ROBERT MORGAN, Dean, College of Health and Human Sciences
I have been on campus for just over two months now and I can gladly say SIU has not disappointed. The campus is absolutely beautiful, and each time I go out I find new treasures to enjoy. I’ve especially enjoyed the view of Campus Lake from my office, and I frequently take the opportunity to walk around the lake after work. I cannot think of a better way to end my day.
More importantly, however, are the people at SIU. I have found the faculty and staff to be welcoming, friendly and supportive. It is a real treat to be a member of the SIU family and I am impressed by the university spirit. One of my now fellow deans told me during the interview process that the Saluki spirit was real and now that I am here, I feel that for myself. The College of Health and Human Sciences leadership team consists of a group of bright and talented school directors and administrative staff. I have not had the opportunity to work with a more committed and dedicated group of faculty and staff and we are eager to start the new year (in spite of any ongoing challenges presented by COVID-19) with our campus full of students.
As I look forward to the start of the fall semester, one group I am eager to learn more about is our alumni. The college has a rich collection of alumni across the country and I eagerly anticipate learning more about where our alumni are, what they are doing, and to further engage them in the college and university. SIU is in the top 50 of United States universities for the number of alumni produced (a statistic truly worth celebrating) and I am eager to connect and engage with them.
To my new Saluki family, I thank you for welcoming me and I’m eager to serve you in my role as Dean of the College of Health and Human Sciences.
Here are a few Q&A to get to know me a little better.
What was it about SIU Carbondale and the College of Health and Human Sciences that attracted you?
SIU Carbondale has been on my radar for quite a while now. I have a colleague at SIU and had the opportunity to visit the campus on two prior occasions. During those visits, the faculty, staff, and students I interacted with had absolutely outstanding things to say about SIU and the work being done there — I think it is fair to say I was struck by the Saluki spirit. When looking for a new opportunity, I was committed to finding a university that not only had a strong university spirit, but a commitment to something bigger. As I’ve learned over the past couple of months, it doesn’t come much bigger than being a Saluki. Beyond that, I was struck by the emphasis on transformative learning at SIU as this model fits well with my core educational values. In sum, at SIU I saw an opportunity to contribute to the growth of a new college in a nationally ranked research institution that provides an inclusive culture with a commitment to community engagement all in the mission of creating a better tomorrow.
I am excited to join a newly developed and very eclectic college that is bursting with potential. I learned very quickly that CHHS has incredibly talented faculty, staff and students so I believe I am walking into an ideal situation. CHHS has a collection of impressive and nationally ranked programs, and the upper administration clearly expressed their support and excitement for the college; thus, this position struck me as a rich opportunity to work within a new college to strive for and achieve even greater heights.
What are your goals for the college?
CHHS is a new college and I am honored to be the inaugural dean. My overarching goal will be to foster a sense of community within the college and across the university. My greatest successes are actually not mine alone, they all came from teams. I have been very successful in building teams in all phases of my professional life and development and I will bring that approach to my role as dean of CHHS. As such, I will lead from a team-oriented model to encourage all constituents of the college – students, staff, and faculty – to strive for greatness and to contribute in their own ways to our mission. This mission will be a shared mission. I am a progressive thinker and a competitor (often too much so if you ask my wife), so I will foster an environment supportive of challenging the norms, thinking outside the box, with an aim of being better. We can always be better and it is my commitment to help CHHS do exactly that: achieve new heights scholastically, instructionally, and via service with emphasis on community engagement. One indicator of success for me will be the impact CHHS has on the region.
Although I accepted this position with a vision for leadership and an awareness of the talent and potential within the college, I am new. I need to learn about the college. I need to learn what all members of the college want from their efforts and experiences. What do our students (graduate and undergraduate) want from their experience in the college? As such, I will involve students in my team. I need to hear from staff, what is working, what is it they need to help them enhance the units they serve. Although I have been a faculty member for 21 years, I do not presume to know the needs, aspirations, and dreams of the faculty in CHHS; thus, I will need to hear from them what their vision is for the college and for their specific schools and departments. I will work quickly to learn from each of these groups leading to a unified vision that cuts across the various disciplines in the college. As I already noted, we have a collection of very talented people in this college and it is my fortune that I get to lead us. My aim is we will be a college recognized for our culture dedicated to creativity, tolerance, flexibility, and the passionate pursuit of success consistent with the Saluki spirit.
How do you see your experiences translating into leading the college?
As a leader, I believe I have proven myself to be an effective agent of change. At the core of my leadership is a commitment to shared governance. I believe a university is healthiest when its members share in the decision making. That is not to say that tough, necessary decisions do not get made behind closed doors, but it is my responsibility as an effective academic leader to engage the faculty in shared governance whenever possible. As such, I am data driven, but committed to collaborative decision making.
As an administrator, I believe it is my job to remove barriers to faculty and student success. I prefer to create a positive environment, rich with resources, and then get out of the way and let talented people do their work. I am experienced in, and eager to bring, effective problem-solving skills, including responsible, but creative, fiscal management as a leader of CHHS.
Consistent with SIU’s mission of inclusive excellence, I am committed to lead from a perspective of acceptance and inclusion. This commitment is integral to my identity as a counseling psychologist, and it is critical to my success as an academic leader. Working from a position of acceptance and inclusion permeates my professional and personal life. Diversity, equity, and inclusion are critical ingredients in our research, teaching, mentoring, and community engagement, and this will be reflected in my leadership of the college.
What challenges do you see for the college?
The greatest immediate challenge remains our recovery from the global COVID-19 pandemic. How do we continue to provide a safe yet effective learning environment? On a more personal level, the pandemic has taken a physical, emotional, and financial toll on all of us — some obviously much more than others. As a college, we need to be responsive to the aftereffects of COVID-19 across all members of the college. We need to remain flexible (while maintaining academic standards) with students struggling to meet their academic obligations secondary to the impact of COVID. Similarly, we need to be flexible with staff and faculty. As just one example, COVID-19 impacted some families more than others such that faculty across the country were differentially impacted. Women have typically been more negatively impacted in terms of work productivity than men. How do we account for this in annual evaluations, and more importantly, in tenure and promotion decisions? Many challenges remain for us as a country, and we in CHHS are not immune, so the first challenge for the college remains the need to continue to effectively and safely navigate the virus and its aftereffects.
A more overarching challenge is one of unity. It was clear to me when meeting with various groups of faculty and administrators that there exists a strong commitment to ensuring the college succeeds. I observed what I believed to be very positive morale within CHHS. Also evident though was a clear need for a unified vision. We need a mission that all members of the college can unite around. Thus, I will use my first year to learn from all members of the college to contribute to a shared vision as previously noted, but to also contribute to or create where needed, opportunities to collaborate across disciplines, schools, and departments. The diversity within the college provides unlimited potential, yet the challenge is to unite faculty, staff and students in ways that facilitate interdisciplinary collaborations to reach that potential.
A few final thoughts …
I would like to take one more opportunity to express my gratitude for this opportunity to join the Saluki family. I see this as an exciting opportunity, but one that comes with great responsibility. I am eager to serve. One of my greatest joys as a leader is fostering an environment of giving. I am committed to service and agency morale. The college morale will follow the morale of its leaders. Thus, as a leader I expect my leadership team to share this commitment to service. My leadership team and I will all have specified jobs to do, but we can also work outside of our specified jobs to find ways to make someone’s life a little bit better. As such, I will be challenging my team to create opportunities to make a student’s, a staff member’s, or a faculty member’s life better without them asking (or in some cases not even knowing what was done on their behalf). We are a large college, but we cannot lose sight of our greatest strength which is the people in the college. As leaders, it is our responsibility to ensure a work environment that affords all students, staff, and faculty the opportunities and resources to succeed. And where possible, we will be seeking to find ways to make your lives in CHHS better.
Robert Morgan
Dean, College of Health and Human Services