Dr. Kathy Lund Dean is the Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Leadership & Ethics at Gustavus Adolphus College. She also serves as the Co-Editor-in-Chief for the Journal of Management Education. She is also the co-host of Rockin’ the Publication, a podcast for those interested in being published in academic journals.
She is an award-winning scholar which includes the Maryellen Weimer Scholarly Work on Teaching & Learning Award, the Journal of Management Inquiry “Breaking the Frame” Award, and the Journal of Management Education Fritz Roethlisberger Memorial Award.
Recent Publications by Dr. Lund Dean
Quotes From This Episode
Resources Mentioned in this Episode
Dr. Kathy Lund Dean is the Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Leadership & Ethics at Gustavus Adolphus College. She also serves as the Co-Editor-in-Chief for the Journal of Management Education. She is also the co-host of Rockin’ the Publication, a podcast for those interested in being published in academic journals.
She is an award-winning scholar which includes the Maryellen Weimer Scholarly Work on Teaching & Learning Award, the Journal of Management Inquiry “Breaking the Frame” Award, and the Journal of Management Education Fritz Roethlisberger Memorial Award.
Recent Publications by Dr. Lund Dean
Quotes From This Episode
Resources Mentioned in this Episode
Note: Voice to text transcriptions are about 90% accurate.
Scott Allen 0:04
So I just asked Kathy Lund Dean if she was ready to start, and she said You betcha, which is very Minnesotan, which she is right now.
Kathy Lund Dean 0:14
I think they actually test us on a randomized basis like say, "You betcha." And then you have to pass or you have to leave.
Scott Allen 0:21
You have to and another word that continues, because I'm from Minnesota, as you know, yes. Another word that continues to stay in my repertoire is oofta.
Kathy Lund Dean 0:30
Oofta Wow.
Scott Allen 0:31
is that the equivalent of I think of a well, I don't know if it's equivalent to Boy, that's it.
Kathy Lund Dean 0:36
It kind of is. I have heard many Minnesotans actually use it in a sentence, like in a real exclamatory way, and I would substitute obey, or no spaces. So yeah, I think, I think they're pretty analogous.
Scott Allen 0:54
The other one that is so fun, is that you can add then, there, or here to the end of any sentence, and so it's, it's, "so do you want to go to the store, then?" Or once sometimes you cannot once at the end of a sentence as well. Kathy, Kathy Lund Deen, you are a professor. And, and you are an editor, co-editor in chief of the Journal of Management Education, and I'm really looking forward to this conversation today. Because as I understand it, you are passing the baton as editor in chief correct co-editor in chief, I should say,
Kathy Lund Dean 1:34
we are and it's been such a long time in and one of the things that I've been working on late sort of working on as a, an ongoing thing is what will I be professionally when the editor is not part of my role or my title. And it's really an interesting thing to reflect on. Because it's been so long since I've been doing this kind of work. But we do have new editors. They are wonderful people. Jen Leah at Nazareth college, and Marissa Edwards at the University of Queensland, in Australia, will be taking over.
Scott Allen 2:11
That's wonderful.
Kathy Lund Dean 2:12
Yes.
Scott Allen 2:13
Well, and we were planning this episode, I really wanted to explore your wisdom, your wisdom of what you've observed because you just said before we started, it's been about 20 years that you've been intimately involved as an associate editor as an editor, co-editor in chief, correct?
Kathy Lund Dean 2:33
Yes, it's hard to even say that out loud, and have it be true. But I started at the end of 2001, about into 2001, beginning of 2002. As I was just I wasn't even on my first job yet after doctoral studies and had been involved with the OBTC. What used to be the OBTC. Now it's the conference that the MOBTS puts on, and Dale Fitzgibbons at Illinois State was the editor in chief and asked me to come aboard. So it seems like forever. And, and yet, it also seems impossible that it was 20 years. Yeah.
Scott Allen 3:14
Well, share your wisdom, what I need to know, what do we need to be thinking about? What have you observed? What are some themes you've seen? I'd love to hear it? Because I know there are a number of listeners who are in this space and want to know what you see.
Kathy Lund Dean 3:35
Oh, that's a really that's a big question, Scott Allen. But you know, in thinking about what would be helpful, helpful for listeners to know and sort of what your goals are for the podcast, which I was listening to some of your episodes, this is awesome. I love this. I love your podcast. There, there are some things I think that I've seen change over the trajectory of 20ish years. And I think probably one of the biggest things that I've come to realize is that the whole publishing enterprise is a conversation, you know, thinking about your scholarship, not not in these sort of atomistic chunks, but as part of a larger conversation that both precedes what you're doing, and will also generate more work and more conversation and more wisdom, and more practical outcomes. And I think when I think about the most successful authors, meaning those who can move relatively, relatively seamlessly or relatively easily through the process from idea generation all the way through to the published product, whatever that is article book, blog in some in some fields, I think that they understand that, that they're entering into space where there are lots of people having a similar conversation. And so the analogy that I use when I'm doing a lot of outreach is merging into traffic. Okay, so and I grew up in Chicago, as you know. And so when you're merging onto the Dan Ryan, there are lots of other people, you have to take into account, right? Like, nobody's blindly merging onto the Kennedy. And so all those other cars are people having not the same conversations, but similar conversations, you know, and how does your work contribute to merging into that traffic of a conversation? And so I, and I think it also helps take some of the pressure off in a lot of ways because there is this community within a topic. And this is helpful, hopefully, for authors, you don't have to make the argument that you're the first one to ever do whatever it is you think you're doing, because I promise you, you're not. And, and you don't have to make that argument. So. I've learned that and i think that understanding that you're part of a whole, yeah, part of an active and engaged and vibrant conversation is something that I did not, I didn't think earlier. And I guess I've seen more of that because there's just more work out there.
Scott Allen 6:35
Yeah. And you're, you're at the hub of these conversations. So that has to be a really, really interesting space from which to view the scholarship. To stick with the traffic analogy. Sometimes you're a little bit of a traffic...
Kathy Lund Dean 6:53
We're the traffic cops. Yes. Yes, we are. And, and taking that gatekeeper role really seriously, is something that we've normed, I think all of us in the editorial space, certainly at JME, but also within the larger so the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning SOTL community, we take that really seriously, because these are consequential decisions. You know, we meaning those of us like Management Learning, AMLE, Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education, JME, you know, we're all in that sub 15% acceptance rate space. And it matters when people get a publication or don't get a publication. And so I think that engaging with the ethical piece of that traffic cop role has been something that's been non-negotiable for us. And I think, you know, bienlarge, I think authors respect decisions if they feel the process was fair. Yeah. And over 20 years, you know, there have been a handful, of course, of authors who have pushed back, but fewer than you would think. And, and I think that's the win. Yeah. Yeah.
Scott Allen 8:16
I love this, this analogy of merging into traffic. And so what would you recommend for authors? They have to become pretty steeped in, do they have to become steeped in the conversation within just JME Journal of management Education? Or do you? Do they need to be well versed across the journals about that conversation? How do you think about that?
Kathy Lund Dean 8:41
Yeah, that's, that's about the $10 million "contribution positioning question." And the answer, it's not a clean answer, Scott, I think, I think the pre-work is thinking very strategically about where in that traffic, you want to merge, what is your contribution? And who's your audience? Yeah. And so when we do outreach sessions, for example, I can spend a whole afternoon on that positioning question, you know, who, if you say, for example, let's talk about assessment, everybody's favorite topic as assessment, your contribution is going to look very different, your manuscript is going to look very different, if you're talking to faculty, or if you're talking to administrators, or you're talking to an accreditor. And so, are you talking to students, you know, if you want to have that conversation, we sometimes do that with students. And so figuring out not only what your topic is, but what you actually want to say to a specific audience helps focus that. So to go back to your question about literature. It depends on who you're talking to. And, and it goes back to something I said earlier. You don't have to say we're the first ones to do this. Because across disciplines, you're not. Even maybe in our literature. So when I was working in the management, spirituality, and religion space, and was working as an editor at JMSR, and would get manuscripts that would say, you know, this is the first time anybody's looked at this. That may be the case in org. studies, it is certainly not the case in, for example, the helping professions. Yeah. And I would recommend, like, it almost doesn't even matter what your topic is. Look in the nursing literature. The nurses are, they are absolutely on the front edge of like, everything education, organizational engagement, working in very fraught environments, client and patient engagement. They have done it. And
Scott Allen 11:04
Instructional design, assessments.
Kathy Lund Dean 11:06
...all of that! Evidence-based work, all of it the nursing literature is, is it's just one of my go twos now, there's, you know, the research methods are so interesting. So finding those places in different disciplines that are having similar conversations. can be some of the most interesting work I see. Yeah. Now,
Scott Allen 11:32
so what else? What else have you observed? What else have you what other wisdom Can you share with us? I love the merging into traffic,
Kathy Lund Dean 11:40
right? Doesn't that make so much sense?
Scott Allen 11:43
Yes. Let's see if you can weave this next suggestion into that analogy. Oh, I hear Kathy Lund Dean.
Kathy Lund Dean 11:49
Well, let's see. Here's the other thing that I have learned is that submitting, submitting work to a journal or submitting work to any peer-reviewed outlet is an emotionally significant event. For most people. Yes, yes.
Scott Allen 12:08
For many, it's their career right?
Kathy Lund Dean 12:11
It is. I mean, it's, it's the currency of our profession. Yeah. Right. And it's also, it also can be a conflation of the self. And so we're very careful, for example, to use language in our decision letters, that talks about the manuscript, or the research, or the conclusions versus you. And so when I hear people, when I hear authors say, you know, I got rejected, or, you know, we got rejected after revision three, I, when I can I stop them and say it, wasn't you, it was your manuscript. Yeah. And so helping authors find ways of separating themselves from their work is really important. And I'm totally convinced I'm absolutely convinced that the difference between people who are very well published, and people who are not well-published, is this ability to separate themselves from them or from their work. And, and so it's a yes. And you know, we've been very careful about making sure we help authors make that separation with the language we use. And we also recognize lots of people do make that connection. And how do we help people let it go, you know, we, we want your best manuscript? At some point, you have to let it go. Yeah. And the people who are successful are the ones who can send it out and then can actually see and engage with review comments. I know people who will not send their workout, not because they don't think it's good, or their idea is unique. They simply can't, they can't do the reviews really can't do the critical reviews. And so one of my mentors in graduate school, I actually didn't realize this was such a thing. Until I mean, it's embarrassing about 10 years into the editing kind of gig, because Jerry didn't even sort of give me time to be upset. Yeah, he, one of my first publications was in JME, very early in my doctoral studies, and he made me do the response to review your letter and he made me look at the reviews and he made me organize them and figure out what we were going to do and I had never seen one of those documents before - I had no idea. So, and there was no time to be upset like he wouldn't. He didn't even allow for the possibility of being upset. Yeah. And so just get after it exactly like, it's not you. And the more about that. Yeah,
Scott Allen 15:20
I think it's so you had said a couple of moments ago that the most successful scholars in some ways don't take that feedback personally they don't, they don't get hung up on that. They literally kind of logically I just said it, view it as the next step in the process. Yes. And, you know, they'll push back where they feel strongly, but then they'll, and ultimately the paper will likely be much better.
Kathy Lund Dean 15:45
But it is Mm-hmm. Yeah. And they don't, they're, they have the confidence that their work matters. And they also engage with that conversation. And so the conversation is not only among scholars and people doing that work. There's a conversation with editors and reviewers. Yeah. And so when we do outreach and have said that, we do a lot of outreach for this very reason. There's a conversation started in sort of the cover letter, and how do you see your work? How does your work contribute? So that's the beginning of the initial conversation with editors. Yeah. And then as you go, as you will know, you know, the response to review or letter is the conversation with the reviewers and the editors, and how are you experiencing their feedback? What makes sense to change? What do you not going to change and help have that conversation? And, and so it's part of sort of a publishing enterprise, that has become more important, I think, as time has gone on. So the thing about having the confidence and being able to see it as just that logical next step? I do think there. That's a that's just a key difference. I just, I think it's similar. I mean, we've talked before you and I about teaching evaluations. And I think it's quite similar, where perhaps, you know, colleagues, I know I do that. Can't engage with the feedback that students give them. Even if it's functional. They, they have to anchor on the negative stuff. Yep. And I think teachers who develop really, really quite well, are the ones that can separate out, you know, that's not a value. That's a personal comment, or positive or negative. That's a personal comment. Here's the stuff I need. Yeah. Yeah.
Scott Allen 17:56
Well, and objectively, I once had had a student say he has an "Ego the Size of Texas. That's a pretty big state, Kathy. And that's a big state spent a lot of his life with lower than self self-esteem. You know, that's, that was kind of shocking. But I had to engage in some conversations with folks about, "Okay, so what does this feedback mean? So that I can understand it? Or what could I be doing that is giving this impression?" Because that isn't how I perceive myself, but obviously, one person is experiencing me that way? And how do I manage that? How do I manage that impression and so interesting, because, yeah, had to go on this little self-exploration, it would have been easy for me to say, "Ah, I know exactly who that was. It was Jimmy."
Kathy Lund Dean 18:46
Right. Right. And I and kudos to you for doing that. Because I think a comment like that, that sort of global, the comment that doesn't give you any actionable kinds of next steps, I think something like that would be easy to dismiss. But you're exactly like your point is exactly helping this conversation in that it's what you do with it. You know, there's something going on, where a student made a comment like that, and you decided to explore that. That's good on you. And then it can become something I must be doing something to at least one student to give off this impression. How can I engage with that differently? And, you know, again, kudos to you because I think that would be an easy one to dismiss.
Well, it's easy to do with reviewers as well. So I've had co-authors say, well, "they don't get it." Well, maybe they don't, but did I communicate it? Well, if I communicated it better. So it's data, it's data. And, and I think sometimes the data again like we discussed, you end up just disagreeing with it and I think but be intentional about that, right? What do I need to own in this person not getting it? Because that's an important piece of the puzzle.
Scott Allen 20:07
It absolutely is. And probably one of the key takeaways, that was an excellent segue, thank you is, in creating that response to reviewer letter. You don't have to change everything that the reviewers say, or even the editor sale, though that's riskier. But that's part of the conversation, you have to say why you have to engage with it. And so you can say, in your head, you know, reviewer number one doesn't seem to understand what we're doing. And that may be true, that actually may be true. How can I reframe this, both in the response document that the reviewer is going to read? I appreciate that you see this in the manuscript, what we actually meant to do was this, and then how do you make that change for clarity in the manuscript. And so what we want to do, and I think this goes back to some of the changes that I've seen over the years, we want to give authors more agency. Often authors are not simply at the mercy of reviewers and editors, there is that conversation, where I see authors not be successful, is when they don't engage in they ignore it. And, you know, we are more than willing to have phone calls, you know, I've had 100 phone calls with authors over the years that I don't really understand what the, what the reviewers saying, or "I hear what you're saying, I just am not sure how to take that in the manuscript". And that's my happy place. Like with Jeannie Forray who's my co-editor and I, in our division of labor over the last six-ish years. I get the majority of manuscripts because working with authors to kind of find that gem, that's my happy place. Yeah. And so, yeah, and, and so it's that conversation, I'm taking over ownership over what they're saying.
What else have you seen just in the last 20 years, a couple of decades? What shifts? Have you seen either in the industry or in the scholarship that you're seeing come across? What are some opportunities that you see that maybe there are some gaps that could be filled? I know, I just throw a lot at you there. But I'd love to, I'd love to kind of hear your thoughts on those questions.
Kathy Lund Dean 22:38
And one of the things that I've seen in a sort of unfortunate way, is that as an industry, as a profession, we seem to be getting more isolated. And I think there are a lot of reasons for that. And I'm a Gen X person, we have wrote the book on free agency, you know, like, we, we have seen organizations do terrible things to people. And we have no intention of being part of that. So I get the free agent thing. And I think it's morphing into isolation. Because our business model in higher education has to change. Yeah. And so I think, for example, I think that the decline, the dramatic decline of tenure, tenured positions, tenure track positions, and those are being replaced by long term contracts, or, you know, adjuncts or whatever. I think that has contributed hugely, to the idea that even within institutions, there's less community. Yeah, there are fewer people that are long term. engaged in the institution, there was that sort of informal mentoring role, you know, as a senior academic. And so, so many of our younger colleagues, our newer colleagues have to go out on their own? Yeah. And the infrastructure, even though it was informal and historical, it was still an infrastructure. And they don't have that. And so they're trying to triage their need for community and their need for mentoring and their need for support external to the institution. And so, people like us as editors, we're sort of taking up that role. And people like you with podcasts like this, and people in professional organizations are taking up that role. So I worry for our younger colleagues, it's a very different profession, than the one that I came in to. And I know that's not I'm not, you know, I'm not harkening back to the salad days of the Academy, I think, you know, when I go to the Academy of Management meeting, and I'm a member of gender and diversity in organizations (GDO) it makes my heart sing when I go to anything that GDO puts on because of the sheer diversity of people in the academy versus what it was, like 20 years ago, honestly. Yeah. I'm Scott 20 years ago. And, and so I see these enormous steps forward, in terms of who we're allowing into the Academy. And I mean that in a very deliberate way. And at the same time, the breakdown of these communitarian types of infrastructures worries me. Along with that, it's worrisome from an editorial perspective, because so many more faculty in so many more institutions around the world are being forced to publish. Yeah. And so even if you're at a teaching-oriented institution, whose mission is teaching-oriented, you have to publish. And so I could, I could show you some of these emails, Scott, they're heartbreaking. When I have to reject somebody's paper, it has nothing to do with what we publish, or they submit their entire dissertation, like 80 or 90,000, word dissertations, the whole thing. And I have to reject that. And then I get emails from the authors, like, I have to publish, and I don't know what to do. And it's heartbreaking. And so I think we have a mandate, in our gatekeeper in our editorial roles to help people, learn how to do this, like basic, how do you build an intellectual infrastructure? How do you start a research project? How do you publish from a dissertation or a large thesis? They're getting no help. They're getting the pressure, but they're getting no help. Yes. And so there's some proxy for institutional community building. That has to happen.
Scott Allen 27:31
I set I sat at dinner, this is at one of our conferences for management and organizational behavior teaching society a couple of years ago, and I sat next to a gentleman from an R1 institution and the pressure he had, and I think it might have been like an eight-year clock or something of that, for listeners means that you are not tenured for eight years and the requirements to publish in these six journals.
Kathy Lund Dean 27:59
Right, very narrow.
Scott Allen 28:01
Intense it's just it was it was a different, a different job than what I have.
Kathy Lund Dean 28:09
Right. Yes. Yes. And, and I think you've been intentional about having that different job. Yeah. The places we choose to work in. It allows for a little bit more intentionality about the mix of activities and choices that you have. But what I'm seeing is that it's not our one institutions where one might expect that or one should expect
Scott Allen 28:33
Your seeing in other institutions now as well?
Kathy Lund Dean 28:36
Oh, yeah. These are, again, traditional, like liberal arts institutions, traditionally teaching-oriented, very small institutions, institutions that had not had anybody published, they'd never been accredited. And now administrators are trying to ramp that up. Yeah. In because publications are the currency of our field.
Scott Allen 29:00
Yeah.
Kathy Lund Dean 29:01
They see that as a way of gaining legitimacy. And, and so there's this enormous pressure on people who have never published. And yeah, so it's back
Scott Allen 29:29
So I often wonder if I had Tricia Griffith, the CEO of progressive in class the other night, and I often wonder if we were to share with her the latest copy of the Journal of Management, would she as a practitioner, find value in that work? And that's a struggle. That's a struggle sometimes to go back to the nursing literature. They are. They're close to the work.
Kathy Lund Dean 29:55
Yes,
Scott Allen 29:56
Right. Yes. So very, very though these scholars are literally In these institutions doing the work much of the time, the same thing with medical, in, you know, the medical education space and all of that, that research. So how do we address some of that, where we have some of our scholarship to your point, it's an I might be saying isolated in a different way than you meant. But I also believe at times that, that we are becoming less and less relevant to the average...and a McKinsey or a Deloitte or some of these other institutions in some ways...I had a gentleman from McKinsey speak to the head of global innovation, and they are now partnering with colleges of business and accountancy programs and offering education. So that's interesting. That's an interesting development, right?
Kathy Lund Dean 30:53
Oh, yes. Oh, yes. So I heard you say two very, very interesting things, while you said lots of interesting things, but many interesting things. So many in the first one, Kathy,
Scott Allen 31:04
my ego, like, groundbreaking, incredible things.
Kathy Lund Dean 31:09
I'm, it's it's growing outside of Texas, you know, like your ego is, Oh,
Scott Allen 31:14
yes,
Kathy Lund Dean 31:15
you're moving. You're, you're moving into Louisiana very quickly, right. I'm gonna, I'm gonna go in order of what you said, the relevance thing, I promise you that in the nursing literature, the Social Work literature, the medical literature, the presidents of their professional associations, are not writing essays, lamenting the relevance gap that their scholars are, are experiencing. And yet the presidents of the Academy of Management, if you look back at their essays that they get to write every year. That's the theme is how do we connect to the industry? How do we I think it was actually the theme, if not last year, which was a blur. The year before there was this? There's this practitioner research gap that has only gotten bigger. Yeah. And there's this hand wringing in those major journals like Journal of Management, they're, they're inexplicable to people in the field. They're inexplicable to people in our industry, sometimes. And I think that's because they are methodological expositions. Without frankly, anything interesting to say, because that's what we reward. And, you know, the reason why Kerr's article on the folly from AMJ in 1975 is the most cited one is because it's true every single day. And so when you have people rewarded, continuing to be rewarded for that kind of esoteric research that has no relevance because that's not part of the criteria. That will continue. To me, it seems like an easy fix. You know, if you were to require a commentary, for example, from the head of McKinsey Global Innovation, or the head of Progressive Insurance, like if you were required to include sort of a relevance checkmark, from somebody in the field, all of that research would go away. Or it would be reconfigured and be very interesting. And so we're not going to solve that. And I think those of us who experienced that work as completely irrelevant to the field, tend to not do that work. And so I think it's simply endemic to our reward structure. And until we get serious about that, you know, I, it always kills me to see when a president of the Academy of Management, who's in one of those very R1 machines of publishing, laments the fact that the work is not relevant when they have been rewarded for work that is not relevant. Yeah, they're part of that system. So we're not going to sell for that there. Which is why I think finding other literatures is so interesting. But the second thing that you said about nature what I would call broadly, the nature of credentialing. Yeah. That's, that's a big thing. Like that is huge. Once colleges and universities like we've been the gatekeepers of this very important credential, yeah. Forever, and people are chipping away at that, as you well noted, you know, Once organizations that hire people are willing to accept, like MOOC certificates, or certificates from all these micro master's programs that are popping up, or I had training modules,
Scott Allen 35:15
I had an employer the other day, say, I would rather hire this is someone who's hiring for a marketing role. They said I want them credentialed. And basically, they were naming, you know, Facebook, Google, I want them in Microsoft, I want them credentialed in these things. I'm not getting that from universities. But that was just an interesting observation that they said that, right? Well, that is legitimacy and what he in this instance, needed in the moment, versus a four-year degree.
Kathy Lund Dean 35:45
So I think so you see some of these things, you know, we want these micro-credentials that are very inexpensive. They're test-driven. Yep. Um, once organizations decide, you can aggregate those, and that's the proxy for your degree, or done like we're done. And I think we're, I think we're moving closer to that more quickly than a lot of people would want to know. But I also think organizations are part of their own problem in that. If you look at the the outcomes, or the student skills or competencies, I guess is a better word. Yeah. from places like the National Association of Colleges, & Employers, so NACE, is that, right? So every year they send out this report, here are the top 10 things that employers want. And it's, it's things that we do in college, it's critical thinking it's communication, right? It's right. It's those soft skills. And yet, we also get feedback, just like the stuff that you got, they need to know how to use databases. They need to know how to use to leverage the social media, they need Excel, oh, my God, if I had $1, for every time, an employer said, your students don't know Excel well enough to hit the ground running? Yeah. Those are Community College things. Those are things that you can do on Who Knew Ixt, or Coursera and get a certificate. And so they're a little conflicted themselves. In the messages they give, and ultimately, they want everything. Yeah. And so that's not what we do. And I think it's a ruinous decision for colleges and universities to want to do everything. And I see a little bit of that now. And strategically, that's unsustainable, and it will be a disaster. And so I would love to see your to your other comment. How can we partner? How can we take the things that are not training? They're actually education? Yeah. And let's keep that bright line between those two. How can we partner with some institution or organization or credentialing body like SHRM? They have their own credential? How can we build a relationship with SHRM for our HR majors, so that they come out? Yep. dually credentialed? Yep. I see some places kind of doing that. But mostly undergraduate level. And, yeah, so when we lose control over that key credential of the four-year degree? Yeah, we're, we're kind of done. And so I think the irony is, you know, and you had asked before, as we were preparing for this, what are cool topics, you know, what's new? What's new? What's excellent. I would love to see work on that creativity, how are you responding to these very separate, but ultimately, mutually reinforcing types of learning outcomes that our students need? Help? What's cool. I mean, what's cool out there, how are you doing the credential thing? How are you building capacity for your graduates? We just published a paper from a couple of authors from the University of Saskatchewan, and they have done this sort of a stealth approach. They have their MBA program, but then they also have this not required, but student-driven skills, opportunity. And it's very focused Excel. How do you run a meeting? Yeah, right. Yeah. And these are on Saturday. Yes. And they run these and it's student topic driven. And they have executives and People in the field coming in? They are as well attended, if not more attended than their regular curricular classes. Yeah. And so they didn't wait for the institution. And it's ultimately kind of almost all volunteer. And we can't have that be volunteered has to be embedded. But it's a great article about them just taking the bull by the horns and saying, This is what our graduates need. This is what our employers need. And so creativity like that, we have to do it. And we're going to pandemic under enormous financial stress. Yeah. And that's not the greatest time for innovation, in a lot of ways, because people are tired. People are tired.
Scott Allen 40:42
Yeah, what other gaps Do you see?
Kathy Lund Dean 41:31
How do we know, for example, about whether we should build this particular program, reduce this particular program? At what level? Should it be? We have those data, we have all of those data. So I would love to see how on either conceptually or inaction? How are we harnessing this flood of data, we have to make decisions within the institution? I would love to I've seen very little work on that. Okay. data-driven decisions like that. The other thing that I would love to see is the limits of relationality. And that's, that's a kind of an umbrella thing, like institutions like yours in mine. Yeah. We're selling an experience, we're selling a relationship with students, right. I mean, certainly, that's part of your marketing. That's part of your branding. That's why we have liberal arts institutions. The Jesuit model is all about that, as I'm, as a grad of a Jesuit school. So but where does that end? I have seen some really interesting stuff from schools that assign it sort of like a grown-up, buddy. Yeah, at the VIP, like prior, you know, in the summer, before kids even get there. Okay, this is a four year plus relationship, they stay with this student, they mentor the student, they advise this student, they help them with mental health, they help them access resources. This is an intense, almost a parenting, like one-off one degree of separation from a parent. And it appears to be very long term. And they're harnessing staff and the harnessing faculty,
Scott Allen 43:23
really, here and these relationships.
Kathy Lund Dean 43:25
Yes, yeah. Where does that and well, because close parenting, you know, this whole helicopter parent thing? They just want to move their son or daughter from the home into campus and haven't had a point person? Yeah. It's not healthy. I'm not saying it's healthy. I think it's actually terrible for students. And there's research on that. But where does that end? You know, where does that forced and long term and very intensive relationality? And are what are the limits of that? Because I can't see that going? Well, yeah. And then anything on a DEI, anything about diversity, and how things are changing with the fact of diversity, and not just ethnic diversity, life experience, first gen. veteran status, I haven't seen anything in a long time about how we're engaging our veterans. Yeah. And there are a lot of them, you know, lower, lower socioeconomic status. English language learners, so domestic students who grow up in houses where English is not the first language, so they're toggling these identities, and these value sets and these traditions. We have such an enormously diverse student life experience out there. Yeah. And I'm always interested in seeing how we're thinking and engaging them different Like, yeah.
Scott Allen 45:02
Well, your point to your point, whether it's the Academy, that's becoming more diverse, and or whether it's our student bodies. I think you're exactly right. Have we even touched the surface of that whole? Work? We haven't had we?
Kathy Lund Dean 45:23
I think some parts are better covered than others. I think we've made inroads on black students and some of the ways that being a black person in the academy or as a student is different. I haven't seen really a lot again, about veterans, I haven't seen as much as I would like about LGBTQ. Yeah, I haven't seen as much as I would like about first-gen, you know, first-generation is such. I mean, that is a completely discontinuous life experience. You know, there's nothing about their life experience. That's a smooth transition. And I was just re I'm, I'm done with this fabulous book called moving up without losing your way by Jennifer Morton. And she is a first-generation she's Peruvian by birth. And she talks about the ethical costs of upward mobility by getting a college degree by ethical cost, she means that, when we see first-gen kids, we assume it's all like everybody at Holmes Rutan forum and the movie. Yeah, like we've made it, when in fact, the costs in terms of community in terms of the family in terms of prior value sets, all of those are degraded. And they have to, they have to live and work and study in this very liminal space. And it's, it's a, it's an absolutely amazing book. And it just came out, I think the copyright is 2019. And I would love to see more work about that experience, and how we can engage that experience and be more alert to that.
Scott Allen 47:22
I'll put that in the show notes for sure. And let's transition there. So So what else have you been reading or watching? I always love catching up with you about great blogs or film or what you're streaming or listening to? What's on your radar right now.
Kathy Lund Dean 47:39
Well, Jeanie and I continue to add to our podcast series, Rockin the Publication, which is on the Jamie website. And it's in the service, Scott of what we were just talking about. It's really pretty generic, real focus snippets. How can we help authors? How can we support authors in things that they have to do for any publishing,
Scott Allen 48:03
I love it. And digitizing that knowledge is just so wonderful. It's a gift, it just is
Kathy Lund Dean 48:08
It's really fun to do. It's a lot like this, we get together and record it. And they're usually about 25 minutes. And it's they're very focused, like, here's what, here's what we can do. And they've been, we've been surprised. And they've been downloaded a lot. They've been downloaded and listened to a lot. And so there is this need out there, which is, which is huge. And you turned me on to the Wait But Why?
Scott Allen 48:37
Yes.
Kathy Lund Dean 48:38
I'm blog, which I enjoy reading. I think they're so creative. And I love the graphics and I love that the topics they tackle or, you know, they just, they're very engaging. They're very engaging. So I read that too. I read the conversation. So I read posts on the conversation a lot. And I've been reading here and there some of the posters on medium. Okay, I don't know if you're familiar with that site. Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Scott Allen 49:13
And heard of the conversation. Where is that?
Kathy Lund Dean 49:16
It's called the conversation. And it's, it's to your other point, it's translating academic research. Oh, into a conversation. I'll put them yeah, so they, if they're short, and they have to be easily understood. And so it's academics, translating their work for a wider audience.
Scott Allen 49:40
Great. I love that.
Kathy Lund Dean 49:42
So I love the conversation. And I'm let's see what else am I? I'm writing a lot. I'm about two-thirds of the way through a book about engaged course design and assessment with Charles Fornaciari , my frequent collaborator, and then Nancy Niemi, who is who, who picked the very wrong, the worst time in the world to become a provost last year in the University of Maryland system, and so bless her heart. She's, she's continuing to Provost, pandemic, row boasting. Provost Yes, it's the worst job on campus, I think right now. And I was awarded. So as I prepare for my post jammy life that Who am I, if not an editor to help make that transition, I made a proposal to the Fulbright Commission to do outreach in places without that tradition as a Fulbright specialist and was approved in April. About a week later, they stopped all programs. And so that's a there's a three-year term for that once we start sending people overseas again, so I have the Fulbright thing. Coming up and keeps me busy,
Scott Allen 51:11
keeps me busy, the knowledge that you and Jeanie and of course, other editors have, I think it was so you what you were describing is what I experienced I, I at times over the course of my academic career have felt mentor less, hmm, rather less and how to navigate that world. And, you know, obviously building relationships and attending conferences. It's kind of an identity shift. And it's a process. But it's, it's real. So so the two of you digitizing your content, whether that's through the podcast, or helping others understand the space, it's invaluable. It just really is because I mean, you're right, it's people's identities, and sometimes they can't separate it, and they feel like they've been rejected and yes, and not the manuscript and but it's, it's a complex space to navigate at times. And I just have great respect. Oh, thank you, and thankful for the mentorship that you've provided me, right.
Kathy Lund Dean 52:17
You are no stranger. You are no stranger to that publication process. And, you know, again, when I get a great idea like you had with your Well, your article that you ultimately got published, you know, we started having that conversation at the conference. Yeah, yeah. And able to see that through to publication and what makes that work is it's a great topic. And you as an author can hear and integrate other ideas while staying focused on what you want to contribute new at a very focused contribution. And that's when it works. Well. Yeah. And what's what I will forever
Scott Allen 52:57
be thankful because, after that session, I think it was you that said, this would be an interesting publication and that's what sparked for me And so yeah, I'm forever thankful for that.
Kathy Lund Dean 53:09
Makes it easy. Again, my happy place I love I can talk to authors all day long. about their work. It's really it's a privilege to do to see that spark and, and help people get through it. Yeah. Yeah.
Scott Allen 53:24
Kathy, thank you for all that you do. And I've really enjoyed our conversation today. I know our listeners will have loved it as well. I'll put all the resources that you mentioned into the show notes so people can check those out. And be well.
Kathy Lund Dean 53:40
you as well. It's high velocity out there. And we're not going to turn the corner very soon. So stay well and thank you. You know, when I saw your name in my inbox... it's delightful. It's really fun. So thank you for the invitation.
Scott Allen 54:00
The feeling is mutual. Okay, be Well, bye-bye.
Kathy Lund Dean 54:02
Thanks, you too.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai