He/Him/His
Pronouns
Inspiration
I have focused my life’s work on the transformative impact that a college education affords students and the campus and industry professionals who teach, advise, employ, and promote them. What that means is that I believe in the power of the individuals and organizations that make college come alive for students. I also believe that these contributors deserve to fully own their gifts, aspirations, and even the inevitable bumps that get in the way so that they can create their authentic success—on campus and off.
Guiding Values
Influence, Connection, Flow, and Transcendence
Path
My career as a university leader, lecturer, facilitator, and coach has taken me throughout the United States and abroad, working with highly complex organizations seeking to enhance their impact on the lives of those they are charged to serve. I have championed and led many organizational pivots, and I have established structures that have enhanced the capacity and professional energy of individual staff members, teams, and divisional leaders.
Approach
My practice integrates principles of career discernment, positive intelligence, organizational systems theory, and habit formation. I am trained as a Certified Professional Co-Active Coach (CPCC) and hold active membership as a Professional Certified Coach (PCC) with the International Coaching Federation.
My client engagement leverages each individual’s creativity and resourcefulness. It emphasizes an appetite for confident choice and the positive momentum that follows. Most importantly, the designed alliance I co-create with my clients builds essential trust between us.
Demonstrated Campus Contribution
I have explored more college campuses than anyone I know, both as an administrator and as a consultant. I have served as a Director, Associate Dean, Assistant Vice-Chancellor, and Vice Provost on small private, large public, faith-based, and international institutions. I have also served as board member and President of a national association. I have led teams to deliver transformative programs in career success, experiential learning, international education/study abroad, research, tutoring/retention, and interpersonal communication/public speaking.
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion
I have a note on my office bulletin board that reads, “Diversity is being invited to the party; Inclusion is being asked to dance; Belonging is dancing like no one’s watching.” I love the reach of that final aspiration—unguarded, authentic, and safe. I knew early on in my career that as a white male, I showed up on the job as one who is privileged and to whom access is easy. It didn’t matter that I was bullied as a kid, or that I came out as a gay man in college, or that my parents did not own a home for most of my upbringing.
I can thank an extensive tenure in higher education for chipping away at my naivety about equity. As a new higher education professional just out of graduate school, I was among those called to plan Virginia’s annual state-wide Minority Career Day. Throughout my career I participated in, and led, programs dedicated to students from under-represented backgrounds, and I have led many search committees through processes that have resulted in diverse applicant pools and hires. I played a role in LGBTQ issues in the communities where I lived and served, singing and volunteering with my partner (now husband) in gay men’s choruses in five cities and serving as board chair for the LGBT Resource Center on one campus I served.
Of course, for me and for millions of others, we are reminded that none of what I just shared is enough. Despite good intentions, we must up our games to be part of an overdue movement of anti-racism in our world. That means listening to, learning from, and fully engaging those whose lived experiences are far different from my own.
Recent Reads
The Nix by Nathan Hill
Fellow Travelers by Thomas Mallon
The Happiness Curve by Jonathan Rausch
Essentialism by Greg McKeown
The Best Strangers in the World by Ari Shapiro
Administratively Adrift by Scott A. Bass
Age of Revolutions by Fareed Sakaria
Learning to Love Midlife by Chip Conley
The Way Home by Ben Katt
The House of Hidden Meaning by RuPaul Charles
Additional Information
Abbreviated bio can be found here. CV and publications, presentations, and project lists are available upon request.