It was the spring of 1989. I was living the life to which every new assistant professor aspires. I was a tenured full professor at the University of Arizona, in one of the best economics departments in the country for the kind of research I do, experimental economics. I was a member of the proposal review panel for the NSF economics program and a member of the Board of CSWEP. I was teaching four courses per year: just enough to enjoy the stimulation of sharing my favorite subject with fresh young minds, but not enough to interfere with an active, funded research program. And, I had recently been heavily recruited to the University of Arizona from a comfortable life at the University of Wyoming.

Then (I believe it was in May), the Dean of the College of Business and Public Administration invited me to breakfast. My first thought was panic. I did not have anything to wear to breakfast with the dean. I had one black suit for funerals and formal presentations; one white dress for weddings and going to fancy restaurants; and some fraying and slightly too small wool skirts and sweaters left over from college. At that moment in my life, "dressing for success," meant, do I have a clean pair of jeans and a clean tee shirt to put on in the morning?!

Wearing a skirt and sweater set that almost fit, I went to breakfast, wondering what he could possibly want from me. Perhaps he wanted me to chair a task force on the future of business school education or something like that. I was utterly stunned when he said that he wanted me to take over as Associate Dean for Graduate Programs and Director of the MBA Program. The only response I could think of was, "why me?" And he said, "because I hear that you get things done." Well, a week or so of negotiation later, including a guaranteed escape clause if I hated doing it, I agreed. Now, 10 years later, I am provost of a major research university. My life is no longer comfortable. It is hectic and sleep deprived. But, it is also unbelievably exciting and satisfying. And, now when I dress in the morning, I ask myself, "which black suit and silk blouse should I wear today?" But, most importantly for an audience of economists, I find being an administrator intellectually exciting, because I use the intellectual paradigm of economics and the lessons I have learned from a life-long research interest in cooperation. Basically, my job is to facilitate cooperation among scholars, departments, colleges, other universities, and non-university partners, as well as to optimize the allocation of scarce resources to enhance our teaching, research, and outreach efforts.

I tell my story this way because it illustrates a very important point about an academic administrative career. The best way to become a top academic administrator is to become a top quality faculty member first. If you veer off into administration too early in your career, you will get stuck in a low-level administrative position. You may become an assistant department head or an assistant dean, but you will not be likely to rise higher. You will not be competitive for the real administrative career ladder of department head, dean, vice president/vice chancellor, and president/chancellor. Achieve the status of full professor the old fashioned way, but also develop a reputation for getting things done, on time, on budget, and with style and vision. Take your service assignments seriously and demonstrate leadership. But, never lose sight of the fact that, until you are a full time administrator, you will only get rewarded for your research and teaching excellence. The rest is just preparation for a future, other career. If you do those things, and you have the right personal qualities for academic leadership, the administrative positions will find you. There is such a lack of leadership talent in higher education today, that headhunters are desperate for talented academic women who combine academic excellence and demonstrated administrative leadership skills.

So, you may ask, what are the personal qualities that make for great academic administrators, given that academic excellence has already been achieved? First, and foremost, you must be able to formulate a clear vision for the future of your program or institution and communicate that vision to every possible audience: students, faculty, other administrators, and a variety of public audiences. But, if you articulate a vision in a vacuum, no one will hear it. Thus, you must also be a great listener. I spend most of every day in meetings, from one-on-one to large groups, listening to what people have to say, what they want from me and from the university, and what concerns they have about university policies or decisions. But, you must also be able to sort through the cacophony of listening to many points of view, bring your own experience and intellect to the problem, and formulate a clear vision or take a decisive action. No one wants an administrator who cannot make a decision, formulate an action plan, carry it out, and only look back if the decision turns out to have been clearly and unequivocally wrong. But, they do want administrators who listen to them first. Everyone understands that you cannot satisfy everyone and no one even wants you to try. But, they do want to feel that they had a voice in the decision making process, even if they do not like the outcome in the end. Another way of looking at it is that you need to be a very good diplomat and negotiator, not just of money and goods, but also of ideas. The best administrators listen to a range of ideas that seem incompatible and reformulate the problem so that each individual can find some of his or her ideas remaining in the reformulation.

Don't even think of going into administration unless you are tolerably good at time management, at juggling multiple projects, and at sleeping at night regardless of what is going on around you. Do you generally finish papers on time or early for a conference or are you still analyzing data the day before and writing the paper on the plane? Do you always work on several papers simultaneously or do you work on one paper at a time until you finish it? Do you sleep well even in the worst of times or do you stay awake worrying about every detail? The answers to these questions will help you assess whether you might be suited for administration. As an administrator, you will always be juggling multiple projects, many of which have very short deadlines for completion. And, lateness is almost never acceptable. Moreover, there will always be issues that could keep you awake at night, but your performance over the long haul depends on your ability to take advantage of every opportunity you have to rest.

Let me close by emphasizing how much I have enjoyed my 10 years as an academic administrator, despite my early reservations. I approach every major decision as a scholarly exercise and pride myself on both the lasting quality of those decisions and on the support of all those with whom I work. Many of my colleagues have encouraged me to start publishing articles about administrative issues, but I still try to maintain a small research agenda and use all the writing time for that purpose. Perhaps this article is the first in such a new series.