The Lincoln Parish Journal had an opportunity to catch up with new Louisiana Tech President Jim Henderson to talk about his first month on the job. Here is Part 1 of that Q&A.
LPJ: What’s been the most rewarding part of the first month at Louisiana Tech as the president?
JH: Well unquestionably, it’s reconnecting with students; having a student body that is for a lack of a better word, yours, that you get to watch, grow, develop and and lead even as students. Tonya and I have both just immersed ourselves in student activities and, as always, were so impressed with this generation of students, particularly here at Louisiana Tech, where it has, you know, the strongest undergraduate cohort of students anywhere in the state. Connor Smith is the president. He’s the perfect embodiment of all that you expect to see in a Tech student. Getting reacquainted with that work is, is what we love most.
LPJ: What has been the most challenging part of the first month?
JH: The challenging part is there’s only 24 hours in a day. And if you look at my calendar, it’s filled from the early morning hours until most people are going to bed. I don’t say that as a complaint. I say that as I wish there were 36 hours in a day, because the energy that you get from going from place to place at a very rapid pace, seeing some really good things and more importantly, seeing some really good things that could be really great things given the proper attention, the proper vision, the proper resources. So the challenge is there’s so much potential and finding ways to be very strategic of how you invest your time.
LPJ: What were the top priorities you wanted to accomplish in the first month and have you been able to do it?
JH: So when I approach organizations, the first thing I want to do is get to know the organization. In a university that organization is defined by its people. So it’s been a great deal of time having conversations with faculty and staff at the university in multiple forums. We’re having departmental meetings. The first departmental meeting we had was with the custodial crew. It was probably the first time this group had ever been in the same room together. And they’re probably wondering why the president and his wife are there to talk to them. And when they realize it’s really about introducing ourselves and them introducing themselves to me. We went around the room were 437 years of combined service to Louisiana Tech, and we talked about our vision around growth and how incredibly important they are to realizing that growth and vision. With the exception of maybe the landscape crew, the grounds crew, the custodial crew has the first impression on a would be student that comes here, and how vital they are to ensuring that that student has a great first impression. So getting to know folks and getting them to buy into this vision, an audacious vision, that’s really worthy of the university has been the goal. You don’t do that overnight, and certainly you don’t change culture in 30 days or even 36 months. It takes a long time for it to take root. But you can start that process and have conversations with people and they realize they’ve got a role to play. Convincing people that their role is important has been the key. So we’ve had a lot of communication with folks. We’ve uncovered some opportunities to do things maybe a little bit differently. And we’ll continue to do that at scale. I don’t set artificial timelines. I do use about six month time increments. And if we establish some goals that on day one seem like they’d be impossible to reach in six months with our current structure, current resources, and then we get that six month milestone and we’ve exceeded them … that’s when we know we’re doing the right job.
LPJ: You send out a weekly email on Sunday evenings to all Tech faculty and staff. What is your thought process on communication and transparency when it comes to that population?
JH: So the Sunday night email takes about two hours to put together. I do it from memory. And so it forces me to take a moment to sit down, reflect on the week that was, reflect on some of those conversations. If you’ve read them, you see that there’s a little bit of lightheartedness, a little bit of informal language, and it’s to show a true, authentic version of myself, to those that choose to read. It it also an opportunity for me to acknowledge individuals that I’ve worked with during the week that have done something that is worthy of acknowledgment, that is worthy of celebration, that is probably indicative of work that’s going on across the university that people can connect with. And the response I get — and I ask for response — is always positive. I’ll get some suggestions. (Someone) suggested that I paste the message into the body of the email so they could read it on their iPhone. Easy to do. And then there’s even more substantive, comments that, ‘hey, you forgot to mention x, y, z.’ It’s not a diary. It’s not an exhaustive list of everything I’ve done in the week, but it’s these things that stand out that over time give those within the organization a flavor of what the president is doing. And, it’s helpful for me. I believe it’s helpful for most of the organization.
