Penny Hammrich, Ph.D., has held many titles in her professional schooling: faculty trainer, researcher, professor, administrator, and businesswoman… she’s even been a dean before. But now, having been named dean of Drexel University’s School of Education in May after holding the interim dean role because the preceding August, Hammrich is prepared to combine her many hats and studies in a way to assist the School in preparing for the future and in addition set itself apart from the opposition.
In this Q&A, Hammrich goes in-depth about her historical past, accomplishments, and how her destiny plans for the School were created through a collective vision. Q: Tell me approximately your background and what made you enthusiastic about coaching and going into that career path. A: I’m a K-12 certified teacher. I taught 1/3, fourth, sixth, and 10th grade before making my way to higher ed. I’m a biologist/geneticist. When I went to School, I didn’t honestly understand if I wanted to enter the training world or to enter medication and be a medical doctor because I liked biology, so I was given a twin degree in education and biology. I got a master’s in genetics, nevertheless questioning, “Maybe I’m going to move the clinical path,” but then I got interested in neuropsychology. I started my first Ph.D. in instructional psychology at Arizona State University, specializing in cognition and mastering. I was 24, geared up to write my dissertation and be finished; however, I found out I hadn’t had a life yet. So I took a little wreck. Then, I transferred to the University of Minnesota and decided to interchange my Ph.D. recognition into science training instead of psych.
My first role changed at Temple University. That’s what drew me to Philadelphia to start with. While I changed into Temple, I bumped into little ladies from Dunbar Elementary who didn’t recognize that technological know-how turned into their outside. That modified the path of my complete profession. I returned to my workplace and wrote the primary program, which is now the small organization I run called Sisters in Science. We develop technology packages for children, and I spun that for over 25 years. It’s been funded for over 30 million dollars. My sports activities technological know-how program is being run in separate packages funded using the Promise Neighborhood grant this summertime in West Philadelphia. Q: Also, are you still educated right here? A: I do! It’s not part of a dean’s settlement, but I experience that if I’m mainly a school, I need to practice what I’m main. I do like to train, so I educate one path a year. I taught one course for 12 months as the meantime dean, and I’ll teach one next year as dean, and I did that earlier than after I turned into dean in New York.
Q: What added you to Drexel then, and how have you been able to extend all of your many passions right here andthe ranks? A: I got here to Drexel in 2010. Before that, I was the dean of Queens College, City University of New York, while my mom got terminally ill. I decided to leave my deanship at Queens, go on sabbatical, and fly home to South Dakota, where I’m from, and be with her. While I was on sabbatical, two school individuals I employed when I became the dean at Queen’s got recruited away to Drexel’s School of Education. They found out I changed into on sabbatical and that they went to the dean and recruited me to come to Drexel. I did not know I might come lower back once I left Temple and Philadelphia. However, it simply appeared too exact of a possibility. I also didn’t assume I could move again into administration. I changed into going to get back into my studies, but I kept falling into it.
It’s thrilling becauset deanship changed when I was in my 3was0s. I’m in my 50s, so it’s an entirely specific angle for me because I have many years of experience and have performed almost every ministrative function in a college of training. Some skill set lent itself to me, and I am right here.
Q: Are there positive talents you suppose you’ve got that make you a simply proper administrator? A: I assume I’m a natural chef, and I’m an awful lot. I’m no longer a pinnacle-down leader but a consensus builder. I’m very visionary to see things out 10 years later, set them in motion, and stain that. The difference in that factor is I’m excellent at mentoring humans. I think mentoring is a massive function of being in a leadership role, and I like it. I could take it if I want to get a process where they pay you only for mentoring. I like painting with people, assisting them in achieving their dreams and watching them be successful. And in order, that’s pretty a good deal of how I set up my body of workers in their roles to have possibilities to achieve success and be part of a crew.
Q: What do you feel you could accomplish while in the interim role, and how will that evolve now that you’re in the dean position? A: When I was supplied the interim dean position, I became very humbled and venerated to have Executive Vice President and Nina Henderson Provost M. Brian Blake, Ph.D., ask me if I might serve in that role because I very much see any management position as a service function — you serve the School. I desire to serve the School of Education because of the faculty. I had a position to discover a manner to deliver us collectively around a united challenge and vision. So, I created what was known as a residing vision, and it’s called a living vision because it’s living. It’s now not static. I offered it to the college and personnel as a canvas, or a panorama, of what we will be. It was to place the School in the highbrow center of pedagogical innovation with five signatures: fairness and access, civic engagement, growth and sales, creativity and innovation, and fine and development.
I offered this panorama to them, after which I positioned it on a website, and I said, “Everybody has the right of entry to the website; move into the website and add your voice throughout the year.” In June, I provided our collective dwelling vision — a living vision shaped by everyone over the year. Everybody’s had a voice. It’s not just my voice. This no longer introduced us together as a community but set us up to begin strategic planning in the fall. It turned into a genuinely top-notch bonding for us. And it is so that occurred, considering that I have become the dean, I can convey that.
