What is PLDI?

Rutgers’ Pre-Doctoral Leadership Development Institute program (PLDI)  is designed to teach doctoral students aspiring to careers in academia how to navigate the challenges of academic leadership and thrive in the university environment. In this two-year certificate program, our professors shared a very precious gift with us – their experience. We created this blog in order to share our experience with them, with respect and appreciation for the gift they have so graciously given us. We hope that this will continue to serve as a reflective space for affiliates and future cohorts to share their perspectives.

-The PLDI Class of 2013

Tara Coleman: Program in Comparative Literature

When I first started the PLDI program and told my Dad about it, he looked at me strangely and asked why I needed leadership training if I was going to be a professor. He doesn’t know it, but I have already benefitted from my training a great deal, in ways as simple as being able to participate meaningfully in debates among my family and friends about Rutgers, the challenges facing higher education, and how I see my future in this field.

This program has given me not only perspective – opening my eyes to what the issues are and some of the history and background behind the problems we face – but also a sense of purpose that I wasn’t sure that I had before. I love my research and I love teaching, but it is easy to be completely terrified at some of the proclamations about the future of higher ed and to get caught up in a negativity loop about the decline of the humanities, the decline in public support for what we do, and a host of other problems. In PLDI, I met people who are facing these issues every day and who are doing amazing work to benefit not only the students, faculty and staff at Rutgers, but the profession as a whole. I feel that it is possible to face the challenges ahead and that even if I can only contribute in a small way to positive change, I have learned some practical skills that can help me to do that.

Nicole Shea: Graduate School of Education

Participating in the PLDI program provided me specific skills appropriate for leadership roles in higher education. The three greatest benefits of being a fellow in this program were the acquisition of foundational knowledge pertaining to issues in higher education, participating in the shadowing experience with an administrative leader, and developing my communication and project coordination skills with other PLDI students from various academic backgrounds and experience with leadership roles. Ultimately, these skills and experiences helped me secure a job in higher education after graduation.

Throughout the program but especially in our last capstone course, I learned how to carefully listen to other students as we shared ideas, developed strategies for our final project, and came together as a team. Our class was comprised of students from diverse academic and professional backgrounds with very different personalities. The skills I learned in previous PLDI courses, helped me and my classmates successfully collaborate to construct and present our final work. Without the experiences we had as a cohort in the previous semesters, this process would have been extremely difficult. However, we each learned to listen and respect each other’s perspectives – skills that will be invaluable as we move forward with our academic and professional careers.

Deniz Daser: Anthropology

Before attending the PLDI program I hadn’t realized how much American higher education had changed. Spending time with fellow students, our guiding professors, various Rutgers administration guests, and mentors has particularly shed light on how a future in the academic profession will necessitate understanding the funding and institutional changes occurring, whether or not one is involved in leadership per se. As someone who believes in the public financing of our public universities and is concerned about providing access to public universities for a diverse group of students, I am worried by the growing influence of a corporate model for higher education. However, that does not mean I can shield myself from the realities faced by future leaders, and I am thankful to PLDI for training us in the institutional transformations that characterize higher education today.

Brad Forenza: School of Social Work

There are four components to PLDI: two theoretical semesters (one pertaining to the construct of leadership and one pertaining to higher education administration), one applied semester in a leadership setting, and one capstone project culminating in an academic symposium. While every semester was purposeful, I most enjoyed learning about higher education administration, as explicated and contextualized by vice presidents, deans, and program directors from throughout the university community.

Maria Dwyer: School of Communication & Information

The teamwork and the mentoring were both extraordinary learning and bonding experiences for me. This kind of active learning is what research advocates . Dr. Ruben’s program utilizes this method of educating to create a powerful and empowering teaching/learning environment . While tailored toward academic leadership, the skills we learned here have already been extremely helpful to me, both in the academy and in life in general.

Probably the key takeaway from this program for me is summed up by Theodore Roosevelt: “The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people.” The collegiality of the four instructors among themselves, with our mentors , with the guest lecturers and especially with us, the students, provided a wonderful example of how to get along with others. They truly taught by example. We learned how to pay attention to and be sensitive to everyone’s emotions and thoughts and to negotiate workable compromises. Because of our training and also because of the relationships we developed as a part of this program, a respect and a synergy emerged such that we were able to complete a large project with relative ease while simultaneously helping each other to refine our interpersonal and leadership skills.

Drs. Bender, DeLisi, Lawrence and Ruben and all the guest lecturers gave us their absolute best and it was a privilege to have had their guidance . I am very grateful to Dr. Schement for his delightful and enlightening mentoring in relationship-building. Last, but not least, I am grateful to my fellow students for their insights and camaraderie. As we come to the close of this program, I know that I will miss all the wonderful people who gave their time and their wisdom: our professors, our mentors, the guest lecturers and perhaps most of all, my fellow students. Thank you all for two phenomenal years!

Tayo Jolaosho: Anthropology

As a PLDI fellow, I received leadership training that has prepared me to assume a more inclusive and collaborative faculty role. Through my participation, I have gained a broadened vision of the relationships among multiple constituents in higher education environments so as engage more efficiently across its various levels. My perspective of the field has been transformed in ways that enhance my teaching and mentoring engagements with students as well as my collaborations with peers and faculty mentors. I am able to discern the concerns that propel various stakeholders, where these concerns overlap and how they might diverge. This discernment contributes a more comprehensive orientation towards the issues and challenges at stake within my particular sphere of influence and in the system as a whole.

Upon the culmination of this two-year fellowship, I note personal transformations as well—we have grown together. I feel more confident about the contributions of my leadership style, which is one of empathetic leadership. Collaboration with my peers and the mentorship of administrative leaders through the program has helped me clarify the value and potential limitations of this approach. Furthermore, I have been able to expand my leadership practices in collective endeavors. My peers taught me the importance of individual initiative and active participation that is perhaps best illustrated by one fellow’s email signature, a quote from William Arthur Ward: “Do more than belong: participate.” I have also learned to temper my eagerness to contribute with consideration for others’ perspectives so that our achievements are based on collective investment. And the process has been worthwhile.

Monica Vroman: Computer Science

I have enjoyed each semester of the PLDI program. They were all different, and each came with experience that helped me think of leadership in new and helpful ways. But if I were to choose the semester when I have learned the most, it would probably be 503. I had the privilege of shadowing Barbara Bender and seeing her lead meetings, talk to the people who are under her leadership, whom she always calls “colleagues”, and treats that way. While those meetings were very interesting to attend and learn from, only in the past few months have I realized how much I had learned from them. This semester, I have been in a few leadership (“mentorship” might be a better word) situations, where I have had to make decisions which greatly influenced the atmosphere and productivity of the meeting. Before having the PLDI experience, I know that I would have felt stuck in those kinds of situations, not knowing what to do to help the group move forward in a constructive way. But the skills I have acquired (and I think especially the skills that I learned from Barbara, Brent and our other PLDI mentors) have helped me assess these crisis situations, and quickly figure out what I can do to help the group move in a beneficial direction. I am grateful for this experience and how the program has helped me grow and develop my leadership skills, challenging my previous views on what it meant to be a leader, and helping me develop the skills of effective leadership.

So I want to say a big “thank you” to all our PLDI mentors and the people who have put the time and energy into developing this wonderful program. On my part, it was definitely time well spent.

José Antonio Maldonado: Food Science

At the beginning of the PLDI program I was not sure if I should continue with it, after all, I was not too interested in a career in higher education. Now I am very glad I decided to keep with the program. I cannot think of any better place to work together and learn from people with such a variety of backgrounds, skills, and personalities. The instructors gave a lot to foster a unique environment of discussion and learning that I could not have found by just keeping with my regular graduate program.

Participating in the PLDI program has required me to develop a lot of interpersonal skills that I had not worked on in the past, both in order to understand different points of view on a similar topic and to make myself understood by people from different educational backgrounds. All the cases analyzed in class during the first and second semester helped me see leadership in a different way, since leadership in higher education strongly relies on listening and empathy skills. The field project allowed me to see how all the topics discussed in class actually work in the real world, and how relevant our discussions were. Finally, working on the capstone project that we just presented was almost like a lab experiment on leadership skills. For all these experiences I want to thank Barbara, Susan, Brent, Richard, and all the PLDI staff for all their effort and dedication to the program.

Arianna Fognani: Italian

As an international student, being part of the PLDI program has been a real challenge for me. When I was accepted I was a little puzzled about the goals and outcomes of this new enterprise on which I was embarking. Leaving the niche of my department and interacting with students, administrators, and professors from different disciplines has expanded my vision of Rutgers, presented many relevant challenges faced by higher education today, and has also showed me alternative professional career paths.

In this program I gained a broader knowledge of the American academic system through readings and class discussions with our professors and guest speakers. I was encouraged to reflect on the nuances of terms such as “leader”, “mission”, and “challenge” when applied to different academic contexts, as well as to think critically about structures, dynamics, and policies that govern universities and colleges. This has helped me to feel a deeper connection to the Rutgers community, to be more critical about leadership roles, and to analyze decisions that affect the future of our institution and of higher education in general. Shadowing my mentor provided me with a real hands-on experience for leadership skills, abilities, and strategies, which I am now able to transfer to my own working environment. I’m glad to have had the opportunity to observe Joanna Regulska (VP of International and Global Affairs) who was willing to share with me her vision of a more internationalized university. Finally, in these last few weeks of intense preparation for our group project, I have seen how diverging views can still converge in the final product. Observing our class dynamic and listening to our discussion has given me the chance to take away something meaningful from each one of my PLDI fellows.

Kelly Lovejoy: Spanish & Portuguese

During the past two years in the PLDI program, I have witnessed many examples of leadership, and learned a lot about what makes a good leader.Despite the fact that there exists a generally agreed-upon set of characteristics that effective leaders possess, such as communication skills, expertise and organization, it seems clear to me now that a formula for successful or effective leadership doesn’t exist. Even a person who possesses many of the skills and qualities attributed to good leadership is not always a good leader. So while the right combination of skills and characteristics may be difficult to define, there is one critical aspect of effective leadership that stands out to me: the ability to be a team player. Maybe it’s counter-intuitive or oxymoronic, but some of the best leaders I know are in leadership roles because they are able to work well with others. They lead by example rather than relying on the authority conveyed by their titles or positions. They are compassionate and empathetic. They address others as equals and encourage them to voice their thoughts, ideas, and opinions. In my experience, the ability to lead while still being part of the team is difficult to hone, but it is something that I will strive to do in my future leadership roles.

Michelle Ouimet: Chemistry

The PLDI class has been a tremendous experience and I feel grateful for the experiences and knowledge I’ve gained. The class not only taught me about leadership, but also helped me understand that people think in different ways. Working with my classmates opened my mind to viewing how others think and perceive various issues and ideas. This, in turn, taught me the importance of communication, as ideas may not be received as intended. We have learned how to collaborate effectively and respect one another throughout this process.

The formal learning of how to become an effective leader through understanding and implementing organizational change, conflict management, strategic planning, and learning the stakeholders’ background proved integral to my interviewing with a world-renowned chemical company. Through discussing “What Leaders Need to Know and Do”, a book by Brent Ruben read during the PLDI class, I was able to demonstrate my knowledge of the competencies for being an effective leader. I was also able to provide specific examples of my leadership using the described competencies as a foundation for skills I currently exhibit and those I hope to acquire. As a PLDI fellow, I can proudly say that I have had a PhD experience that was like no other and would only hope that a program such as this continues to train future leaders.

Hasan Johnson: Social Work

What an incredible honor it has been to be a fellow of the PLDI program. I have learned so much over the last two years, both formally and informally, that as I look back on my experiences now, I am completely surprised by how much I have accomplished, experienced and learned since starting the program. The core team of instructors were absolutely amazing. Their leadership as instructors ensured that we, as program fellows, had plenty of opportunities to explore a variety of relevant topics and materials and to  meet and engage guest lecturers in ways that further expanded our knowledge and skills. The best, most rewarding part of the PLDI experience for me was being assigned a mentor and having an entire semester to “shadow” my mentor and learn as much as I could directly from this process. Imagine having the opportunity to sit down with and talk to an actual Rutgers Administrator about his/her journey, career choices, experiences, insights, and perspectives as a leader at Rutgers. Much thanks to all of the PLDI team, my cohort members and my mentor VP Courtney McAnuff. I’ve learned so much from all of you! Being able to do this program, make this journey with my cohort members, and have that mentoring experience in particular was priceless!

Brittany Graf: Plant Biology

The greatest part of this program were the surprises – learning the unexpected, developing wonderful, unexpected friendships and mentorships, and discovering new things about myself. It has been an honor and pleasure to work with my fellow students and teachers during this two-year process. I feel that we have all been challenged to really look outside our individual perspectives and strengthen our abilities to listen and to share. It turns out, the sharing of ideas is an outstandingly difficult task when immersed in a group of leaders, and communication comes in so many forms. PLDI has been a great experiment in communication for me; I know I have gained deep, lasting insights for which I am forever grateful to the peers and mentors who challenged me to see them.

Vukosi Marivate: Computer Science

The PLDI program has been a welcome part of my experience as a PhD student at Rutgers. Coming from another country it gave me a deeper understanding of issues that underlie the functioning of Higher Education. My most memorable experiences during the program were in the 3rd semester when we had to shadow a leader. This was not just about my experience with my mentor, but experiencing the interactions with the other mentors from my PLDI classmates.

Effective Leadership is a process that takes time and PLDI has equipped me with the tools to better understand the interplays involved. I would encourage other PhD students at Rutgers to get involved in this opportunity they have on their campus.

Enjoy your time at Rutgers!

There are smiles and tears in this first year.  I enjoy the knowledge I get from my courses – I want to learn. I’m happy to be a good TA, and I make the effort to improve each recitation I give. It’s always great to meet cute and kind people, and at Rutgers you’ll meet many.

Sometimes I distance myself from the crowd, not because I am too shy to show my friendship, on the contrary, it’s exactly because I want to develop friendships. It’s important to maintain friendship with people in your work circle, which is a key element in guaranteeing efficiency and cooperation in a research project, and a happy environment for study and working. Always keep in mind that studying and doing research is why you have come to Rutgers.

Be yourself and don’t take things too seriously.

Maybe you have a general goal for yourself when entering graduate school — you know what you are interested in and ready to dedicate yourself to research in your area of interest, however, life is not always as you expect it to be. It’s not always how hard you’re willing to work — there are many things that you cannot control — but what you can do is to find a balance between your goals and the environment you are in.

Maybe you like a research group very much but decide that it would not further your research goals; maybe you have found a suitable group but realize that you have not sufficient passion for the particular project and need to dig out a topic that you like.  Be yourself, and don’t hesitate discussing the project with your professor, letting him/her know what you want to do and getting suggestions. Everything is changing very fast — just remember to keep your goal in mind and be ready to adjust it as necessary to stay in balance with your environment.

Think a second time before making decisions, try your best to accomplish everything you decide to do, keep in mind your life goals, and find balance with the changing world — that’s it —  nothing to regret, and enjoy every day. Like an old song said “whatever will be, will be”.

A CLT is a participatory, community-based nonprofit organization that owns and holds land in trust for the common good. It leases that land to households that purchase the improvements (houses and whatnot) located on the trust’s land. When these households sign the ground lease, they are granted all the rights of more traditional homeownership. The main limitation in the lease comes with the resale of the home. They can only realize a certain percentage of any increase in the home’s value (usually between 10-15%), and can only sell the home to a household that falls within a certain income range. This allows them to realize a certain amount of equity while keeping the home affordable for the next low- to moderate-income household.

It was originally created in the late 1960s as a means for black farmers in rural Georgia to gain and control land. While it remained on the fringe of the affordable housing scene for a few decades after that, its star has been on the rise for the last ten years or so. It has attracted the attention of HUD, the Ford Foundation, and a few other major players on the community development scene. Why did I get interested in it? After spending time walking through neighborhoods in Essex County that had been hit hard by the housing/foreclosure/credit crisis, I became interested in forms of tenureship that would prevent housing from being entwined in the volatility of finance markets and speculative ownership. CLTs and another form of tenureship called limited equity cooperatives caught my eye, and the rest is history. My research is currently focusing on how CLTs are handling their emerging popularity and whether or not their radical ideological heritage as the means to fundamentally altering property relationships will survive the attempt at making them a viable alternative to traditional homeownership.

Any questions? Feel free to leave a comment! I love talking about this stuff.

Here I am presenting my work in the standard hotel ballroom. My kingdom for better lighting. The carpet is a lost cause.

The conference also reminded me of the value of feedback for the paper itself.  A questioner from the audience asked me how I defined diversity.  I confidently gave a two-pronged answer.  No problem!  Hit me with more!  But of course, the problem was that the question should have been unnecessary.  I am grateful for the question because I realized an opportunity or perhaps a demand to be explicit about a key term in my presentation, but most important in my paper.  Defining terms is one of those obvious academic priorities that countless professors rant about, right up there with “read the <expletive> syllabus,” but when we get too close to our work slippage occurs; the obvious becomes obscured.  Academic conferences, at their best, offer paths to clarity.  The Florida weather in February did not hurt either.

In addition, our lab is interested in how estrogen acts. Estrogen is considered to be a steroid hormone, which means that it is able to go into cells and bind to a receptor to become activated. However, there is now a new way that it can function–it does not have to go into the cell, but responds to receptors on the outside cell membrane. Furthermore, I am interested in something called KNDy neurons, which are neurons that produce three different genes: Kisspeptin, Neurokinin B, and Dynorphin. These neurons are located in the brain and are important for many body functions including those that respond to estrogen.

The type of work undertaken can be varied, as can be the time-commitment and intensity of work. Some students may help with the logistics of a conference and wind up incredibly busy for a 3-day period, while others may be junior members of the organizing committee and wind up working a moderate amount* over a longer period of time.

*And keep in mind, such duties and such work are undertaken in addition to existing obligations towards research, teaching, or coursework. So “moderate” is more than it sounds, perhaps.

From my perspective, these skills are sometimes hard to describe or quantify. Some of the skills may be specific to the type of event being organized, while others may be widely applicable. Having been graduate coordinator for the DIMACS REU for several years, I believe some of the experience may only be applicable in scenarios with undergraduate research. Other skills, however, may transfer to scenarios like organizing a conference or working within a department or university bureaucracy. In some sense, one learns how to do things, how to get things done, whether that means learning to adapt to certain scenarios, understanding how to navigate certain structures, or simply having the experience of making something happen. In the future, stepping up to the figurative plate will be easier and more natural.

One important virtue in organizing events and programs that I have come to value as almost universally applicable and of great importance is this: Set yourself up to succeed. Front-load the work, make sure it is done right, have a plan, and always be as prepared as possible.  Don’t forget to follow up on important emails. Make sure that contingencies have been covered. Accidents will happen, disasters will occur, and you will make mistakes. Have a timetable, have back-up plans, and so on.

That sounds like many principles, but to me it really is one coherent guiding idea. Success in organizational and administrative tasks can be decided, or at least heavily weighted, by the organizational and managerial efforts invested, especially those invested early. That lesson, and a little experience, can help a capable grad student or young faculty member successfully bring together virtually any meeting, conference, project, or program.

Indeed, there seems to be little respect in the scientific community for the importance of these “soft skills,” at least in comparison to the technical skills required to do the research itself.  As a result of his personal experiences, Uri Alon has led a small crusade toward greater emphasis of the human aspect of doing science.  On his website he’s compiled a growing set of resources called “Materials for Nurturing Scientists,” including articles, videos, and songs, authored by both himself and others.  Topics include how to choose a scientific problem, how to give a good talk, how to build a motivated research group, how to achieve work-life balance, and more.  He also has developed support groups for young scientists at his institution and has advised other institutions how to do the same.  His title evokes a compelling vision: one in which one’s goal as an advisor to students and postdocs goes far beyond merely supervising their research.  The “nurturing paradigm” entails holistically developing young people in every aspect of becoming a professional scientist.  Having heard Uri Alon speak (and sing songs) about these issues multiple times in person, his vision is certainly an inspiration to me.

So what’s going on?  These faculty members are presumably the successful ones, so an interpretation of their advice is that they’re (1) expressing regret they didn’t live better when they were younger, or (2) telling us the secret of their success.  The aforementioned study on the working habits of scientists might make us doubt the latter interpretation.  So if you’re looking for yet another reason to feel guilty for not working all the time, well, here you go.  But I think this oversimplifies the situation.  First, one’s optimal work-life balance is not static over time — one’s needs as a graduate student are different from those as a young professional which are different from a mid-career person.  So what might seem workaholic now maybe will be more comfortable in 15 years, or vice versa.  Second, work-life balance has a great deal of person-to-person heterogeneity.  A lifestyle that is balanced for one person may be too overwhelming for another, and too freewheeling for a third.  The effects of this balance on one’s actual productivity are also not as simple as we might think.  I know some folks who seem to work almost all the time, and yet they don’t seem to accomplish a whole lot.  On the other hand, I know someone who has more fun than almost everyone I know, and yet he’s reached a level of professional success most of us can only dream of.  (I’m still talking about scientists, by the way!)

Perhaps the takeaway, then, is not only to take seriously the need for balance, but to consider seriously one’s very individualized needs for it, rather than letting it be determined by cultural or social norms.  The work-life balance you strike should be the result of your deliberate choice, and not the inevitable consequence of external pressures or other choices you make.  If faculty wisdom is to be believed, then it sounds like you won’t regret it.

Take my stepmother.  Over break she asked if I studied partisan bias in the news media.  Okay, she didn’t put it exactly like that, but this is how I heard her.  That’s another funny thing about graduate school: You speak and listen in a different way.  Last night, while grocery shopping with a fellow grad student, she said, “I just think discourse analysis is more apt, don’t you?”  After a long winter break spent largely away from academics, I said, “You do realize that anyone overhearing this conversation right now should be mocking us.”  I digress.

So I had to break the news to my step-mom.  “No, I don’t study that, although there are people that do.  Partisan bias seems too (Here I deliberately avoided an overused, mean grad school word: reductive) well, let me put it this way, I think media ownership is the bigger, more interesting issue.  To illustrate my point, I showed her this link to a Daily Show segment forwarded around my department by professor Steve Miller: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-january-14-2013/investigating-investigative-journalism

The link is stranger than fiction, explaining that CNN has downsized most of its investigative journalism, and that this expert foreign affairs journalist is now consulting for the HBO show the Newsroom.  Of course, comedian Jon Oliver makes it funny, but I’m not laughing, and neither was my stepmother.  She could not believe it.  I’m pleased by her response.  Disbelief is a cousin of outrage, something I feel quite a bit in my media studies.  I’d like to think that outrage leads to collective action, which leads to change.

Although I never really got around to explaining what I study, I certainly made an impression with the help of so called “fake” news.  The truth is I am still having trouble making up my mind; interesting media are exploding all around me.  I feel like the figure in this meme I embellished:

The nickname ‘Garden State’ is tenuously attributed to Benjamin Franklin. There is a clearer connection to a man named Abraham Browning, who in 1876 described New Jersey as a barrel full of good food, with New York and Philadelphia indulging themselves from both ends. It was added to the license plate in 1954 and has been the cause of surprised faces and remarks of ‘no kidding?’ ever since.

Though officially enshrined above the bumper of every car registered in New Jersey, the agricultural aspect of New Jersey has long since been surpassed by pharmaceuticals, finance, and technology. However, if we are to trust wikipedia (and honestly, who doesn’t these days), New Jersey remains a significant producer of agricultural products. It is the second largest producer of blueberries, the third largest producer of cranberries and spinach, and is fourth in the production of bell peppers, peaches, and head lettuce. In addition to its crops, Jersey also has a significant amount of woodland. Half the state is wooded, with oaks in the north and the (in)famous Pine Barrens in the south.

There are 52 state parks, forests, and historic sites covering over 375,000 acres, many of which figured prominently in the Revolutionary War. The Delaware and Raritan Canal State Park runs through New Brunswick and provides a beautiful place to ride your bike or go for a run. Riding your bike from New Brunswick to Princeton along the canal path is a great way to spend a spring day. Or, you can visit Island Beach State Park and get a taste of what the shore was before the boardwalks went up. Wharton State Forest is the largest of the parks at over 122,000 acres, and features a historic village that gives you a sample of what early 19th century industry was like.

There is much more to New Jersey than its status as the ultimate bedroom community, and much more to do than simply taking the train into the big city of your choice. Spending a little time away from the freeways can be very rewarding for anyone looking to escape the concrete jungle of Philadelphia or New York. It’s a beautiful state, trust me. You just have to know where to look.