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Rebecca Stein and I first became friends in 2018 when she co-started the Ivy+ Online Learning group. Since connecting through Ivy+, we have spent time together on each other’s campuses and at various conferences, events and advisory boards. Rebecca and I have been talking about careers and career transitions for nontraditional academics, and we’d like to share some of that conversation with you.

Q: You recently retired as the co–executive director at Penn’s Center for Excellence in Teaching, Learning and Innovation. Can you describe your educational and career path?
A: As a teenager, I wanted to open a bed-and-breakfast in Jerusalem, so my first degree was an associate degree in hotel management. Luckily, the courses I took exposed me to economics and its ways of thinking. I realized that my comparative advantage was in that direction and went to Hebrew University to study economics and history. A Ph.D. brought me to Northwestern, and love and marriage kept me in the U.S.A.
When my husband got an offer from Penn, I was happy to tag along. By then, I knew I loved teaching and was naively hoping to find a position at one of the liberal arts colleges in the Philly region. That never happened, but I did have 20 great years of teaching at Penn. My core class was the Microeconomics Principles course, in multiple sessions a semester. For a few years, I taught half the undergraduates at Penn.
When MOOCs started and Penn partnered with Coursera, I was asked to create one of Penn’s first courses on the platform. That experience opened me to online teaching and the ability to use technology to reach people who cannot come to campus. When I got a handmade card from a learner in Thailand thanking me for the course, I knew this was a revolution I wanted to be part of and looked for a way to have a larger impact within Penn in this area. This position was the perfect match: With a small and mighty team, we built an infrastructure where online programs thrive and online teaching is normalized.
By now, one in 10 students at Penn is enrolled in a fully online degree program. Each of these degrees is fully integrated into the regular governance and operations of the institution. These are Penn students, studying with Penn faculty and getting a Penn degree, just in another way.
Q: As you look forward to the next five or 10 years, where do you think your leadership work in online learning at Penn and nationally might take you?
A: Our office functioned as an internal consulting unit across Penn’s 12 schools. We created a tool kit of resources in areas of policy, instructional design, contracts, compliance, marketing and more and provided these resources as new programs were initiated, developed and matured, tailoring our support to each degree and its goals. It seems natural to me to help other programs through these stages and I hope I find opportunities to do that.
Q: You and I are both nontraditional academics in the sense that we have disciplinary terminal degrees, and our work in higher education is outside of the faculty tenure-track path. What advice do you have for recent or midcareer Ph.D.s who might be interested in moving into nonfaculty leadership roles such as yours?
A: Having a Ph.D. opened doors and opportunities for me, and I am very grateful I had the time and resources to complete it. Careers are long, and there is time to take more than one path. Teaching economics was meaningful and satisfying for a long time, but when I started getting restless, I was happy to take another tack.
I’d encourage others to take the leap when they are ready. Moving from faculty to staff means you lose some autonomy: You have a boss, a team you need to hire and manage, PTO to request. One thing I did not seek out when I made the move, and in retrospect should have, was a mentor who made a similar change. Someone to help guide this transition and do some management coaching would have been a great support. However, making this change allowed me to have a much broader influence on this wonderful institution and gave me a whole new perspective on what a university is. I’m so grateful I took this step.