill Creighton [00:03:20]: Hi, Jen. Hi. How are you? And Liana. Hello. So glad to be featuring you both, and I love it when we get to do episodes where we can get two perspectives on the same topic, which is what we're gonna be doing today, talking all about interim leadership placement processes in higher ed leadership. I think this is an area of higher ed leadership that has a little bit of mysticism around it. So I'm looking forward to demystifying how we get into interim leadership placements through formalities and search versus maybe informal interim placements and what it's like to be in that interim seat, which I know has both pros and cons to it. But before we get into the topic, we'd love to get to know you both a little bit better. Dr. Jill Creighton [00:04:00]: So, Jen, let's start with you. How did you get to your current seat at WKiefer? Dr. Jen Myers Pickard [00:04:03]: Sure. Very happy to share that briefly. Well, so my name is Jen Pickard. It's great to see you all or be with you here today. I actually came to my seat at Wake Kiefer via twenty years of being on campuses. So I actually started in sort of the in the traditional student affairs manner, thought I wanted to be a Dean of Students when I grew up, was heading into my Dr.ate, doing all that work in assessment and research actually at that time, and then moved into a position at the University of Arizona. It was a chief of of staff type of role at a very large division that oversaw student affairs, enrollment management, academic initiatives, and student success. Say that fast a few times. Dr. Jen Myers Pickard [00:04:39]: And it was a great and wonderful role because I with Kiefer, just a very right moment in time, I decided to jump on the search bandwagon that was in the summer of twenty eighteen. Six and a half years later, I'm now a senior partner and the head of our student affairs practice. Dr. Jill Creighton [00:05:05]: And, Liana, you are in a new role right now, but you also have gone through the Kiefer process through interim placement. But how did you get to your current VPSA seat? Dr. Leanna Fenneberg [00:05:14]: Yes. Absolutely. Hello, everyone. Liana Fetterberg. I serve as the senior vice president for student life at Duquesne University. I'm in my ninth month here on campus, so it is a newer role. I've been in student affairs for this my twenty sixth year, I start to feel old and feel I earned my gray hair. But to say this is my eighth year as a vice president. Dr. Leanna Fenneberg [00:05:33]: And after my vice president position at Rider University was eliminated as a cost savings measure, I started a national search. And as a part of that search, ended up in an interim placement situation for one academic year before coming here to Duquesne. And, actually, I ended up getting that position kind of through relationships. So an informal route. There are certainly coordinated, placement services through WhitKiefer and others, but mine ended up through my network, through relationships where people knew that I was without a position, and there was an institution and there was an institution and colleagues that had a need and, ended up filling that role. And it was a great experience. So I look forward to this conversation. Dr. Jill Creighton [00:06:12]: As we move forward in this conversation, let's talk about first, what is interim leadership? What does that mean to you? Dr. Jen Myers Pickard [00:06:18]: Well, I think that interim leadership, people think of it from two different ways. I think the one is an interim leader who is currently serving at that institution who's been asked or tapped on the shoulder when leadership departs or there's a transition of some sort to sit in that seat for x amount of time. Sometimes that's very defined, sometimes it's not, and sometimes that leads to new job for them, and sometimes it doesn't. So there's a lot of different parameters in that way. The other kind of interim that we think about and certainly what we obviously are supporting it with Kiefer is interim leadership where the university says we definitely wanna have some sort of external person. And often, that is because they want to be able to support and make sure that internally, right, we're not we're not messing up the apple cart, if you will, by pulling someone out of their day to day role or asking them to do double duty in their role, but rather wanna bring an external person in who maybe has that experience expertise skills or or obviously will have those expertise and skills in whichever space they're in, but they're also probably bringing a different perspective, right, to the role, to the work, and to the support it. So, again, those things can have very defined parameters, or it can be something that continues to be ongoing or, you know, is renegotiated after x amount of time. So I would consider those as sort of the two kind of leadership or interim types or definition of. Dr. Jill Creighton [00:07:40]: I'm glad you mentioned this possibility of bringing an external leadership not to disrupt the day to day operations of what's going on internally to an institution or to a student affairs division. Because I think if you're a person who is on the receiving end of new interim leadership, it can be kind of scary. It can also be a question of, like, well, why wasn't somebody that's already at the university selected to do this role? So what are you hearing when universities come to, your agency or any other agency? Just side note, we are not sponsored by WhitKiefer. This is not an ad episode. Dr. Jen Myers Pickard [00:08:12]: Not an ad for WhitKiefer. And I'll talk about other firms too, right, and what I know of them as well where I can. Yeah. We're just glad to have Jen's expertise on the topic. So I just wanna make sure we put that out there. But I am wondering what you hear from universities when the decision is made to bring in that external perspective rather than, promote someone within for that interim period of time. Right. So I think that so we actually I did some looking in some of our Wake Kiefer team. Dr. Jen Myers Pickard [00:08:37]: I asked in preparation for this to do a little of a deep dive, some of the motivations around interim leadership, etcetera, etcetera. And some of the things that they pulled back that we've learned from very much from our presidential placements in this space, but also this applies to other vice presidential levels or even other places in the organization. A lot of times why they're bringing folks in from outside is, you know, they really want to keep the momentum of key strategic priorities moving, right, in operational goals, objectives, things like that. Also, wanna pull in specific expertise areas. So, for example, if there's a division who is really trying to lean in on health and wellness initiatives, right, they might decide to find an interim who really has specialty or an expertise and in that space to try and do that work and help move the division forward in that work. Sometimes it is the way that it's helped out. It's helping to mentor other leaders on campus. And so they want this person as a really strong advocate for these individuals, for the team, especially in helping them prepare for their next permanent leader. Dr. Jen Myers Pickard [00:09:46]: I've definitely seen that happening. And then sometimes it's around the making and deploying change engine. Right? Who can make some tough decisions, who can do an analysis of the space, and maybe they might have them making some of those initial changes and different things that have to happen. That might be a structural change. It might be leadership change or or team change or or rearrangement there and so on. But, yeah, I think those are some of the major areas that we definitely see. I don't know, Liana, if there's other things that you've sort of heard and seen in your time now engaging more in the interim in that. Dr. Leanna Fenneberg [00:10:18]: Honestly, Jen, that was a great recap of the different categories of why institutions that I'm hearing are considering or implementing interim leaders. I'll just add kind of a personal caveat based on my situation. So I was a vice provost for student life at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. And it was a very unique and sensitive situation in that their incumbent vice president was battling cancer and was undergoing an intensive cancer treatment. And they needed an on the grou…
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