Vice Pres­i­dent for Aca­d­e­mic Affairs

BY DORYANN BARNHARDT ’11

After meet­ing Dr. Patri­cia Dwyer, it’s easy to under­stand why adjec­tives like “engag­ing” and “intel­li­gent” are used by col­leagues to describe her. In con­ver­sa­tion, her demeanor is wel­com­ing, her atten­tion rapt and her speech artic­u­late. As Wesley’s new vice pres­i­dent for aca­d­e­mic affairs, Dwyer brings a new enthu­si­asm and years of diverse expe­ri­ence to the aca­d­e­mic lead­er­ship of the College.

Since com­ing to Wes­ley in sum­mer 2009, Dwyer has already made a last­ing impact on the Col­lege. Step­ping in as the chief aca­d­e­mic offi­cer at a time when Wes­ley was faced with accred­i­ta­tion con­cerns and an aca­d­e­mic office in flux, she led the Col­lege to a suc­cess­ful reac­cred­i­ta­tion by the Mid­dle States Com­mis­sion on Higher Edu­ca­tion in 2010.

To be sure, no small part of Dwyer’s suc­cess lies in her abil­ity to lead effec­tively. Pres­i­dent Bill John­ston cred­its much of the College’s recent reaf­fir­ma­tion by Mid­dles States to her man­age­ment style and lead­er­ship abil­i­ties. “She is very inclu­sive,” he said. “She doesn’t just hand down edicts or oper­ate in a vacuum.”

The fac­ulty also appre­ci­ates Dwyer’s even-handed approach. Dr. Jef­frey Mask, pro­fes­sor of reli­gion, phi­los­o­phy and Amer­i­can stud­ies, has worked with his fair share of chief aca­d­e­mic offi­cers: by his count a dozen in the last two decades. Mask believes Dwyer brings much needed pro­fes­sion­al­ism to the post. He describes her as “intel­li­gent, fair, some­body who strives to do the right thing.” Mask is par­tic­u­larly pleased with her will­ing­ness to con­sider mul­ti­ple per­spec­tives. “She lis­tens to all of us,” he said. “She does a good job at try­ing to see what’s good for the whole institution.”

Recently, Dwyer gave Wes­ley mag­a­zine the oppor­tu­nity to find out more about where she’s been, what she’s learned along the way, and her hopes for the College’s future.

Q.What attracted you to Wes­ley and why did you decide to come to this institution?

I cer­tainly enjoyed my posi­tion at [The Col­lege of] Notre Dame [of Mary­land], but I wanted to be in a lead­er­ship posi­tion in which I could make a real dif­fer­ence. When I came for my inter­view at Wes­ley, I was told about some of the Mid­dle States chal­lenges and felt that my expe­ri­ence in direct­ing assess­ment pro­grams at both Shep­herd and Notre Dame could be a good fit. I remem­ber hav­ing a won­der­ful con­ver­sa­tion with the fac­ulty in the Car­roll Room on the day I inter­viewed. I left the Col­lege after a long day of meet­ings feel­ing ener­gized. I thought that was a good sign. When I met Pres­i­dent John­ston and heard more about his vision for Wes­ley, I felt even more con­firmed. I’m excited to be part of this next phase of Wesley’s growth and development.

Q. You were a high school teacher and an Eng­lish pro­fes­sor before you became an admin­is­tra­tor. How did your expe­ri­ences in the class­room shape your role and pre­pare you to be the vice pres­i­dent for aca­d­e­mic affairs?

That’s a great ques­tion. I’ve taught lit­er­a­ture for most of my life, and inter­act­ing with stu­dents about val­ues, his­tor­i­cal and polit­i­cal con­texts, and the “big ques­tions” has been so reward­ing. At times, stu­dents came into the class, espe­cially if the class was part of the gen­eral edu­ca­tion pro­gram, ready to dis­like read­ing poetry or fic­tion. I often felt that my pur­pose in those classes was to awaken a curios­ity and inter­est about great writ­ers. Believe me, I wasn’t always suc­cess­ful, but I tried to under­stand where stu­dents were com­ing from and what would make the read­ings and dis­cus­sion rel­e­vant and meaningful.

As a chief aca­d­e­mic offi­cer, I have the priv­i­lege of work­ing with many tal­ented fac­ulty mem­bers, all who come with exper­tise in their dis­ci­plines and a sin­cere ded­i­ca­tion to our stu­dents. I feel my most impor­tant job is to tap the energy of the group, very sim­i­lar to the stu­dents in those lit­er­a­ture classes, and help fac­ulty to see that the goals we are striv­ing for are rel­e­vant and mean­ing­ful and not just another admin­is­tra­tive hoop to jump through. I think our recent dis­cus­sions of the core cur­ricu­lum are a good exam­ple. Over the last eight months, we have had very ener­getic and insight­ful con­ver­sa­tions about the skills, knowl­edge and dis­po­si­tions our stu­dents need to be suc­cess­ful as pro­fes­sion­als and good cit­i­zens. Rather than sim­ply see­ing this as an exer­cise man­dated by our strate­gic plan, I see it as ener­giz­ing and excit­ing because we have tapped into what is mean­ing­ful to all of us: help­ing our stu­dents suc­ceed by prepar­ing them with 21st cen­tury skills.

Q. Why did you make the tran­si­tion from fac­ulty to administration?

My tran­si­tion was a grad­ual one. While at Shep­herd Uni­ver­sity, I became direc­tor of the hon­ors pro­gram, but I still held fac­ulty rank in the Eng­lish depart­ment. When I became a dean at Shep­herd, I con­tin­ued to teach. I’ve always thought that teach­ing while doing admin­is­tra­tive work is a good way to stay grounded in what we are all about—the stu­dents. When I moved to Col­lege of Notre Dame, I was not required to teach, but I taught a first year com­po­si­tion class. Last fall, I was able to teach a Wes­ley Con­nec­tion class for unde­clared stu­dents. Get­ting to know the stu­dents out­side of my admin­is­tra­tive role is wonderful.

Q. You earned your Bach­e­lor of Arts in 1979 and your doc­tor­ate in 1995. What did you do in the 16-year span between the two degrees?

After I fin­ished my bachelor’s degree in Eng­lish, I thought I’d like to go to law school so I vol­un­teered for a period of time at a pub­lic defender’s office in Philadel­phia and took a few law classes. That expe­ri­ence con­vinced me that law wasn’t for me, and since I thor­oughly enjoyed my stud­ies as an Eng­lish major, I began explor­ing master’s pro­grams in lit­er­a­ture. One of my col­lege pro­fes­sors told me about the Bread Loaf School of Eng­lish affil­i­ated with Mid­dle­bury Col­lege. The master’s pro­gram is designed for peo­ple who were teach­ing dur­ing the aca­d­e­mic year; classes at Mid­dle­bury are taught dur­ing the sum­mer. Through this pro­gram, I stud­ied in both Ver­mont and Oxford, Eng­land. I fin­ished my degree in 1986 while I was teach­ing high school Eng­lish. In 1989, I moved to Wash­ing­ton D.C. to start my doc­tor­ate at George Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­sity. I fin­ished my dis­ser­ta­tion and defended it in the fall of 1994 and grad­u­ated in the spring of 1995.

From left: Board of Trustees Chair Charles “Chip” Dashiell, Delaware’s Sec­re­tary of Edu­ca­tion Dr. Lil­lian Low­ery, Dr. Patri­cia Dwyer and Pres­i­dent John­ston at Win­ter Commencement

Q. What per­son or per­sons have inspired you the most in your pro­fes­sional and aca­d­e­mic career and why?

My par­ents are the peo­ple who have most inspired me. My father was in adver­tis­ing and also taught a mar­ket­ing class in the evening divi­sion at LaSalle Col­lege in Philadel­phia. My mother returned to school to become a nurse after rais­ing five chil­dren. As chil­dren, we were taken to musi­cals and muse­ums, and I believe my love for the arts started early on because of them. My par­ents both so val­ued edu­ca­tion and they made sac­ri­fices to ensure that we received the best edu­ca­tion pos­si­ble. Most of all, they encour­aged each of us to find the path we could be pas­sion­ate about. They were great role models.

Q.What are some of the great­est aca­d­e­mic chal­lenges the Col­lege faces and how do you plan to tackle those challenges?

We need more fac­ulty to fully staff the majors we have. In some cases, we have only one full-time fac­ulty mem­ber teach­ing in a major. That’s not good for the pro­gram or for the stu­dents. My plan is to develop a model for adding addi­tional fac­ulty and mak­ing sure our salaries are com­pet­i­tive. We need to expand our offer­ings and choose new majors that fit with our mis­sion as well as the needs in the mar­ket­place. We can’t do every­thing. What are our strengths? As a lib­eral arts insti­tu­tion, I want to show­case the arts. I’m thrilled that our newest major is music, and I know, with the com­mit­ment of the fac­ulty who pro­posed the major, that Wes­ley will cre­ate a first-class pro­gram. And the arts can have such an impact on the community—Wesley could be a hub for the arts in Dover and the region. As our offer­ings grow, we will hire fac­ulty with the pas­sion and exper­tise we need and a com­mit­ment to the high­est qual­ity teach­ing. We also need to attract stu­dents who are a good fit, who have abil­ity, who want to be chal­lenged, and who would thrive in the small col­lege envi­ron­ment where close rela­tion­ships with fac­ulty are a hall­mark of their aca­d­e­mic expe­ri­ence. I would like to see more of our stu­dents have the oppor­tu­nity to study abroad. Open­ing new worlds to them can be a trans­for­ma­tive expe­ri­ence. We need to tackle imped­i­ments to travel, and that typ­i­cally involves finan­cial resources. We must con­tinue to develop and imple­ment data-driven deci­sion mak­ing and assess­ment. We’re get­ting much bet­ter with the addi­tion of Dr. Chul Lee [direc­tor of data analy­sis and insti­tu­tional effec­tive­ness] and Dr. Colleen Di Raddo [assis­tant vice pres­i­dent for aca­d­e­mic affairs] to our staff, but we could do more to use assess­ment data to con­tin­u­ally improve our pro­grams and insti­tu­tional effectiveness.

Q. As the vice pres­i­dent for aca­d­e­mic affairs, you work very closely with the fac­ulty. What do you think are the great­est strengths of the Wes­ley fac­ulty? Are there any areas for growth in the fac­ulty that you would like to encourage?

We have a very hard­work­ing fac­ulty who carry a heavy teach­ing load, serve on count­less com­mit­tees, and who stay cur­rent in their dis­ci­plines. They take stu­dents abroad and orga­nize clubs and stu­dent activ­i­ties. They show up for ath­letic events and stay after hours to work one-on-one with a stu­dent in need. They advise stu­dents in their majors and men­tor stu­dents in under­grad­u­ate research, often with­out com­pen­sa­tion. And the thing that amazes me is I have rarely had a fac­ulty mem­ber say no when I’ve asked them to serve on a search com­mit­tee or task force, or to just get together to pick their brains about an idea. I’m really inspired by them.

Q. Areas of growth?

I think when one has worked with col­leagues for many years, it’s easy to jump quickly to assump­tions about oth­ers. I read recently about a CEO who asked her col­leagues to embrace what she called “the MRI par­a­digm”— that is, the Most Respect­ful Inter­pre­ta­tion. I think if we all prac­ticed this, includ­ing myself, we could enhance our col­le­gial and pro­duc­tive atmosphere.

Q. “Accred­i­ta­tion” and “assess­ment” are two buzz­words heard on cam­pus in recent years. Please explain to our read­ers what those words mean and why they are impor­tant to the future of the College.

The Col­lege is accred­ited over­all by the Mid­dle States Asso­ci­a­tion, and in Novem­ber 2010 we received the good news that Wes­ley was in full com­pli­ance with all 14 stan­dards of excel­lence. The Col­lege also has dis­ci­pline spe­cific accred­i­ta­tions: NCATE for Edu­ca­tion, National League of Nurs­ing for the Nurs­ing Depart­ment and the Amer­i­can Bar Asso­ci­a­tion for Legal Stud­ies. Assess­ment is the process of mea­sur­ing our suc­cess at help­ing stu­dents learn the skills, knowl­edge and dis­po­si­tions that will enable them to be suc­cess­ful. I remem­ber when I first started work­ing in assess­ment and say­ing to fac­ulty, “It is not so much about what we teach, but about what stu­dents learn.” Assess­ment of learn­ing out­comes in our pro­grams helps us mea­sure these goals and adjust pro­grams to bet­ter reach them. We also assess to mea­sure our insti­tu­tional effec­tive­ness. Through sur­veys we give, focus groups we hold or exit sur­veys we admin­is­ter, we dis­cover what we are good at and where we need to improve. The assess­ment cycle is about con­tin­u­ous improve­ment both in aca­d­e­mic pro­grams and in the var­i­ous offices through­out cam­pus that serve our poten­tial stu­dents or the cam­pus community.

Q.Why is being accred­ited impor­tant to the College?

Accred­i­ta­tion is the stamp of approval from an out­side eval­u­a­tor. Being accred­ited through Mid­dle States legit­imizes all of our pro­grams at Wesley.

Q. More high school grad­u­ates are college-bound than ever before, mak­ing com­pe­ti­tion for stu­dents fierce among col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties. What can the Col­lege do to attract tal­ented stu­dents when those stu­dents are faced with so many options?

I was recently read­ing the book “Good to Great” by Jim Collins. In one sec­tion of that book, he writes about insti­tu­tions dis­cov­er­ing what they are great at. He talks about orga­ni­za­tions that are good at what they do, but because they offer about the same thing that other “good” orga­ni­za­tions offer, they will never be great. When it comes to Wes­ley, I ask myself, “What is it that will show­case what Wes­ley is great in?” A few areas come to mind— fac­ulty men­tor­ship and under­grad­u­ate research. Wes­ley is doing excel­lent work in this across the dis­ci­plines. Also we have the poten­tial to cre­ate a dynamic and inno­v­a­tive lib­eral arts core that chal­lenges stu­dents and intro­duces them to new ideas and ways of think­ing. We are the only lib­eral arts col­lege in Delaware. We need to do a bet­ter job of trans­lat­ing why that is impor­tant and what we can offer that chal­lenges and engages our stu­dents. Per­son­al­ized edu­ca­tion: our entire cam­pus com­mu­nity works together on this, from the fac­ulty in the class­room to those who work in the din­ing hall, from the offices that serve our stu­dent needs to stu­dent life’s out­reach and activ­i­ties, from the Pres­i­dent and Mrs. Johnston’s invi­ta­tion to stu­dents for dessert or break­fast in their home, to the com­mu­nity engage­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties we offer. We are very inten­tional about mak­ing sure stu­dents know their respon­si­bil­i­ties and reach for and achieve those dreams that first inspired them to come to college.

Vice Pres­i­dent for Aca­d­e­mic Affairs Dr. Colleen Di Raddo and Dr. Patri­cia Dwyer enjoy tak­ing part in one of Wesley’s com­mu­nity ser­vice projects.

At both Notre Dame and Wes­ley Col­lege, I was attracted to the insti­tu­tions because they com­mu­ni­cated val­ues as an inte­gral part of the edu­ca­tional expe­ri­ence. As a Methodist insti­tu­tion, we emu­late the virtues of John Wes­ley: social respon­si­bil­ity, com­pas­sion, inclu­sion and jus­tice. I see these as a vital under­pin­ning to all we do at the Col­lege. We edu­cate the whole person.

Q.What do you think our read­ers would be most sur­prised to learn about you?

I was a Catholic nun for 20 years.

Q. Is there any­thing that you would like to add to our dis­cus­sion or make sure our read­ers know?

I feel priv­i­leged to serve as the chief aca­d­e­mic offi­cer at this very excit­ing time in Wesley’s his­tory, and I look for­ward to the College’s evolv­ing growth and devel­op­ment as a truly excep­tional lib­eral arts college.