Season 1, Episode 4 - Monica Brockmeyer and Dawn Medley

Host Annmarie Caño speaks with academic leaders at Wayne State University to learn how they have developed their careers while empowering themselves and others.

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Show notes

Monica Brockmeyer and Dawn MedleyAbout Monica Brockmeyer

Monica Brockmeyer is senior associate provost for student success and an associate professor of computer science at Wayne State University. Through her leadership, she's helped transform the undergraduate student experience and seen the university's graduation rate increase by 21% over six years the fastest in the nation for large public universities.

About Dawn Medley

Dawn Medley is the associate vice president for enrollment management at Wayne State University, where she's created first-in-the-nation student support programs. A champion for traditionally overlooked student populations, Medley is an expert in financial aid, access and technology for student engagement.

Conversation highlights

Host Annmarie Caño begins the discussion by asking Brockmeyer and Medley about their jobs. "In this position, I get to stretch every day," says Medley, who notes that in addition to learning and challenging herself, she finds motivation by flexing her creative muscles.  

Caño asks Brockmeyer and Medley how they've learned to lead as a dynamic duo. For them, it's all about a push-and-pull balance. "We have such similar commitment and values about the future of the university," Brockmeyer says, "but pretty complementary talents and different styles in terms of how people perceive us." She and Medley even finish each other's thoughts other in the parking lot, where their vanity plates say "Enroll" and "Success."

Medley notes that she and Brockmeyer actually share the same Myers-Briggs personality (INTJ, for those wondering), though it might not appear that way at first. Caño points out that there is a place at the leadership table for all personality types, and Medley shares how she learned to accept her leadership potential as an introvert: "We place a judgment that extrovert is more of a leadership style or more of a management style, and they're going to climb the ladder faster," she says. "I think that the quieter, thoughtful folks who can push themselves into a different level of comfort engaging with other people are far more effective when it comes to leadership."

Caño asks about potential barriers to leading as a team, and Medley recommends checking your ego at the door and being open to feedback and experiences. While reflecting on a conflict that she and Brockmeyer overcame that week, she compares it to the bank account analogy in Stephen Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: "It never reduces to, 'Monica doesn't like me'; it's just, 'Monica disagrees with me professionally,' and if we're open as leaders to that professional disagreement, we will get much farther on the other side of it." Brockmeyer adds that, in working through her concerns with Medley, she was able to learn ways to help other people at the university reach agreements.

Caño brings the conversation to a close by asking what it means to empower other people to lead. For Brockmeyer, it's all about recognizing leadership behaviors with those who might not see themselves as leaders. "Once people become aware of it as leadership, they're a lot more comfortable using that behavior in the future and feel more confident," she says. Medley chooses to walk alongside people and equip them with the tools to assert their voice and, as Brockmeyer adds, "None of us are perfect, so we believe that leadership is for everyone."

Additional resources

Covey, Stephen (2013). The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (25th anniversary ed.). New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

Follow EmpowerED to Lead on Twitter @WSUFacSuccess.

Transcript

Annmarie Caño: 

Welcome to EmpowerED to Lead, a Wayne State University podcast for academic leaders who are committed to empowering their community to succeed. I'm your host, Annmarie Caño, Associate Provost for Faculty Development and Faculty Success at Wayne State. In this podcast, we'll explore the personal journeys of academic leaders, both current and emerging, to learn more about how they've developed their careers. We'll speak with faculty and staff about their work and how they have empowered themselves and others along the way. By doing this, we hope to empower listeners like you as you continue on your leadership path.

Annmarie Caño:                  

Today we're speaking with Monica Brockmeyer and Dawn Medley in a special podcast on leadership teams. Monica Brockmeyer is Senior Associate Provost for Student Success and Associate Professor of Computer Science at Wayne State University. Since 2011 she has been the strategic lead for Wayne State Student Success initiatives, an effort that has led to a transformation of the undergraduate student experience and a 21 percentage point increase in the university's graduation rate in just six years. These gains, which are the fastest in the nation for large public universities, have been recognized in the New York Times and by the Association for Public and Land-grant Universities, which awarded Wayne State the prestigious APLU Project Degree Completion Award in 2018.

Dawn Medley is the Associate Vice President of Enrollment Management at Wayne State, the creator of First in the Nation Student Support programs such as Warrior Way Back. She tirelessly advocates on behalf of traditionally overlooked student populations. Dawn is an expert in financial aid, access and technology for student engagement. Her exceptional ability to create educational ecosystems that benefit all parties involved, students, communities and institutions alike, and her standout ability to create collaborative and supportive coalitions to move toward a common goal, has made her a nationally recognized innovator in her field. Welcome Dawn and Monica.

Monica Brockmeyer:                              

Thank you.

Dawn Medley:                      

Thank you.

Annmarie Caño:                  

So let's start by having you share with what you love about your jobs.

Monica Brockmeyer:                              

Oh, I love so many things. I love doing work that matters. I love the fact that I'm still learning every day at work, and I love being part of a big group who are also working with me and learning with me as a team to do work that matters.

Dawn Medley:                      

I'd say for me, I've always loved admissions and financial aid and working with students, but in this position in particular, I get to stretch every day. And so, it's the learning, like Monica talked about in the challenge, but then also being empowered to be creative. I think that's what nurtures me and keeps me motivated to go and try the next new thing or really look at a different way of doing something.

Annmarie Caño:                  

And your enjoyment and passion of your jobs and working with people really comes through when I see you working with groups or talking in front of other people about the work that you're doing and trying to encourage people to promote student success and engagement in new and innovative ways.

Monica Brockmeyer:                       

Good. Then I guess we're doing what we should be doing if we're passionate about our work.

Annmarie Caño:                  

You've both made exceptional contributions to student recruitment, retention and success through your efforts in leading your respective teams. But let's talk about leading as a team. So one of the Provost mantras is, "Leadership is a team sport," and we've heard him say this in small and large group meetings many times. How have you learned to lead together as a dynamic duo?

Dawn Medley:                      

I'll go first. One of the things, when we're talking about teams is, I played a lot of sports when I was younger. And so, at different times on each of those sports, somebody is a standout, somebody else is kind of a utility player, somebody else is kind of supporting, even handing out the towels or water. And I think what has made our team in the provost office so strong is the ability of people to step forward, but then also to pull back as needed. And so, especially with Monica, when I talk about the work that we're doing, I always refer to her as my work wife because she's... I'm responsible for bringing them in and adding financial aid to the student support model. But then she and her team are responsible for getting them through.

And so, again, it's that constant kind of pull and push of each other. But if I have a wild idea, I can look over at her and I can see her already putting it into a formula in a spreadsheet and what needs to happen. So I think that's a really good balance.

Monica Brockmeyer:                     

Because we have such similar commitment and values about the future of the university, but pretty complimentary. It's talents and different styles in terms of how people perceive us. And then I guess also, the reason I think leadership has to be a team sport is that I think you define leadership as not just doing the things that you can do by authority. Like if you just have the power to buy something or tell your person to do something, that's just management. Leadership is about making change where you don't have authority and therefore... But you can't do it alone because you're trying to stretch out into a part of the university student success. We always say that's about creating the conditions where students can learn a lot, thrive and graduate in a timely manner. That's not one portfolio. That's the job of the university. And so, I need everyone in the university to do that work, and in particular, as Dawn says, I need Dawn because she brings them in and I get them out. You should see our license plates, enroll, success, when we park next to each other in fab.

Dawn Medley:                      

And so it's been really nice because we're aware and I think a lot of people are, that a lot of institutions, our role is singular, it's one person and here we're divided. And so I think far away from being competitive, it's been, like you said, very complimentary. And it's interesting, Monica and I share the same Myers-Briggs personality, but I think we both grew up professionally in very different worlds. I grew up in admissions where I had to be outgoing and even though I'm very introverted, I had to go and do those things. And Monica grew up in computer science and academics and so she can be-

Monica Brockmeyer:                                

Perfect home for introverts.

Dawn Medley:                      

Yes, exactly. So when people find out that we're the same Myers-Briggs they're like, No, no, there's no way," and I'm like, "Really? If you see how we work and get our energy and what we focus on, we are very similar in that way."

Annmarie Caño:                  

I think listeners will be curious at this point to know what is your Myers-Briggs?

Dawn Medley:                      

So we're both very introverted. I believe we're the ISTJ.

Monica Brockmeyer:                              

Uh-oh. We're not actually that, the same. I'm INTJ.

Dawn Medley:                      

INTJ. That's what we are. Okay. I always get the N and the S mixed up.

Monica Brockmeyer:                              

No, you're definitely an N. Yeah. INTJ. So...

Annmarie Caño:                  

I've heard some people say that they would not make good leaders because they are not very extroverted. But what you're saying is that introverts may be especially attuned to leading as a team. Can you speak more about that?

Dawn Medley:                      

What I would say with that is, I think with introverts we have to expend more energy to engage with others, and so sometimes where we want to think through things on our own, we can still do that, but then we also have to exhibit the passion and the communication and the engagement, not only with our peers but with people we supervise to get them on board. Because it may make sense in our head because we spend a lot of time there, but in order to lead and get other people to see our vision, we have to be able to engage.

Monica Brockmeyer:                              

And I think being an introvert can actually make great conditions to bring other people into leadership because we have to process for a little while before we know what to do. And so we have to... I think we're set up to listen in many ways that may not be so automatic for extroverts. And so I think that makes space for other people to speak up. I think, I don't know, I hypothesize that introverts know that they need other people's input very explicitly.

Dawn Medley:                      

And I think one of the things that's interesting, and I know we're going to probably talk about this, but I think people forget that I am introverted because I am so front facing, and so sometimes when I just need to take a minute or I need to think about things... We were talking yesterday and I was like, "You know, I really got to go back and I got to think about this." People expect me to be able to just answer those questions really quickly, and I still very much need that time to process and think about things. And so...

Monica Brockmeyer:

Well, if the Provost doesn't believe I'm an introvert, then I don't know all...

Dawn Medley:                      

He doesn't I believe I'm an interpret at all. He's like, "No way. No way."

Annmarie Caño:                  

There is a place at the leadership table for people with all kinds of personality types, and I think sometimes people say, "Well, I can't really be a leader because I'm an introvert," or, "Only extroverts can be leaders." And I think this conversation is really good because it helps people think about that, that really everyone can be a leader. You just harness your leadership potential in different ways and with different people and there's a way to do that.

Dawn Medley:                      

I think that, when you said harness it, you have to accept it. I spent probably most of my 20s going, "I am not an introvert, I am extroverted," because we place a judgment that extrovert is more of a leadership style or more of a management style and they're going to climb the ladder faster. The thing is, is I think that the quieter, thoughtful folks who can then push themselves into a different level of comfort, being with other people and engaging with other people, I think are far more effective when it comes to leadership. I would never want to see someone say they couldn't be a leader because of a personality type. I think it's just getting comfortable with your personality and comfortable with your own style. That really helps you grow.

Monica Brockmeyer:

Yeah. I think, even though as leaders we're always learning and growing, that if you're not actually building on your core strengths and have deep awareness of them, you won't be authentic to others and that will undermine you. But sometimes you need to be challenged. I know when the Provost first came in, the first piece of advice he gave me was to bring more emotion to my communication and I really struggled with that, but it stayed with me to remind me that I actually had that. It just wasn't a natural style of communication for me and it's really added quite a bit. And so, you build from your core and then you stretch.

Annmarie Caño:                  

Great. What do you think are some of the barriers that prevent people from working together to lead as a team?

Monica Brockmeyer:                              

Oh, so first of all, the mission of the university is really, really complex and all of higher education is under strain, so there's a lot of competing pressures coming on really any complex organization, but especially universities. We all might perceive that in slightly different ways, even when we have really shared goals, hopes, dreams for who we are at Wayne State. I also think leadership, as I said, is about making change where you don't have authority, and so, basically, that's about creating little spaces of discomfort where... around a space where that change needs to be made and then helping other people be safe in that discomfort so you can change together. It's like making this space for agreement and disagreement at the same time.

Dawn Medley:                      

A couple of things there when you were talking. I think the one thing that you cannot bring to this is your ego, and we all have egos and we all have things we're proud of and we all bring that, but when your ego begins to interfere with your ability to connect with other people and also to be vulnerable in your leadership. I know a lot of people subscribe to a servant leader and that's never really been something that I've subscribed to. That wasn't really a belief. But what I do believe in is the fact that you have to be open to the journey, and you have, the people that you work with, they have to see you wrestle with things and struggle with things. And it has to be okay to fail.

I will say that one of the things I love about the Provost is he's like, "You know what? You're going to fail." And my decision-making... A lot of times I have to make snap decisions but then I have to be okay to go back and change those and to be willing to do that and to show those shortcomings. That's important. And also being open. I think that's the big thing is being open to feedback, open to the journey, as I said, but then open to your own experience and what did you learn from. Being able to have that quiet time to reflect, to discuss, and then just to trust the process, I think helps a lot. I think so many people in leadership, whether it's a faculty position, your work life, whatever, people feel like, "Ooh, I'm here and everybody else has all their stuff together."

Annmarie Caño:                  

Oh, yeah.

Dawn Medley:                      

And as I get older, because I'm in my 50s now, and I remember being in my 20s and looking at people who are in their 50s and I was like, "Wow, they are so together and they're so this and they have this and they did it, you know?" So, being open and just human through that process I think is a really good mentorship and role modeling for younger professionals as they come up, but I think it's a really good reminder for us as we go through this process as well.

Monica Brockmeyer:                              

And you're, like, again, with student success or recruiting and just generally making the university the best it can be, we might be often asking people to do something differently than the way they did it before. And that's asking them to be vulnerable. And so-

Dawn Medley:                      

A distraction.

Monica Brockmeyer:                             

... if we're not willing to let anybody see that we're right there at that edge too, and we don't always... We're figuring it out with them and, yes, it is hard to think about reevaluate your assumptions in order to do the thing that we all need as a university. And so, yeah, to be willing to be a little afraid together about what we must do together.

Annmarie Caño:                  

So how do you practice that together in your teamwork? Are there times where you're vulnerable with each other or disagreeing or... How do you work through that as leaders?

Dawn Medley:                      

I referred to Monica as my work wife, so sometimes we have matrimonial disagreement, but it's one of those things. I think both of us knows that the other one has that point on the horizon that we're working toward. Now we may not always agree how we need to work toward that, and so that's when friction comes in.                                                      

And then it's interesting, too, remembering, sometimes I want a quicker answer out of Monica or she'll want a quicker answer out of me, and remembering that we each need to have that time to formulate that. And then, we just have really honest conversations and we disagreed this week and I'm not even sure it was a total disagreement.

Monica Brockmeyer:                             

No, it was-

Dawn Medley:                      

It was kind of a... I was headed one path and I think her folks were nervous about that path and I hadn't done a great job of communicating the whole backside of the story.

Monica Brockmeyer:                            

And so I actually deliberately put you in an uncomfortable position because I felt like things needed to change, and then I suffered over having to do that, but at the moment I couldn't figure out any different way to do it. So I think the way it works for us as a team is that, I'm hoping, that our interpretations stay fluid so that we can say like, "I'm currently in disagreement with you," or "I'm currently experiencing this." But then tomorrow we still keep talking and listening and we interpret that better and make it better together.

Dawn Medley:                      

Well, and I also think it goes into that... You know, Steven Covey, a long time ago, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, I read that when I was young and he always talks about the bank account, and so you put so many deposits in that bank account. Well, both Monica and I have put tons of deposits in each other's bank account and we've spoken for each other and we've given each other credit and really supported one another. And so, this week we made some withdrawals from that bank account when we had the friction, but it also was never...

Monica Brockmeyer:

Personal.

Dawn Medley:                      

No. It never reduces to, "Monica doesn't like me," or, "Monica is doing this," or... It's just like, "Monica disagrees with me professionally," and if we're open as leaders to that professional disagreement, we will get much farther on the other side of it. It's not a personal thing and it's not an attack. It's just, "You know what? I see this differently, so let's talk about it. Let's work through it and let's see what the product's going to be on the other side."

Monica Brockmeyer:                     

And I was able to do a couple of things, was, to learn from you things that I didn't know before. I communicated in the way that I did, and also, as we worked through those concerns, we found ways, or at least I think there's ways where we can actually build on the agreement we're making with each other to actually help other people in the university come in to better agreement after we reconcile the things that we've been grappling with.

Dawn Medley:                      

And we do sometimes have, you know... And it's the nature, like I said, of what we do, because a very basic example would be in enrollment, and especially in undergraduate admissions, we could go out and we could admit a whole lot of students, right? So we go out and we do that. However, if we bring students to the institution who aren't qualified and that places huge burden on Monica, the advising staff, the writing center, tutoring, all of this, and it doesn't give the students a good experience. That is why it's really important that we're in sync with what we're doing, why we're doing it, and how it supports the mission of the institution.

Monica Brockmeyer:

Right. And so similarly, I couldn't say, "Oh, I have to boost graduation rates. Just bring me students that will be easy to support in college."

Dawn Medley:                      

Right.

Monica Brockmeyer:                        

Then I think that's how enrollment management and student success were viewed before you came on, and just inadvertently, because sometimes you're supposed to get some kind of number and the mission that we share together is much, much more than my graduation rate goals and your enrollment goals-

Dawn Medley:                      

My freshman class numbers. Yeah.

Monica Brockmeyer:

Yeah. But we still have to work for those things and then we have to work for all the things that aren't really measurable that exist between us, that we hope for and dream for, for us as being the best possible university.

Annmarie Caño:                  

It sounds like you've got a few ways to manage conflict and tension, which is the open communication, some non-defensiveness in there as well, and what you were describing was the practice of good emotional intelligence skills in terms of being able to say, "Okay, this is my relationship with this person and here's our professional relationship and I may feel this way about something and they feel differently and they have different basis of knowledge, but there's something I can learn here and we can continue to work together and we will find some common ground." So there's also a bit of optimism and hope in there.

Dawn Medley:                      

Oh yeah. And I think it goes back, again, to the relationship. When you're in a committed romantic relationship with someone, you don't, all of a sudden, if they leave dishes in the sink, you don't just go, "You hate me. Why didn't you take care of... Why don't...?"

Monica Brockmeyer:                             

Well, you could do that.

Dawn Medley:                      

You could. It's... [crosstalk 00:20:13] I don't know how long your relationship is going to last at that point. But the same way, if Monica all of a sudden said, "I expect every freshman to wear a blue sticker every day." And I was like, "That's really stupid. Why would you do that?" You don't deal on that level, that's a really immature way to do it, as opposed to, "Why are you doing this?" And seeking to understand always is the best, and the communication. Neither one of us have any difficulty expressing what we feel. Inherently we know that the other one is just as passionate about what we're doing as as we are, and so the respect for that passion...

The other thing I will tell you is I also think it's very... Because of the Myers-Briggs and also because of our childhood experiences, Monica and I are women who are okay bringing a feminine leadership style to things, and also okay bringing power and confidence-

Monica Brockmeyer:

So we're both big sisters.

Dawn Medley:                      

Yeah, we're both big sisters. We're both in situations where we had to take a lot of leadership in our younger family units, and so just appreciating that and valuing that, I think has put us in a different situation at times than what we see with our male counterparts. I think that the gender aspect of that as well has allowed us, because a lot of times we're the only two women in the room when we're talking about big things.

Monica Brockmeyer:

I think it actually has to recognize that in leadership I would never want anyone to feel bad. But if I allow myself to feel bad, sometimes I can do more and that might mean even putting other people deliberately, which you don't do on purpose, but if you are a person who's willing to feel bad because something isn't right, and then I always like to use the metaphor, "Sometimes you're down on the dance floor and sometimes you come up to the balcony." I think what happens to make us work well as a team and with others is you start to say, "Okay, I'm feeling bad. What am I feeling bad about?" You've got to go up to the balcony and take a little look around before jumping. But, yeah, sometimes you jump in and make a mistake.

Dawn Medley:                      

And the other part of that is, and please know, it's not all about conflict, because there's also some days I can go to Monica and I can go, "I don't think I handled this well." So this is also the person that I can be vulnerable with and talk about my leadership style because she also experiences similar things. And you and I've had some of those conversations about, "This is a struggle for me," or trying to mentor a team and where...

Monica Brockmeyer:

That's the team. We're all peer mentoring each other all the time.

Dawn Medley:                      

And being willing to self-examine. And then also, not only self-examine but just lay it out for your team.

Monica Brockmeyer:

Plus, other people see what you can't see about yourself.

Dawn Medley:                      

Yeah.

Monica Brockmeyer:

We just can't. It's like having a bigger, better self to have people show you the things that you can't see.

Annmarie Caño:                  

That self-awareness, both your own introspection, but then seeking feedback from other people, that is authentic and that you can do something with-

Dawn Medley:                      

Right.

Annmarie Caño:                  

... to make your job better, but to also make things better for other people.

Dawn Medley:                      

Yeah, exactly.

Annmarie Caño:                  

Yeah. One of the questions we ask all of our guests is, what does it mean to empower other people to lead? What does it mean to empower to lead? And so I turn that question over to you two.

Monica Brockmeyer:

The first thing I think that I try to do is, if I notice someone who maybe doesn't think of themselves as a leader demonstrating a leadership behavior, I try to really recognize that with them explicitly and help them have the self-awareness that, "Oh, I saw you step out and say something that might have been a little hard for you," or, "I saw you manage that other conflict in the room very adeptly. That's great leadership." And especially I've noticed that once people then become aware of it as leadership, they're a lot more comfortable using that behavior in the future and they feel more confident about that. So that's one of the things I choose. I just try to notice leadership all the time and comment on it.

Dawn Medley:                      

I think one of the things I do is, with my staff, I think there's a difference between pushing your staff and then supportively walking beside them. It's a very different management style to say, "I know you're going to do this and you go do it," as opposed to, "How are you going to do this, and how can I help you do that?" I think empowered leadership is making sure that I'm supporting my team that they have all of the conditions in order to step out and make their choices, and step out and be able to assert their voice. And so, do they have the tools, do they have the support, have they had the training, and do they feel confident?

Sometimes we'll even, like before they're going to go to a meeting or they're going to lead something, we'll even talk about it and I'm like, "So, what's going to happen when somebody says this?" It's not really a full-on role-play, but just getting them thinking about, because I don't want them to be caught off guard. If they go, "Here's this amazing idea," and somebody is like, "Well, that's really stupid." And then they get defensive and we throw up those walls, and so, being prepared for that...

And then I think the other thing that goes back to that is, again, the role modeling. We don't always know things, and so, as Monica and I had our differing views on something this week, one of my staff members just kept going, "But this is why. And this is why. And this is why, and this is how it has to happen." And finally-

Monica Brockmeyer:

I had a staff member like that also.

Dawn Medley:                      

And so, I heard all of that, and then at that point I said, "I hear you and I know that she would, too. And so I'm going to talk with her about it. But you also have to understand, disagreement about this project doesn't negate any of the amazing work you have done." And so, really trying to separate those things out because we are so invested in our work and what we're doing that sometimes if somebody says no to something, it can seem really personal, and it's not.

Monica Brockmeyer:

But it's more like, if we don't work through this now, the work together won't be as good as we hope it will be.

Dawn Medley:                      

No. It fractures.

Annmarie Caño:                  

So what you're both saying is, empowering people to lead means helping them identify and own their leadership and being able to practice it and-

Dawn Medley:                      

And grow.

Annmarie Caño:                  

... and grow. And to prepare people for the world, basically. The things that happen or the things that could happen, we can't predict them all and we will fail and we'll get up and we'll learn something from that. But to be as prepared as you can as you go out and lead, that those are the kinds of things that we need to share with others.

Dawn Medley:                      

I also think that we need to unburden people as they're going through this process with the... I think people feel like they have to step out and be perfect the first time.

Monica Brockmeyer:

Oh, yeah. Right.

Dawn Medley:                      

And just to kind of pull that perfectionism back from them and show them we're not perfect, but then also show them that we don't expect them to be perfect either. I think that's a big deal.

Annmarie Caño:                  

Yes. And I liked the word that you used. I think you used "to free them" because it is something. I mean, I have experienced too, everything has to look perfect, be perfect. And I had a seminar last year that didn't go the way I wanted it to, and the whole day I was thinking, "Oh, my gosh, what a failure." I just heaped all of that on top, and then later on I took a little perspective break and I thought, "This was one seminar and this is one situation. I now know what to do differently. I've got some other ideas. I have some good feedback from the people who participated. I'm going to make it better." And I wondered, "Why did I spend all of that time beating myself up?"

Monica Brockmeyer:

Because you're a human being.

Annmarie Caño:                  

Right. I'm a human being, but I could have also used that time more productively or in another way. But it did teach me something about that. I still have that seed of perfectionism in there.

Dawn Medley:                      

Well, and I also think that there's still some imposter because I'm a first generation college student.

Annmarie Caño:                  

Oh, yes.

Dawn Medley:                      

And Monica is a first generation-

Annmarie Caño:                  

And I am, too.

Dawn Medley:                      

And so are you. And so we are operating as leaders at an institution with a lot of folks who are third generation college students and it's just always been expected. And so, I also think there's a little bit of, "My dad only went to eighth grade and I've got to continue to prove and I've got to do these things." So, one of the first things, anytime somebody joins my staff that I talk about, is the fact that I have a language processing disability. And I always tell them, I'm like, "You will receive emails from me. You will receive written word from me that..." Their words... I mean, autocorrect is not my friend. And I said, "There'll be missing words."

And I said, "So I just expect you, when you do it, you can insert the word and we'll kind of go on." And it helps break that, because the first time they send something to me that isn't perfect, they know they're not going to be judged, because it's just like, "Well, we all make mistakes. It's okay," and we move on. So I think also trying to get people to feel comfortable operating in this, the world of academics, is really important.

Annmarie Caño:                  

Yes, absolutely.

Monica Brockmeyer:

And really, none of us are perfect. So we believe that leadership is for everyone, and I profoundly believe that that is essential for student success, is that everyone is leading with respect to students and our care for them, then none of us are perfect. And so it would be totally unfair to expect that of ourselves or anyone else.

Annmarie Caño:                  

And look what great things imperfect people can do.

Monica Brockmeyer:

Absolutely.

Dawn Medley:                      

Oh, exactly.

Monica Brockmeyer:

And our students. It connects exactly with what we permit our students to be. Imperfect, growing, learning, struggling a little as they learn. And so [crosstalk 00:30:20]

Dawn Medley:                      

And living in a culture where they can ask for help.

Annmarie Caño:                  

Yeah.

Monica Brockmeyer:

Right there with that. Yeah.

Annmarie Caño:                  

Well, this has been great. Thanks so much for being with us today, Monica and Dawn. Where can our listeners find you online?

Monica Brockmeyer:

Oh, well, LinkedIn and also Provost office website will probably be the best places, and then anyone should shoot me an email or call if you ever want to talk about anything or ask anything related to student success.

Dawn Medley:                      

Yeah, so I'm easily found on the Wayne State website and my email is dawn.medley@wayne.edu and I'm always up for a cup of coffee or I think we're going to go have coffee later. So yeah, so always up to visit.

Annmarie Caño:

Okay. Thank you.

Monica B.:                              

Thank you.

Annmarie Caño:

We're glad to have you listening to EmpowerED To Lead. To learn more about our podcast, follow us on Twitter at @WSUFacSuccess.