Verizon CIO Gets Leadership and Service in Technology Award
Some times being the Interim Dean is a great job, and this was one of those times.
The video says it all!
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Saturday, April 7, 2012
Transitions
I'm hoping that I'm "short" as they say in the army. The search committee is interviewing candidates for the job of Dean, Seidenberg School and I'm planning to be on sabbatical in the fall. I'll return in Spring 2013 as a professor in the Westchester Information Technology Department.
There are days that I realize how much I will miss this job, and there are days when I realize that I miss teaching more. I find the relationships with students very rewarding, more rewarding and nurturing than sitting in meetings. I think my finest moments have been in the classroom, real or virtual, working with a community of learners, as we all learn something new, or see technology in a way we haven't seen it before.
I put together a "vision board" a year ago, during a workshop with Peggy Cappy at Kripalu. When I brought it home I found the collage that I did 11 years ago when I was on sabbatical and working through The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. That collage has become my desktop picture; here it is:
Seeing this picture on my Mac each morning reminds me that there is more to life than meetings, or as the Gandhi quote that I have hanging on my bulletin board in my home office tells me, "there is more to life than increasing its speed."
As I look at what I'm planning to be the last four or five years of my work life, I know what I want it to have: fun! I want to work with people who challenge me, support me and help me grow. The best part of this job has been the deans with whom I've been privileged to work, colleagues who have done just that: challenged me, supported me and helped me to grow.
As my colleague Fran learned at the recent SunGuard Summit at a talk by Jane McGonigal, the opposite of play isn't work, it's depression. I want to play at work and play at home. I just want to play. With a shout out to Cyndi Lauper, this girl just wants to have fun!
Stay tuned and let's see how this "plays" out. The best case is someone new takes this job. The worst case is that someone doesn't.
There are days that I realize how much I will miss this job, and there are days when I realize that I miss teaching more. I find the relationships with students very rewarding, more rewarding and nurturing than sitting in meetings. I think my finest moments have been in the classroom, real or virtual, working with a community of learners, as we all learn something new, or see technology in a way we haven't seen it before.
I put together a "vision board" a year ago, during a workshop with Peggy Cappy at Kripalu. When I brought it home I found the collage that I did 11 years ago when I was on sabbatical and working through The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. That collage has become my desktop picture; here it is:
 |
| My iMac Desktop: My Vision Board |
As I look at what I'm planning to be the last four or five years of my work life, I know what I want it to have: fun! I want to work with people who challenge me, support me and help me grow. The best part of this job has been the deans with whom I've been privileged to work, colleagues who have done just that: challenged me, supported me and helped me to grow.
As my colleague Fran learned at the recent SunGuard Summit at a talk by Jane McGonigal, the opposite of play isn't work, it's depression. I want to play at work and play at home. I just want to play. With a shout out to Cyndi Lauper, this girl just wants to have fun!
Stay tuned and let's see how this "plays" out. The best case is someone new takes this job. The worst case is that someone doesn't.
Friday, December 23, 2011
Happy Holidays!
Hard to believe but the semester is over and most of us have turned
our thoughts to the holiday season. I have always found this a perfect
time to reflect on the past year and set an intention for the upcoming
year.
I have been very influenced by Meg Wheatley, a scholar who has been applying systems theory to organizations. I highly recommend her book, Perseverance. In it, she helps to answer the question, what makes some people, even with failures and setbacks, keep doing work that they care about, that they feel is important.
I recommend it because all of us have failures, setbacks, disappointments and obstacles to overcome. All of us. And we need to learn to persevere, to "keep on keeping on." Sometimes school is like that-I know it was for me when I returned at the age of 40 to begin working on my doctorate. Sometimes work is like that-in the words of Jim Croce, "some days you eat the bear, some days the bear eats you."
We all just need to keep showing up, to remember that each day is a new beginning.
And so I wish for you and your families and your friends a peace-filled holiday break. I look forward to seeing you all in the new year, a new beginning of a new semester.
I have been very influenced by Meg Wheatley, a scholar who has been applying systems theory to organizations. I highly recommend her book, Perseverance. In it, she helps to answer the question, what makes some people, even with failures and setbacks, keep doing work that they care about, that they feel is important.
I recommend it because all of us have failures, setbacks, disappointments and obstacles to overcome. All of us. And we need to learn to persevere, to "keep on keeping on." Sometimes school is like that-I know it was for me when I returned at the age of 40 to begin working on my doctorate. Sometimes work is like that-in the words of Jim Croce, "some days you eat the bear, some days the bear eats you."
We all just need to keep showing up, to remember that each day is a new beginning.
And so I wish for you and your families and your friends a peace-filled holiday break. I look forward to seeing you all in the new year, a new beginning of a new semester.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Fall semester, already?
I have absolutely no idea where the summer went, that's for sure.
I worked, we went to Asheville, NC, I worked some more, we went to P'town and hurried back to avoid Irene, and I worked some more.
Oh, I see, I worked all summer, that's where it went!
How I miss the 16 weeks of vacation that I got as a faculty member! Giving them up was one of the trade offs that I had to weigh when I agreed to serve as the (Interim) dean, but now as I begin year four (!) I find myself really wishing I had been able to take more vacation time. I could use a complete rest, time away from the rat race, and as Lily Tomlin says, even if you win, you're still a rat!
But now it's the first day of class, and the race is on!
Good luck to all of us, students, teachers, parents.
I worked, we went to Asheville, NC, I worked some more, we went to P'town and hurried back to avoid Irene, and I worked some more.
Oh, I see, I worked all summer, that's where it went!
How I miss the 16 weeks of vacation that I got as a faculty member! Giving them up was one of the trade offs that I had to weigh when I agreed to serve as the (Interim) dean, but now as I begin year four (!) I find myself really wishing I had been able to take more vacation time. I could use a complete rest, time away from the rat race, and as Lily Tomlin says, even if you win, you're still a rat!
But now it's the first day of class, and the race is on!
Good luck to all of us, students, teachers, parents.
Monday, January 17, 2011
A New Year, a New Post
Hard for me to believe that it is 2011, but it is. And I've been thinking alot about what we need to be discussing in classrooms.
Yesterday I spent some time with my friend, Deb, who runs an excellent Internet marketing company (you can find more information about her firm here). We wound up talking about Chris Anderson's article in the August issue of Wired, The Web is Dead, Long Live the Internet. How can you predict the "next big thing?" Will it really be apps? Deb contends that Facebook is over; what's next?
And how does that affect our curricula?
Things to ponder....
Yesterday I spent some time with my friend, Deb, who runs an excellent Internet marketing company (you can find more information about her firm here). We wound up talking about Chris Anderson's article in the August issue of Wired, The Web is Dead, Long Live the Internet. How can you predict the "next big thing?" Will it really be apps? Deb contends that Facebook is over; what's next?
And how does that affect our curricula?
Things to ponder....
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
I'm back-reading Program or Be Programmed
I have a new blog-you can find it here.
I'm still serving as the Interim Dean, so that's why I've got the Dean's blog, but at heart I'm still an Information Systems Professor, so I'll keep this one, too.
And it's an exciting time to be an IS/IT professor. The field is changing, our courses are changing, and the definition of Information Technology is changing. Our students know more about some specific things than we do, but less about the overall field than we do-and that is a problem. One of my colleagues, Joe, sent me a "must read" note about a book, Program or Be Programmed, by Douglas Rushkoff-you can watch a video here. Rushkoff gives me pause.
Why is this different from, say, just getting in my car and driving? Well, for one thing, I usually steer when I drive. Many of the applications we use on the web "steer" us. I'll end with this thought. Rushoff's "ten commandments" are important-here's a snipppet from a review in The Miami Herald:
Friday, June 20, 2008
Being an Interim Dean?
I've been named Interim Dean, effective July 1 (although I jumped right in and am "deaning" now). Should I change the name of this blog? No, I'll just start a new one- The Dean's Diary (http://seidenbergdean.blogspot.com Every Friday I'll post what I did for the week and where I'll be.
Should be interesting-I never thought I'd be dean, never really planned for it but it feels like this is what I was mean to do-isn't that weird?
Should be interesting-I never thought I'd be dean, never really planned for it but it feels like this is what I was mean to do-isn't that weird?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
