I am starting the New Year and the new semester with a new responsibility. I will head Kennesaw State University’s Journalism and Emerging Media program, in spite of my long-standing reluctance to be an administrator.
My colleagues unanimously insisted that I take on the role. It is genuinely flattering, but I had never envisioned myself as an academic administrator. My attraction to academia has always revolved around teaching, research and service.
For as long as I can remember, I believed I lacked both the temperament and the skills for administration.
A few years ago, a Nigerian from Benue State told me the story of another Benue-born Nigerian who became a university president (what we know as vice chancellor in Nigeria) here in the United States and prayed that I would someday follow the same path.
I replied, without hesitation, that his prayer would never be answered because I had no intention of walking the road that leads to that destination.
I reminded him that many of the world’s most revered and accomplished scholars never held an administrative position for even a day. For example, University of Texas’ Professor Toyin Falola, who has written more books than any African scholar alive, has never served as an administrator, even when he taught in Nigeria. And that is a deliberate choice.
Of course, I am no Falola. Still, I have long believed that I do not possess the patience, the bureaucratic stamina or the obsessive attention to detail that administration seems to demand.
What changed my mind was my wife’s gentle but firm exhortation. She argued that after becoming a full professor, it makes sense to at least explore the administrative route. She challenged my gloomy self-assessment and urged me to confront my fears instead of being imprisoned by them.
But what finally persuaded me was her most incisive point: my reluctance was not grounded in evidence but in intuition. If I had spent my entire career dodging administrative opportunities, how could I possibly know that I would not enjoy the work?
That question appealed to my scholarly instincts. Do not make judgments based on assumptions, gut feelings or hunches when you can actually gather the data.
So, the data collection phase begins now. Wish me well.
