Learning a Language Called ‘How to Provost’

I was serving as an associate dean when I had a conversation about teaching with a colleague whose disciplinary home is biology. She shared how difficult it was to move through the anatomy and physiology curriculum while students were struggling to learn vocabulary or took longer than planned to master it, hindering the progress of the entire class.

That piqued my interest. It sounded like an approach that differed from how my students learned German. My students tried out new vocabulary from the first day, putting words together in ways that were deeply wrong, sometimes with hilarious or puzzling results, but it was all part of the fun of learning a new language. In my classroom, I confessed to my colleague, the results are always a little bit broken. Instead of waiting for everyone to make sure they had it just right, we focused on making ourselves understood. We used tools like gisting, circumlocution, body language and even a bit of “Germlish” if all else failed. We created a learning space that welcomed the interstitial. Between meaning and intent lay the creative spaces where something new emerged, a hybrid of discovery and encounter that didn’t happen in our native languages—and perhaps never could.

Anyone starting out in a new role as an administrator in higher education might find this experience relatable, especially someone arriving at a new institution. When I started as provost at Hollins University in July 2021, I called on my experiences and skills in navigating a new culture and language. Provosting is full immersion, and I recognize that gaining fluency requires a willingness to make mistakes and learn from them.

As I’ve been learning a new language I call “how to provost,” I’ve tried to remember what it’s like to inhabit a new role without first knowing the language. It’s not about first learning a list of new vocabulary words and applying them. Instead, it’s learning new vocabulary and syntaxes, bit by bit, inhabiting the new language through my own experiences and values. More accurately, it’s like studying abroad, when a new language, a new culture and my own experiences of the world come together. I must learn how to adapt to the in-between spaces of practices and communication, attempting to find and define myself within this melding of me and imagined me.

One evening early in my tenure as provost, I remarked to my husband that the exhaustion I felt at the end of a long day was like my first few weeks studying in Austria for the first time. My mind and heart worked hard to find the right words, attending to every new thing I heard, trying to make meaning while not losing myself. It took me many years becoming fluent in German before I felt that I could express my true self. Until then, I was a bit lost, speaking broken German while striving to make it my own.

When I started in my new role, I “spoke provost” in a broken way, and many of my constituents were (and still are!) willing to point this out to me, underlining the correct vocabulary or syntax, which in our context means cultural norms. At a small institution, practices are not always documented, but tacit agreement among those with legacy knowledge means that the expected task will be fulfilled. Soon I realized that my yearly panic over which documents my office should submit for tenure and promotion dossiers wasn’t a result of me doing something wrong, but of cultural expectations that were implied, not explicit. When a search for written instructions yielded nothing, I worked with the tenure and promotion committee and my assistant to clarify expectations and document them.

Creating new systems can also significantly impact the entire culture. As a champion of inclusive and well-designed courses, I launched a new faculty academy to address gaps in teacher preparation and create a safe space for learning and growing. It is gratifying to witness how participants share a desire for greater fluency as teachers. Teaching is also a language and culture that must be learned.

In my attempts to learn our university’s language, I have shaped and changed it, too. We don’t always have to do things the way we always have. In fact, in our willingness to encounter one another in the broken spaces, we create relationships and meaning together. Over time, as my proficiency grows, I place my imprimatur on our shared culture, and I change, too.

Some of my most meaningful moments as provost have happened while stumbling. At one especially painful faculty meeting, I was called to task for bypassing a step in faculty governance in moving ahead to launch a new degree program. The public grilling left me feeling like my humanity had been disregarded, and the urge to slink away and try to forget was strong. Instead, I decided to reach out to the faculty member who led the voices of concern. During our private conversation, I apologized for speeding over the approval process and leaving him out. Yes, he was right: As confounding as our processes can be, I still needed to respect the collaboration required to move a project forward, and I responded to his call for greater accountability by halting the rollout of the new program to ensure complete vetting. Though my blunder wasn’t intentional—I was speeding along, juggling a few too many plates—I had violated a cultural expectation. I needed to show humility and learn from this mistake.

What does it mean to be a humane leader who strives to create a culture of mutual respect, psychological safety and thriving? My work as a teacher of language and culture informs how I approach professional relationships and how I create my own version of how to be a provost. Just like when I was teaching German, I try to listen without judgment, allowing my interlocutor to express what she would like to say without interrupting or preformulating a response based on what I imagine she will say.

Deep listening is not easy. It means more than waiting patiently until the person sitting across from you has finished speaking. Rather than waiting for my turn to say the “right” thing or insert my solution, I listen for meaning, not words, and if I don’t understand, I ask questions and work toward mutual understanding.

I practice this approach with faculty members who have come to me with stories of past and present traumas: the strain of making ends meet as a single parent on a faculty salary, pandemic burnout, toxic colleagues and more. Listening deeply to the hurt, I take these stories to heart so that my work is about repairing and building (yes, often more slowly and imperfectly than I would like). After listening, I’m now leading a study of faculty and staff salaries to ensure just, equitable and transparent compensation. A new faculty governance system is addressing issues of faculty workload. Our new faculty academy and faculty mentoring groups are laying a foundation for a faculty culture that is predicated on care and respect for one another.

In shared spaces, we move forward together in collaboration to make meaning and seek solutions, to practice the ways that language is a constant negotiation between our feelings and intentions and our desires. There are times when I imagine building trust as a final state, the pinnacle of harmony and peace, but I know full well from experience that it’s simply not so. Instead, trust is a continuous negotiation of meaning as members of the community leave and new ones join. Trust is elusive; it resides in the interstitial spaces of community creation, with each of us bringing our whole selves into a relationship with one another. Through our words and actions, we ask, do you understand me? Can I trust you?

After I shared my acceptance of brokenness as a source of new meaning with my leadership coach, she referred me to the Japanese art of joining broken pottery with gold: kintsugi. The broken parts become more beautiful and even more visible; the pottery shows its imperfection, and the loving joinery of the artist makes the scars a poignant feature of the work.

So now, as provost, I take strength from knowing that things are always a little bit broken, and that’s OK. When I make mistakes, not all is lost. In stitched-together spaces, there are always gaps between what is expected (what is grammatically correct) and what is meaningful and genuine. It’s OK that I want to be a human being in this work. That I want to embody a set of values that might not perfectly match the cultural expectations of provosting.

It’s clear, even if it still stings a bit, that sometimes a member of our faculty or staff is not quite speaking to me but to one of my predecessors, seeking to redress a wrong in which I had no part. A willingness to encounter someone else using imperfect language opens up possibilities for growth and change. We don’t need to know the answers going in.

Rather, it’s only by entering the unknown that we can find ways to repair the harm, sometimes with unexpectedly beautiful results. It’s in broken and imperfect spaces that we can negotiate meaning together, acknowledging that we are all seekers and learners who long for a place to belong and do good work together.