Dear BB community,
While I have often used this page to express my (sometimes too strong) political views, today I am taking a different path.
It has been a little over a year since I became department head on Jan 1st, 2020. I was starting a new position, confident, but also anxious to deliver on an ambitious agenda. I reassured myself that I would be prepared for whatever comes my way – that with my history of surviving and thriving through trauma, I had seen it all. Well, as this year has shown, I have not seen it all -- none of us has. Nothing could have prepared me to make decisions about remote teaching, safety, essential personnel, responding to mental health and personal life challenges, and how to balance all of these combined.
One year later, we are still here; stronger and smarter, and I might add, more forward thinking. Even though the events of last year made us more remote, they also brought us together. More than ever, it is acceptable to discuss race and gender disparities without fear of being labeled as attention seekers. Throughout my career, I always feared being seen as someone who was hired to fill a quota. For the first time, I am not worried about bringing these issues to the forefront. Similarly, I am not worried about talking about mental health, race inequities and advocating for diversity openly, and in all of its forms.
This year has shown that people step up when the need is at its greatest. The success of our department this year is a result of people being flexible, changing their teaching assignments, adding to their teaching load, working during adversity, coming to the lab masked without water or food -- and still excited to be there.
Becoming department head has helped me learn to be kind and accepting of each other’s mistakes and challenges, to accept that we are all human and doing the best we can under very challenging circumstances. To me, knowing the limits of my abilities is a work in progress. I am learning that I do not always have to do everything, to trust that people will step up -- and our department did step up. I learned not only to rejoice for people’s successes, but also to promote these successes. My most fun times of every week (after lab meetings, of course), is when I meet with the COVID team and discuss what we can do as a group, and figure out how to tailor questions to people’s strengths. I learnt that leadership is about inspiring and motivating people to work together towards a goal, and in the process continuing to grow and develop, instead of just settling down into a comfortable and complacent routine.
In spite of COVID -- and perhaps because of COVID -- we are a stronger department, because we are a department that cares. We are becoming more open-minded and willing to listen to each other, not losing sight of our goals, and continuing to be passionate about what we do.
