On Being an Administrator
Back when I was the dean of a seminary, I once described my vocation as that of an administrator. A faculty friend told me not to put myself down in such a way! Scholars often feel that helping to order and promote the school diverts them from their real callings to write and to teach. It is easy to see how academic culture fosters such a view, but administration is a calling in its own right. (My teacher when I was an undergraduate, Dean Krister Stendahl, contended that it was essentially what St. Paul meant by a ‘kybernetes’, ‘helmsman,’ in I Corinthians 12:29)
There is another, deeper reason for this misunderstanding. In German intellectual life in the 18th and 19th century, under the influence of Romanticism, the contrast between the body politic as Gemeinschaft (community) and as Gesellschaft (institution) was common. But the dichotomy was a mistake, since the two are bound together as blood vessel and sinew. (In this sense it is refreshing to hear our new Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe lift up the importance of the latter, especially in a time when in society at large it receives mostly opprobrium.)
Take for example the residential seminary, at once crucial and endangered in our time. The dean/principal/president had better be an administrator, but this goes beyond, say, curriculum planning and deferred maintenance, to constant recruiting and fund-raising. These latter require making the case for your school, from the heart and from the inside, as well as being an entrepreneur. Such skills are not found in those curricula themselves (nor will an MBA alone due, since the Church has an unique culture.)
But of course running institutions also requires (in the case of a seminary, or diocese) the teacher, diplomat, strategist, and pastor, everywhere, at all times, etc. So you had better be well aware of your deficiencies and need for help. Here an example from ‘Between Jerusalem and Athens’ by another teacher of mine, David Kelsey, comes to mind. He noted how physical, theological, strategic, psychological, and spiritual issues were cheek to jowl in the small space of a seminary building (and the rector of a church will doubtless resonate with this). The administrator must toggle from one to the next hour by hour, all the while never losing sight of the true theological purpose, the telos, of the institution. One can readily see how fascinating the art form is, and why the burn-out rate is so high.
Here I would add one more element, what we might ‘administrative ascesis.’ He or she must make decisions for reasons only the administrator can, for reasons of confidentiality, see, and sometimes be criticized for it, especially in this era of social media- induced illusion. Measure the tower before you begin, for this comes with the territory (even as these jobs bring great consolations with them too).
We are entering an era in which many Church institutions are at risk and fragile, and yet indispensable for renewal. As such it may be the moment for the peculiar calling of the administrator.
+GRS
