We’ve discussed before the profound impact of The Pandemic on our community college online programs. I’ve had numerous conversations with administrators, designers and faculty – all have shared the trauma of the rapid full shift to online, the lack of staff and training to facilitate this, and the overwhelming day-after-day workload this represented. 

We are now “years” away from The Pandemic, but a variety of stress points are still present in our online programs. Specifically, the shift to fully online led to an increase in the number of faculty that wanted to teach online (it also increased the number of students as well). This fostered greater demand BUT our programs have not experienced increases in staffing, and especially have not been able to increase the number of instructional designers needed to address chronic issues with our online classes. Chronic issues????  Yes, for most of use, our online classes lack consistency, often are not compliance checked (ADA), are woefully lacking the benefits of professional design, and many of our faculty lack the training needed to create a learning experience that is engaging and embraces the unique needs of learning online. As a result, we have actually witnessed a decline in online student learning experience and completions.

Leading from the middle requires timing, and a sense of how to influence decisions.   It is a valuable skill-set and can help on a number of fronts, from maintaining staff  morale during difficult times to seizing on an opportunity – or addressing a problem - that many simply don’t recognize.

I wanted to speak to leaders this week.  Who qualifies?   All of you!!  Regardless of your role or position, anyone can step up to help advance the institution’s priorities.  Many may know this style of leadership as “leading from the middle”.   Authors like Scott Mautz focused on middle management positions, but honestly, anyone can ultimately influence the decision-making process.  Often, leading from the middle is most needed when the institution’s leadership team is distracted but it is also needed to enable new ideas that help the institution better serve its students.  It can and does take a village to keep an institution focused and functioning.