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Second Terms

I've been appointed to a second term as Faculty Ombudsperson.  I've had a few other roles on my campus where I've served a second term. There are some differences to approaching a responsibility that you've had before and some opportunities for reflection.

When you are in the midst of doing a job it can be difficult to be active as opposed to reactive. Particularly when chairing a department or an active university committee there can be fires to put out seemingly daily. If you care about the thing you are doing then you want to put these fires out, i.e., find good solutions to emergency problems. Part of the crisis can be delegated---that is what it means to lead a group---but the leader is ultimately responsible and that has always weighed heavily on me.

Approaching a second term affords the opportunity to plan for how to lead forward while still dealing with the day-to-day crises. This often involves setting up structures involving colleagues that can deal with the bigger picture in a sustained fashion over a period of time, with varying levels of input from the leader.  It also involves professional development for those you lead---planning on who to give new responsibilities to and how best to support them.

My role as Faculty Ombudsperson is different from these other roles for me in that because of confidentiality I can not (by definition) bring others in. The preparation for the second term has to do with focusing on my own development.

I hope to take a refresher course this summer from the International Ombuds Association. It would be the first formal professional development that I've had in this role since I took such a course at the beginning of my first term. I also wish to review my responses to the faculty that have conferred with me and without destructive self-criticism try to think of what I can do better. I do that after every consultation but it would be good to do so with some longer perspective.

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