Metropolitan State University, located in Saint Paul, Minnesota, is where we both work. Metropolitan State University (henceforward Metro State) is federally designated as an Asian American Native American and Pacific Islander-Serving Institution (AANAPISI). Its vision is adamantly anti-racist. The university’s vision statement reads the following: “The faculty, staff and students of Metropolitan State will reflect the area’s rich diversity, build a culturally competent and anti-racist learning community and demonstrate an unwavering commitment to civic engagement” (Metropolitan State University, 2019, para. 6, italics added).

Metro State is a respected Minority-Serving Institution (MSI). INSIGHT Into Diversity recognized it as a 2017 Excellence in Higher Education Award recipient, higher education’s only national higher education diversity award. Metro State’s approach, policies, and conditions have led to positive student outcomes, namely, in terms of its graduates’ social mobility. In the most recent edition of CollegeNET’s Social Mobility Index, Metro State’s ranking, out of 1363 colleges and universities, moved up to 78th (it is now in the top 6%). “Social mobility” in this context refers to students from lower socioeconomic strata achieving higher standards of living within a certain number of years after earning a bachelor’s degree.

Metro State is an “anchor institution.” According to Friedman, Perry, and Menendez (2014), urban “anchor institutions” are rooted in urban communities and serve as important economic anchors to these cities. Harris and Holley (2016) write, “When universities serve as community anchors, they make specific decisions to leverage various forms of capital, including economic, human, and intellectual, to advance the well-being of their local communities” (p. 402). We both work in the School of Urban Education: René is the dean of the School of Urban Education, and Nicholas is the chair of the Department of Early Childhood and Elementary Education and he also serves as the coordinator of the School’s graduate programs.

Our chapter shares our narratives around higher education leadership at MSIs. The purpose of our chapter is to offer a model of mentorship built around the idea that capacity needs to be built in order for leaders to develop within departments, schools, and colleges/universities. We begin by sharing our personal narratives: René shares first and Nicholas, second. The chapter then shares insights based on lessons learned and lived out at Metro State, a Midwestern AANAPISI.

René’s Narrative: From Reluctant Leader to Leader of Urgency

I had never aspired to be a dean of a college or school of education. As a faculty member and teacher educator for close to 14 years who thinks of himself as a progressive, I did not want to do what most deans do. From my own observations of some deans I had worked with, these were individuals who counted beans, said no to most faculty requests, and hyper-policed, and did all they could to restrict the activities of good faculty members who had political backbones. Why in the hell would I want to engage in these types of reactionary activities on behalf of institutions that are known to reproduce White supremacy?

Well, my grand plan to remain a faculty member to the day I die surprisingly began to collapse one fine sunny Friday in December from my large endowed chair office at Dalton State College (DSC). DSC, at the time I was there, was an emerging Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI ). However, most folks I interacted with at this institution did not look like the Brown students we purported to serve and really did not have a complete understanding of what being an HSI really meant. My endowed chair position had been conceptualized to not only teach and conduct research and service, but to also have a place at the table with senior administrators for conversations to plan for DSC’s transition to officially becoming an HSI. Well, I was never once called to the table. As I began to wonder how I should strategize my way to this table, I received an email from a search firm describing a dean position for the School of Urban Education at Metro State University in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Well, it took me all but two seconds to kindly respond to this colleague by declining the offer to apply for this position, and I continued with my professor-like day in that big office. But, the weekend and time for further contemplation enveloped me.

Thoughts in the forms of questions gnawed in my head like, “Would it not be exciting to work in the more progressive Midwest after having lived in Confederate-crazed Dalton, Georgia?” After all, “wouldn’t this position enable me to more effectively exercise my passion for urban education?” “Would being a dean allow me to incite change in different ways?” This intellectual gnawing took the better part of my Saturday, so to relieve the pressure of the headaches this gnawing was producing, I did the next best thing—I chased down two Tylenols with coffee and called Alejandro Gallard, another Latinx endowed chair in Georgia and a long-time friend and mentor of mine. I described the position, my reservations with deans, and with wanting to ever becoming a dean; he was not having any of it. Alejandro also rightfully commented that I owed it to our communities to apply for this position, and I knew deep down that he was spot on. So, after two years of working in a coveted endowed chair position, I applied, interviewed, was offered the position, and accepted it.

And, so, the Ride Begins…

As mentioned previously, Metro State is a special place for a multiplicity of reasons. Metro State is a MSI and AANAPISI, the average age of a Metro State learner is 31, and 95% of Metro State students are transfers from community and technical colleges. A majority of pre-service teachers in Metro State’s School of Urban Education are of color or American Indian, and our mission and vision are aligned with the university’s explicit anti-racist approach to examining knowledge and ways of looking at the world. The School’s curriculum is also structured to address racial equity across all courses unlike most other colleges/schools of education that merely tokenize racial equity by making this framework a topic presented in a course as a checklisted item. Finally, and just as important, the School has the most diverse faculty and staff of any teacher preparation program in Minnesota.

True to Alejandro’s prediction and aspirations for me, I have found being a dean at a progressive institution to be extremely challenging and fulfilling. With the support of the senior administration and my School colleagues, we have been able to craft a three-year strategic plan, construct and implement new licensure programs in English as a Second Language (ESL) and Special Education at the graduate levels, invite several distinguished speakers to campus to address important education issues, and hire several outstanding colleagues. Additionally, my colleagues have been able to establish meaningful and relevant partnerships with several school districts, and support the work of the Coalition to Increase Teachers of Color and American Indian Teachers in Minnesota.Footnote 1 Founded by education professionals across the state in 2015, the Coalition was able to help draft and submit bills to the state legislature with Republicans as these bills’ authors in order to successfully secure funding to pay student teachers for their full-time work in classrooms.

Of course, much work is left to be done like implementing an undergraduate licensure program in special education and graduate programs in school counseling, social work, and leadership. Unlike most colleges/schools of education in the United States, the School only prepares teachers for work in urban schools and their communities; hence, it is time for the School to enhance its work through broadening its approach to preparing professionals for the arduous work of urban schools and their communities. We need to begin to also prepare urban school administrators, counselors, and social workers.

While this work is fulfilling, there is also an aspect of this work that is nothing less than a tiring grind. This tiring grind consists of tough budget conversations in an era where more and more United Statesians are questioning the value of a post-secondary education and state legislatures, including Minnesota’s, and are significantly reducing allocations to state colleges and universities. The proverbial grind also means having to consistently and carefully hold colleagues accountable, and attending countless meetings that may or not be relevant to the work at hand. Furthermore, the School experiences institutional racism by virtue of the work we do and who does it, and who our students are. Consequently, the School has to work harder than our area competitor teacher preparation programs, as they are granted automatic credibility as White institutions. Unfortunately, the Branch Alliance for Educator DiversityFootnote 2 has documented this problematic phenomenon.

Avoiding Burnout as a Dean at an AANAPISI

I have found exercising self-care to be challenging, although I engage in cardio and weight training at a gym at least three days per week. Furthermore, I have a family that consists of a spouse, three young adult children, and a granddaughter, and we have the joy of living in the same household. In spite of the busy and challenging lifestyle that these types of responsibilities harbor, they are worth it; after all, these are the necessary prices we must pay if people of color and American Indians aspire to positively transform the structures of White supremacy that do much to poorly prepare teachers to work with children and youth and reproduce institutional racism.

It is also important for me to state that seeking networks of other teacher preparation professionals who are committed to social justice is of tantamount importance. For example, I am an active member in two important organizations—Education Deans for Justice and Equity (EDJE), founded and led by Kevin Kumashiro, and the National Latina/o Education Research and Policy Project (NLERAP), led by Angela Valenzuela. EDJE and NLERAP provide their members with structured meetings where discussions take place and decisions are made related to work in schools and teacher preparation programs. In turn, these organizations provide me with a sense of continued purpose and rejuvenation. What does the literature say about burnout among deans? In their study of burnout in medical school deans, Gabbe et al. (2008) found via questionnaires among U.S. and Canadian medical school deans that these administrators most frequently identified school budget deficits, loss of funding, and departure of key faculty members as stressors. As we point out in the conclusion of our chapter, having the “right” people can make a dean’s life a nightmare or a delightful experience. Retaining “star” faculty is important, something the school I lead has done less than satisfactorily.

Nicholas’ Narrative: Young, Energetic, and Quick Learner by Doing

After graduating with my PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 2012, I secured my first tenure-track faculty position at Illinois State University (ISU) where I worked for four years until 2016 when I applied for a tenure-track position at Metro State’s School of Urban Education. Metro State appealed to me: it was an urban university and an AANAPISI. My specialties are Urban Education and Asian American issues. I am Asian American (South Korean), and I actively research Asian American issues, namely the model minority stereotype of Asian Americans. While I was completing my campus interview at Metro State, I learned of the possibility of eventually becoming a department chair. While out to lunch, the then-current department chair asked me if being a department chair was something that I would like to do eventually, as her term would be expiring soon, and she was getting “tired of it,” and no one else seemed to be interested in the position.

While working at ISU, I wanted to be a department chair, but at ISU the role of department chair is an administrative position. The position required that one be interviewed. At ISU, the department chair did not teach and oversaw a budget. However, ISU did have an “assistant” department chair position, something I pursued. ISU, a Predominantly White Institution (PWI), was a place where I quickly realized did not have a desire to invest in my leadership development, which was ironic, because I was a targeted hire and received a handsome $10,000 research budget for the first three years as terms of my employment. After working at ISU for three years, the then-dean did not even know my name. I knew it was time to look for a different position. A year later, Metro State came knocking on my door.

I did not feel as though my intellectual and experiential knowledge were valued or desired at ISU. To use a sports metaphor—I felt sidelined. I wanted to get into the proverbial game, but my coaches (department chair and dean) did not value me and my assets. During my third year at ISU, I expressed interest in serving as an assistant department chair to the then-acting department chair, but I was not selected. I also expressed interest in serving as editor of the Department’s journal, Planning & Change. Too young and too inexperienced were the mantras I felt were in the minds of those who could have made it happen. A White middle-aged woman was named for the assistant department chair. A White older woman was named as the editor of Planning & Change. These leadership positions would have been a great learning experience for me as a young scholar, but it was not my fate, so I left ISU in 2016.

This “reverse ageism” for lack of a better phrase—because ageism typically refers to how older people are discriminated against, not young people—is something that I experienced at Metro State too, albeit I was protected by a dean who not only knew my name, but who also knew my research and teaching accomplishments. I will get to how I became a department chair at a young age as well as the editor-in-chief of The Journal of Educational Foundations later in my narrative; however, this begs the question: How does one get experience if someone does not have it? I thought about that question a lot while I worked at ISU, and it was ultimately the catalyst for my departure. I chose to leave ISU for Metro State, because as an Asian American scholar, I was not being given opportunities to grow myself and/or to serve others. Being a department chair was the next experience I felt I needed.

Welcome to Metro State and the Life of a Department Chair

In my first year at Metro State, I attempted to get to know faculty, staff, and students. I taught my three courses, I got involved in ways that I thought were reasonable, and I listened and observed the comings and goings of the School of Urban Education. During my second year at Metro State, I was chosen to be the Early Childhood and Elementary Education program coordinator. In the third year, the unit—the School of Urban Education—reorganized into two departments. It is in my third year, as I write this chapter, that I have finished my first semester as a department chair of the Department of Early Childhood and Elementary Education as well as graduate coordinator.

What the Literature Tells Us

If literature has been documenting how unglamorous the work of a department chair is (see Wildavsky, 1992)—then why would I want to pursue the position? That is a great question. As I shared earlier, at ISU, a PWI, I was not “growing” professionally. I was not being allowed to lead, something I felt I had always been doing. For example, as a doctoral student I was the equivalent to the graduate president of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). I had also served as a doctoral student as a divisional representative. To me, leadership is service, and servant leadership is what happens when a leader puts herself/himself/themself to the service of a greater body of people.

The department that I currently lead is extremely diverse and small. We have four colleagues in the department (including myself, the only male), and we are all faculty of color (Black, Korean, Taiwanese, Brazilian). To me, serving as department chair is a vital experience as a young scholar—I just turned 35 years (November 25, 2018) at the time of writing this chapter, and I believe that more young diverse scholars need to be given opportunities to not only lead but to “learn by doing.” Knowledge is power and, historically, scholars of color and young scholars, I would argue, are held back. What happens to young diverse scholars who are not given opportunities to learn and grow?Verse

Verse Be patient. Earn your stripes. Fall into line. Do not do anything that would make senior colleagues feel uncomfortable. Your time is coming. …and the list goes on and on.

These traditional, racist, ageist, and parochial mantras are not beneficial for leadership development. Instead, a better model would be for these energetic, capable, and passionate people to be given an opportunity to serve. According to Carroll and Wolverton (2004), typically “mid-career faculty members become chairs, most often motivated by a sense of duty or a desire to help a department grow and improve” (p. 8).

Research by Carroll (1991) reported that men tend to have been full professor longer than women before they serve as chair. Carroll’s (1991) findings do not align with my career events. Perhaps this is because Carroll’s research was based on career paths of doctoral granting institutions; Metro State is not a research institution. Moreover, the majority of AANAPISIs are doctoral institutions, so Metro State University is an outlier. I am too young to be a chair, although I am of typical age to be a tenured associate professor, based on Carroll’s (1991) research.

Teranishi, Alcantar, and Underwood (2017), citing the research of other scholars, write the following in their book chapter entitled “AANAPISI Leadership: Perspectives from the Field”:

AAPIs face a number of barriers to achieving leadership roles in higher education (and in other sectors of society), some of which are unique to the AAPI population; among those are negative stereotypes of AAPIs, the model minority myth, and being perpetually seen as a foreigner, all of which influences racial bias and discrimination in hiring practices, including the exclusion of AAPIs in diversity recruitment efforts, and lack of mentoring into leadership positions, just to name a few. (p. 193, italics added)

They conclude their chapter by noting the following: “More AANAPISI leaders should educate themselves and institutional members (i.e., administrators, staff, faculty, students) about the demography, the heterogeneity, and the needs of their AAPI student population” (Teranishi et al., 2017, p. 195). To me, their comment is ironic, because as I mentioned earlier in my narrative, Metro State interested me, because it was an AANAPISI. In my second year, I co-authored and submitted a federal grant to move Metro State from being a “federally designated” AANAPISI to becoming a “federally funded” AANAPISI. Sadly, our proposal was not funded, but writing and submitting the proposal was an example of “learning by doing.” Not receiving funding caused me to reexamine the project and to consider applying again in the future.

However, now that I hold two leadership roles, it is less likely I will have the necessary time and resources to resubmit for another request for proposals. This could be a bad thing. But this is also where my dean comes into the picture. Faculty and staff are beholden to resources and constraints as are administrators. We all can only do so much with so little, and I refuse to work so hard to accomplish so little. My needs as a department chair and scholar include the need for faculty lines (hiring), time (release time), and travel support (financial resources to attend conferences). These needs are either met or not met as the result of a dean. Happily, and fortunately, my dean has been successful in supporting my leadership development as well as procuring the resources I mentioned above. But how might my reality be different if I had a dean who was not receptive and could not secure needs for my department? What would happen if my dean was not a mentor, like he is? What would my life as a department chair be like if he was not humble or valued my intellectual capacities? My dean is an effective and brave mentor.

The Need for Effective and Brave Mentors

Gmelch, Ward, Roberts, and Ezeh (2018) report that “67 percent of chairs receive no formal training, and even those who do receive 10 hours or less” (p. 11, italics added). They go on to write, “New chairs also experienced greater stress from receiving inadequate compensation for being chair, likely being paid less per working hour than faculty” (Gmelch et al., 2018, p. 11). I received little-to-no onboarding when I became a department chair. Nothing formal, and no more than ten hours in total. I originally had wanted to attend a formal American Association for Colleges of Teacher Education (AACTE) professional development training, ironically the same one my predecessor had attended when she became department chair. I was not able to attend, as I had no professional development money to attend. At Metro State, the union environment abides by a seniority framework. Assistant professors and associate professors make less than professors, and it is your rank and seniority (a function of how long you have worked at Metro State, not how hard you have worked) that dictates how much you earn for your additional “duty day” payment for serving as a department chair. I received 14 duty days as a department chair. My rate for “duty day” pay is lower than the previous department chairs, who are tenured full professors. My compensation for being a department chair at Metro State, an AANAPISI, is not much. If I were a department chair at an R1 PWI, for example, I could be making potentially two times more than I am now at the rank of associate.Footnote 3 However, I do not do the work of department chair for money. I do it because I wish to serve the students and faculty at Metro State.

Contextual Factors

The aforementioned professional development and salary statistics are important to be filtered through a historical lens, because historically in the academy, power has been distributed asymmetrically: Whites and full professors have had much more access to knowledge and decision making in academia. Carroll and Wolverton’s (2004, p. 3) epigraph in my narrative section of this book chapter provides hope to institutions of higher education in that the more the academy has diverse leaders, the more decisions that will be made by those who historically have not been at the table of power and influence. Equitable pay should always be considered. I would not suggest a non-tenured assistant professor be a department chair, but I also would think that salaries for department chairs ought to be in line with the immense responsibilities that they play. Department chairs are the connective tissue between the dean and the faculty.

Metro State has many White positional leaders as seen in the presidential cabinet. My dean is the only academic dean of color, and is currently the most senior academic dean. Working at Metro State is challenging with such a racialized context. Faculty start teaching late during the day because classes are held at night to accommodate working students who have day jobs and attend meetings during the day. Work all day and teach all night is a recipe for exhaustion, not only for the faculty but also for deans. How can department chairs and deans of color be mentored in ways that lead them to not become burned out, and also so that they are brave enough to speak up and against White supremacy? I am writing this chapter with dismantling White supremacy in my head and heart.

Toward an Effective Model of Mentorship and Capacity Building at MSIs: Lessons We Have Learned and Lived Out at Metro State University

1. People matter! Faculty programs live and die with faculty. Departments and units will feel the impact of the departure of faculty. This may mean a faculty member who is “dead wood” and does not contribute to programming, teaching, service, and/or a faculty member who is a rock star and who is a wonderful colleague who would go to the ends of the Earth to support the work. When a faculty member leaves, it can be a good thing, or it can be a horrible thing. Because you never know when a faculty member will leave, it is vital that a succession plan is in place. Who will replace her/him/them? It also means that hiring a replacement is very important. Tenure-track positions come with a caveat few wish to talk about, which is that you have to assume the person is a lifetime appointment. Yes, that person will have to work to secure tenure and promotion, but would you hire someone who you did not think would earn tenure and promotion? Probably not. People matter in terms of who can fill in leadership roles as well. Teachable, humble, gracious, kind people are important to identify and hire. Research by Blake (2018) finds that “MSIs attract community-oriented individuals to their faculty positions, and that colleges and universities interested in diversifying their faculties should craft such roles in ways that are appealing to the populations that they are trying to recruit and retain” (p. 1).

René is the seventh positional leader in the last 12 years. That equates to a tenure of 1.7 years per leader. That is not a good recipe, because it means leaders do not see their program ideas through to completion. The relentless administrative turnover disallows faculty from doing their jobs well and the institution from progressing in ways that serve students and community stakeholders (McGlynn, 2018). For example, for the first time, the School has crafted a three-year strategic plan. Why do positional leaders leave? Are they burned out? Do they get better opportunities? As René mentioned in his narrative, leaders who work at MSIs need to take care of their physical and spiritual wellbeing. Losing faculty can be stressful for deans, as well as the pressure that comes with decreased student enrollments and the need to carry out “budget cuts” and having budget deficits (c.f., Gabbe et al., 2008). Exercise mitigates and reduces stress and allows for mental clarity. Having mental clarity is important for decision making and ensuring the unit is best served.

At the time of writing this chapter, Nicholas has been “targeted” by a PWI. While René, as a dean, does have the ability to recommend a “retention” offer to his provost, will it be enough? Only time will tell. However, a lesson we have both learned and are reminded about is that MSIs are less resource-rich than many public and private PWIs, and certainly the land grants. For instance, Metro State is an AANAPISI, the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities (UMN), a land grant research-intensive institution across town, is also an AANAPISI; however, it had to apply for a waiver to get such a status. Clearly, UMN has much more resources (e.g., grant writers, less teaching load for its faculty, institutional capacity, budgets, etc.), so it makes sense their federal grant application was funded. Nicholas’ narrative discussed how as a department chair and graduate program coordinator, he simply cannot rewrite and resubmit a federal grant for the same status. This is a cruel irony because although small, Metro State’s teacher preparation program prepares more teachers of color and American Indian teachers per capita than does UMN.

2. Racial battle fatigue can be experienced even at MSIs! Research (Smith, Allen, & Danley, 2007; Smith, 2008) and scholarship (Fasching-Varner, Albert, Mitchell, & Allen, 2015) have documented how faculty of color can experience racial battle fatigue (RBF) in higher education. According to Smith (2008), RBF is characterized by “physiological, psychological, and behavioral strain exacted on racially marginalized and stigmatized groups and the amount of energy they expend coping with and fighting against racism” (p. 617). However, RBF is not a phenomenon reserved for PWIs. Indeed, an institution can be minority serving and still be a racially hostile place at which to work (Hartlep & Ball, forthcoming). Department chairs and deans are placed in a challenging position, by default of their positions: they are spokespeople for their institutions. At Metro State, Nicholas feels that he is minoritized as a young department chair of color and as a graduate program coordinator, because when he attends program meetings and/or meetings with other department chairs and the provost, he sees a lot people who do not look like him. He is not just speaking about race, which of course he is. He is also talking about age and generational status. He does not see a lot of young, diverse leaders; where are the millennials? Many of Nicholas’ colleagues within and outside of the School of Urban Education are old enough to be his mother or father—remember, he is 35 years old. RBF includes microaggressions, microinvalidations, and everyday interactions with Whites who are “fragile” (DiAngelo, 2011, 2018).

Minority-Serving Institutions like Metro State need to be vigilant when it comes to who serves in formal roles for leadership development in the university. If the leaders at the top do not reflect the faculty, staff, and students, then there is a problem. While the faculty in the School of Urban Education at Metro State is the most diverse in the state, as pointed out above, the unit does not reflect the university’s upper administration. MSIs that wish to diversify their upper administrations will need to institute mentoring and devote financial resources toward this goal.

3. Capacity building is critical! You are only as strong as your weakest person. Shallow benches are a problem! This assertion goes along with #1 above. People matter. Everyone must know what they are doing, which is why teaching and mentoring are so important. But this does not mean that people should not be given opportunities to learn on the job. René has been an effective dean, despite the fact he made the transition from faculty to deanship, bypassing ever being a department chair. The American Association for Colleges of Teacher Education has published data noting this trend: academic deans assuming the role without ever having been a department chair or assistant and/or associate dean. Additionally, mentoring faculty and advocating for promotion and tenure is especially important at MSIs. When René became dean in 2015, the only tenured full professor was a White male. He noted the glaring contradiction of this fact in spite of the fact that a majority of the faculty in the School are of color. Three and a half years later, three women of color were promoted to professor and one woman of color who was hired at the rank of professor was granted tenure.

4. Mentors can and should be located outside of your institution! Leaders have vast and diverse networks. MSIs are not monolithic, but they have more alike when compared to themselves than with PWIs. This does not necessarily mean faculty and leaders at MSIs should not partner with PWIs. Moreover, leaders who work in MSIs also need to be mindful that mentors abound outside of their own institution.

Leaders benefit from having mentors located outside of their own institution because it is likely that the individuals who they interact with on a frequent basis have the same networks and sources of information than they have themselves. Having a broader mentorship group ensures that new, and many times consequential, pieces of information are being obtained. This concept can be seen as a safeguard and firewall for avoiding “echo” chambers. Diversity of thought, opinions, and questions is always beneficial for leaders. Mentors and counselors who do not offer countervailing opinions are not helpful for gaining new insights.

Capacity Building and Learning by Doing

Keeping bullet points 1–4 above in mind, the key to building or developing diverse and enhanced leadership at MSIs requires human capacity building. MSIs were created because PWIs were either unwilling or unable to serve the diverse needs that MSIs serve. By the same token, MSIs are institutions and incubators for leadership development. Department chairs and deans are both made and born. In other words, if faculty are not given opportunities to “grow” and “learn” by doing, they will effectively be sidelined, a feeling that Nicholas discussed in his narrative. Being an active participant is what democracy is all about. Like voting, which is a citizen’s right, so too should be the opportunity to develop as a leader. Historically diverse scholars have not been allowed to serve in such capacities. As the number of leaders at MSIs increases, social networks will become more inclusive, rather than remain homophilous: White and male.

We write this chapter in the wake of the swearing in of the 116th Congress. As Foran and Mattingly (2019) have written, and published by CNN, “No other Congress has ever looked like this.” We think that is a good thing! The same must happen at MSIs like Metro State. In the last section of our chapter, we leave readers with resources for leadership development at Minority-Serving Institutions.

Resources for Leadership Development at Minority-Serving Institutions

ELEVATE (Enriching Learning, Enhancing Visibility, and Training Educators)

  • ELEVATE is a unique three-day professional development opportunity for early career faculty at Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs). Drawing from the expertise of the Penn Center for Minority-Serving Institutions (CMSI) and affiliates, ELEVATE will support the ongoing learning, training, and networking of early career MSI faculty by providing workshops, opportunities to network with peers, and a platform for collaboration. The Penn Center for Minority-Serving Institutions (CMSI), housed in the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education, serves as a repository for research, data, best practices, emerging innovations, and ideas on and within MSIs. With support from our sponsors, CMSI supports funders, researchers, policymakers, MSIs, and scholars to promote the strengths and address challenges facing these institutions. At the time of writing this chapter, CMSI will be moving to Rutgers University. https://cmsi.gse.upenn.edu/ELEVATE

LEAP Advance for Higher Education

  • LEAP Advance: Leadership Development Program for Higher Education intensive four-day experience that enhances the professional development of Asian and Pacific Islanders and prepares college/university administrators, faculty, and staff to move into positions of greater visibility and influence. The program is held in partnership with Asian Pacific Americans in Higher Education (APAHE). LEAP Advance is particularly valuable for Asian Americans who work at MSIs based on research that has found that “a subtle and complex stereotyping process may explain why Asian Americans continue to experience barriers to attaining higher status leadership positions despite their positive attributes” (Sy et al., 2010, p. 917). https://www.leap.org/leap-advance/

Annual AACTE Leadership Academy

  • AACTE’s Leadership Academy is held each summer for new deans, department chairs, and other academic administrators looking to advance their careers. The Leadership Academy covers essential topics, from managing finite resources to effective development and public relations, while helping attendees cultivate a supportive network of peers. https://aacte.org/professional-development-and-events/leadership-academy

Education Deans for Justice and Equity (EDJE)

  • A nationwide alliance of current and recent education deans, and directors/chairs of education in institutions that do not have deans, established in Spring 2016 that aims to speak and act collectively regarding current policies, reforms, and public debates in order to advance equity and justice in education. In 2017, EDJE released two public statements, endorsed by over 230 deans and 17 national organizations. EDJE is governed by a Steering Committee, and holds semi-annual meetings for all network members. http://educationdeans.org/about/

BranchED (Branch Alliance for Educator Diversity)

  • BranchED is the only non-profit organization in the country dedicated to strengthening, growing, and amplifying the impact of educator preparation at MSIs, with the longer-range goals of both diversifying the teaching profession and intentionally addressing critical issues of educational equity for all students. Its vision is for all students to have access to diverse, highly effective educators. Its goal is to maximize the capacity of MSIs to deliver high-quality educator preparation by identifying and supporting what is working well and strengthening program weaknesses to drive continuous quality improvement and ensure program sustainability. BranchED provides practical training and technical assistance to advance institutional outcomes. It fosters strategic alliances and provides catalytic funds to spur collaboration and innovation. It amplifies the unique contributions of Minority-Serving Institutions in preparing teachers who will educate America’s citizens. It works to ensure that MSIs have a leading voice in the national conversation about the quality preparation of diverse educators who are effective in increasing the achievement of all learners. https://www.educatordiversity.org/what-we-do/

Relevant Readings

  • Crabtree, R. D., & Sapp, D. A. (2018). Living the full life: Mentorship for full professors and senior faculty. The Department Chair, 28(3), 22–25.

  • Gasman, M., Baez, B., & Turner, C. S. V. (Eds.). (2008). Understanding Minority-Serving Institutions. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

  • The Department Chair. A unique resource for chairs, deans, academic vice presidents, and other administrators, The Department Chair delivers practical information in every issue. Written by practitioners from their own experience, this newsletter is invaluable to anyone responsible for a department in any institution of higher education.