Transformational Leadership in Advising - Adventures in Advising

In episode 88, we chat with Dr. Margaret Mbindyo, associate professor and advisement coordinator at Millersville University. Dr. Mbindyo discusses transformational leadership, change management, working with immigrant and refugee students through the Promising Scholars project, and the goals of the NACADA Global Engagement Advising Community!

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Transcript

Matt Markin  
Hello and welcome to episode 88 of the Adventures in Advising podcast. My name is Matt Markin, and on today's episode, let's welcome our special guests. That's Dr. Margaret Mbindyo. Dr. Mbindyo began her teaching advisement and mentoring career in Kenya, where she served as a certified secondary school teacher. She has earned several degrees including a dual title PhD degree in curriculum instruction and comparative and international education, as well as an MA in education, research, and Ed and curriculum and a BS in education in English language and literature. Dr. Mbindyo served at various times as a temporary faculty advisor in the department of academic advisement and Student Development at Millersville University and also as an academic advisor at Penn State University Harrisburg. Dr. Mbindyo's area of research includes the academic resilience and academic persistence of success of low income first generation and immigrant students. She has presented her research at local, national and international conferences. She's an awardee of Nevada's Emerging Leaders Program and a nominee and winner of the 2019 Miss Shuja awards in the youth empowerment category, and the local community. She volunteers with church world services to help transition recent immigrants to the USA system of education. Dr. Mbindyo, welcome to the podcast. 

Margaret Mbindyo  
Thank you so much. I am so grateful to be here, Matt.

Matt Markin  
Yeah. And I'm glad for you to be here as well. It was great connecting with you not too long ago to talk about the podcast and being a guest. And you know, we heard a little bit from your bio, but can you tell us a little bit more about your journey and your background in higher education? Absolutely,

Margaret Mbindyo  
Absolutely. I am so much willing to share my story, which is a long one I originally come from Kenya is you know, and I went to school in Kenya, elementary through university, I got my first degree in Kenya and the system of education there is very different from the United States, students take a national exam, which is different from, you know, the likes of sh t. This is a national exam to make sure that the students moving on to the next level qualify in every way to pursue their education at that level. And so, I was able to go through all the levels, taking national exams, joining the University in Kenya Kenyatta University, in Nairobi, where I did a bachelor's in Education with a concentration in Teacher Education with a concentration in English as a second language. And from there, I was I went teaching, you know, because I had a degree I was employed as a teacher, where I taught English as a second language for several years, and moved into administration. They saw that I was capable of, of leading, you know, as a teacher, so I became an assistant principal of a secondary school. And after about two years or three years, I was elevated to become a principal of a girls boarding school, which is a secondary school, where I stayed being a principal for four years. And then I decided to further my studies, and I went to Belgium. And in Belgium, the educational system is very subsidized. Of course, you know, that we speak primarily French, and Flemish, but the program I was in was in English. So it was taught in English, everything was in English. So that was easy for me to be able to learn the material and finish without wasting a lot of time. And then from there, I came to the US, again, I really just wanted to be a better person. further my studies as opportunities, you know, presented themselves and I'm very grateful that I did not have any hesitation, or I did not doubt myself, and I was able to pursue the desires of my heart. 

Matt Markin  
Now you're at Millersville University. Can you describe a village as well for us? 

Speaker 1  
Millersville University is one of the Commonwealth the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is one of the universities and the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education. Which as 10 universities, they used to be 14 universities and the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education. But because of the enrollment issues that all of us are facing across the country, they joined some of the universities to create one. So from 14, now we have 10. And Millersville is one of them. We are about an hour from Philadelphia, about an hour from Baltimore, two hours from DC, three hours from New York. And it's located in the Hamish country. I think, when you hear about the Amish, you know, this is the home of the Amish people. It's not uncommon to run into the Amish people just walking or cycling along the roads, you know, driving their buggies, you know, just or selling their farm produce along the road. So it's a it's a great place, and the location is just wonderful.

Matt Markin  
Very nice. And what is your role at Millersville? University? What does that entail for you?

Speaker 1  
So, I am an Academic Advisor first and foremost. I was employed here as an assistant professor. And after five years, I got promoted and tenured associate. And I am considered a non teaching faculty, even though I teach freshmen or transitional courses, seminars, but I'm mainly advising, serving on committees, different committees, looking for ways of helping students develop. I ran a program here in Millersville, it's, it's the academic resilience initiative. And under that program, we have an academic resilience speaker series. It's a monthly speaker series where we bring someone to talk about a certain topic that is relevant to what students are going through at that time, like we have one next week. And that one is about how to how to tame, you know, exam anxiety, you know, how to prepare for your finals. So we started them as face to face, rather sorry, online during the pandemic, but we recently decided to have them face to face. And so developing such programming for students to just help with their success, to partner with different departments to help students succeed is the core of who I am and what my work entails.

Matt Markin  
Yeah, and I think kind of leading into that are a great segue to talk more about that is you and a colleague actually received a positive energy grant and you created a project called promising scholars supporting mentoring and advising refugee and immigrant students transitioning to college. Can you tell us more about that?

Margaret Mbindyo  
Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, one good thing about being a faculty is the freedom and the flexibility and the opportunities of writing grants. And so millas view as a grant. It's called the positive energy grant, which is open for every faculty member, even staff to apply. And normally, the requirements are that you should be working with the community to bring some form of development, whether that is health, whether that is, you know, assisting with educating people, whether that is helping people to learn how to fend for themselves in terms of work, or even whether that is working with schools around this area. And we chose with a colleague to to help the population of refugees that are going to school in the area high schools, and specifically one of the schools McCaskey High School, which belongs to the school district of Lancaster City, which is our our city here. And I don't know Matt, whether you know that Lancaster, Pennsylvania is the leading welcoming destination for refugees. We have a lot of refugees from different places. There are quite a number of organizations that are working to bring refugees in this area. And so the population of of of refugees has increased over the years. And we all know that This population of people need a lot of support, fast the language, understanding the educational system, understanding the culture, you know, just being having people to support them even to drive them around. I had actually started working with a certain group organization here in Lancaster, they call themselves the Churchward services. The it's also one of the organization that brings refugees from different places. And that started in 2008. As a driver, I volunteered as a driver, during my free time to just go pick a family pick mother, pick the children, or pick them from their home to take them to the grocery store, or take them to medical appointments, or wherever they needed to go. And so it's a passion of mine, that I've always had to assist this population of students, I mean of people. And so for me and my colleague to write this grant to serve the students, it was just in line with what we both did, because even Ha, when she was teaching in a different university, she told me, she would bring these refugee students to our house during Thanksgiving during Christmas, and just give them a good meal. So both of us were very passionate about, about doing this work. And so what we mainly do through this programming, is to last with a school counselors to organize trips for the students to be bused into our university. And when they come, and we just said a busload last week, by the way. When they come here, we have a program. We, they toured the university, they see different units or departments. Eventually, they take lunch in the dining, they see that, you know, that side of college life, and then we bring people to talk to them about how college operates. How do you get there? What do you need to be doing now? In order for you to set yourself up for admission? What about finances? How can you finance yourself? What about tact, math, or English, that would help you to be a better student? So, uh, normally, when we bring them in, they have so many questions. We have a professor in Millersville is a former refugee, and is from Africa. And therefore, we also bring him in, and he talks about his experiences as a refugee in Canada. And, you know, moving from Canada to the US, where he went to school and where now he's a professor. And so when these see these people, they get the students get encouraged, because not understanding the system of education. And whether they can manage to even get a diploma, or even a degree is a big deal. And so, we are so privileged that, you know, we have this grant, and we are so grateful that the first time we have played, we got it. The second time we applied, we also got it and that's how these students were able to come last week. And we believe that it's a little we can give partner with the counselors. So that, you know, the counselors know that we are here we are working with them, we want to, you know, we want to support what they're doing in the high school, in the middle schools. And so that, by the time the students apply to go to college, they already have an idea of what to expect. If they are coming to Miller's view, we are there for them. In fact, as a continuation of that work, I formed what I call the Millersville University refugees mentoring program. So that now after they come to me lens view, I paired them up with other students that are in you know, that seasoned in knowing what Millis view can offer to students. And just having those connections where students can know exactly where to go in case they need help. They can come to me they can go to their men, you know, they are mentors. And it's just a wonderful thing. I think all of us definitely need to look at what can we do to help. 

Matt Markin  
Oh, yeah, absolutely. And it's great, because it's almost like you have everything kind of set up to offer them the support and guide them to get to college. And then once they're there, then it's not just like, Okay, we don't talk to you anymore. It's like, No, we're going to pair you up with a mentor. And make sure because I'm sure you have a lot more questions and need more guidance. And so you're going to help them once they're a college student there as well. That's very amazing. Absolutely. And I really liked the grant, because the positive energy fund essentially is raising awareness for economic, social, environmental challenges, confronting the world and looking at local solutions. And so everything kind of ties into everything that you're doing with this grant in Lancaster County, Lancaster County by Millersville University. And kind of switching gears a little bit. You know, it wasn't not in your bio. But I know for you, you do a lot in the sense outside as well of Millersville. And you're very much connected with Nakata, the global community for academic advising, and especially within the global community engagement and advising community. Can you talk more about that particular advising community?

Matt Markin  
Oh, absolutely. I think I got to know about naqada, the global advising community many years ago, and when I knew it, I was not a professor. And I knew that this is the professional organization for advisors, and even educators, including deans and provosts, you and I have attended conferences, and we have, you know, we have seen administrators there, you know, coming to learn from advice us about what they can do with student success. So it is an organization that is very, very crucial in pushing the needle towards student success, especially, we know that good advising goes hand in hand, with good good teaching, we cannot talk about teaching, you know, we can't talk about teaching without really talking about successful advising. And once in a while, we need to partner with organizations like this, so that we can be able to learn from the experts learn from people who have experiences or have gone through experiences similar to us, you know, exchange ideas, and things like that. So when I got to know about NACADA, I definitely knew that I needed to be a member of NACADA. And most of my colleagues in my university, especially my colleague, who are my colleagues who are advisors are members of NACADA. And I decided to be, you know, not to just be a member, but to, to volunteer to assist the organization, because as I attended the conferences, I knew through the announcements they were making, that they are looking for people to be leaders. So I applied to be an emerging leader, by the grace of God, I got in and I also, actually, when I got in there, I learned so much about the organization. And the need there is for people to volunteer and serve on committees, serve on different steering committees, and just bring their wisdom and their knowledge to assist the organization to thrive in order for the organization to be able to serve its membership. And by the way, the membership of NACADAis slightly over 10,000. That's a lot of people who are doing who are doing this work. So I will I have volunteered in quite a number of of committees. I was in the Professional Development Committee. I was part of the diversity and inclusion steering committee. I recently was the chair of the Global Engagement community. And that in itself serves a lot of people from all over the United States, but also from out fair, other countries. So I am grateful for for that opportunity. The Global Engagement community is one that has really opened my eyes to the need Are there is for us in the US to partner with our colleagues in other countries. I can give you an example. When I was the chair of the Global Engagement Committee, I partnered with the South African advising community, I had no idea there was an organized advising community in Africa. And I was Googling one time looking to see what is there about advising in Africa. And I landed on a PowerPoint that someone had done about advising, and I contacted them. And that led to me getting connected to some, the they actually the president of the South African advising community. And as we speak, right now, I sit in the advising board of the South African community, I have worked with them, I have been a guest speaker there during their conference. And they are very excited. I don't know whether you know much. But tomorrow, we have the globe, the virtual global conference, Nakata is organizing, organizing the virtual global conference. And we have a team from South Africa coming to to who will be presenting about their about their advice in community, I'm very proud, because when I sat in their board, I was able to, to help them become an elite member of NACADA. And then they now feel part and parcel of, of naqada. The President and the team, my colleagues in the board, they got so excited that they wrote and grants through the South African government, and they got a grant, which, with which they managed to pay for every member to be a member of NACADA this year. Isn't that amazing. And as we continue partnering with them, you know, they have, they have found out that, you know, they can remember, they can access a lot of privileged information, you know, including journal articles, including, you know, just great things to help them with their professional development. So, there's a lot of need, in the world for us to partner with people out there, because you sometimes we underestimate ourself, ourselves. And we may have just enough to help someone else out there to be a better person. So I'm very, very excited about this. You know, these partnerships that Makeda has through the Global Engagement community. We also had a representative from UK, Dave Lochtie, who is a member of UKAT, you know, the United Kingdom, academic advising and tutoring programs sitting in my steering committee, my steering committee, it's someone from South Africa, someone from China, someone from Abu Dhabi, someone from South Africa, you know, very diverse, and we all meet to discuss issues that touch on the Global Engagement community. It is a rich environment of growth.

Matt Markin  
Oh, yes, absolutely. And you're mentioning Dave Lochtie in. He's been a previous guest on the podcast. Yes, he has. Yeah, I'll send you I'll send you the link to the episode. It was. Yeah. Dave And Ben Walker.

Speaker 1  
Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, he was one of my steering committee, very active. Penny Robinson, also from the UK. And again, like I've said, Matt, you know, when you sit people from different countries, different experiences, with different perspectives, and you're sharing, it becomes a very rich conversation. It is just amazing. What can come out of that. So again, I'm very grateful for the chance to have been the chair of the Global Engagement community. They are currently looking for someone. And I'm hoping that someone who was sitting in my steering committee who will be the next will be the next chair of the of the community because it just helps that someone who knows what you were doing continues the work, right. 

Matt Markin  
I 100% agree. And you're mentioning you can't and I think that's a great segue to this next question is last year you were part of a presentation for you Kat about the role of transformational leadership and and also advising students. And I was hoping that you can talk to us a little bit about that presentation because I believe in that presentation, you also talked about the four eyes of transformational leadership.

Speaker 1  
Absolutely, absolutely. I have a group of friends, colleagues, who will do the work of transformational leadership in advising. And the three of us have partnered to do the work of advising for the work of advising, using the lens of transformational leadership for for several years now. And we got an invitation from David Grey, who is the president of the United Kingdom, academic advising community, to present about transformational leadership. You know, when you enter Canada, you get to know people, you know, that's why, you know, conferences are there, because when you go to a conference, you're you're meeting different people, you are engaging them you are discussing. And so when he invited us to talk about this, of course, we presented him with, you know, our work previously, he knew that we were doing this, we had written two general articles about it. He wanted us to talk about it, because it's not, it's it's an area that is Association, it probably not really had, or they had had maybe not had people come to talk about that. And so these workouts of transformational leadership, springs from the fact that all of us, the three of us, were leaders, you know, in the journey of life, and we, the three of us believe that, each one of us is a leader in circum, in some capacity, and transformational leadership, even thought very common in business world should actually apply more in the academic world. Because we are training students we have, we have students who we are training, and even though we are teaching them and advising them, how wonderful would it be, if I'm, if I'm advising a student, and I'm encouraging them to be to think of of themselves as a leader? You know, if students think of themselves as leaders, I believe there will be they'll start becoming very responsible, they will start becoming very accountable, you know, they will start being mindful of time. Because when you are a leader, you are conscious of time, you have a vision, you have goals. And again, I told you that I teach a freshman transitional seminar, these are the kinds of things I teach. I teach them when they are freshmen about time management. I teach them as freshmen about coming up with goals. What are the goals for this year as a freshman? And when they get to sophomore year? What are the goals of my sophomore year, and, you know, short term goals for the semester, for the week, for the month, in the morning for that day? What am I going to do? How am I going to our mind going to account for my time at the end of the day today? Am I going to reflect on the day to see where I last time? And if that is the case? Am I going to do better tomorrow? So we believed that if we take transformational leader I mean transformational leadership, and apply it in our academic advising world, because one of my colleagues is both of my colleagues, actually our faculty advisors, then we are able to advise our students from the lens of transformational leadership and as you said, the core tenets of at transformational leadership, idealized influence, which basically means that the students are looking at you as their role model. And therefore, if you are their role model, you are walking the walk, you are talking, you're you know, you are walking the talk. You are enthusiastic, you are embodying values that are important for success. The other one is inspiration or motivation, which basically means, you know, which basically means having a clear vision, as I've just said, being able to be productive on a timely basis, being able to include others, just the way they are. And when you think about if education market, we are talking of individuals that are coming from different places, we just talked about refugees, we just talked about, you know, some of those that are here, some that do not even, you know, they have not yet understood the system, they have not yet learned English. And so, even though they've learned English, they're in the process of learning it, you know, so that they can be able to comprehend even better, but when you think about these things, you know, you at the end of the day, we are encouraging students we are we are telling them that have a clear goal. Be a visionary, just like a leader would have a vision, a good leader has a vision for the organization. A good leader has a vision for where we are going as an institute, I'm sure your university as strategic development, you know, goals, where is the university going? Same thing, same thing, teaching students to have some goals and to have a vision about where they're going. It's very, very important. The third eye, or the third, yeah, that we call them eyes. The third one is individualized consideration. And this one has to do with teaching students to be empathetic, teaching students to, to have a purpose, you know, teaching students to, to, to care for others, you know, those qualities, individual qualities that are important to humanity, having compassion, what are the strengths and the skills students can use? Even me as an academic advisor? What are my strengths and skills, we talked about the grant, you know, to me, that is a strength, being able to write a good, you know, proposal so that I can get little money to help other people. So we are helping students to consider what is in them, that can drive them to success. I always talk to my refugee students, and I tell them, you are already resilient, you have gone through a lot as refugees, some of them lived in refugee camps. Some of them walked for miles and mouse to escape war, in Congo, in Iraq, in Syria, you know, some of them have gone without food, or even water, or even beefing, and they are still alive. They are no longer where they were, they are in a better place. And so I encourage them to capitalize on what they already have that academic resilience, that resilience that they already have from where they came from, because they've been able to overcome a lot whether someone got killed in the process, maybe a relative, they went through that trauma, some of them are still going through some traumatic memories. And so helping students to see really what strengths they have. And so individual consideration is what do you bring what what is it that is in you, that you can utilize for your own success. And then of course, we have the intellectual stimulation. And that involves the curiosity, all of us must have a student's the curiosity of learning, being able to partner with faculty or professors to do research. You know, being able to write a journal article with a professor and even if you're not writing with a professor, writing well, trying to do a good job when you're writing an assignment, trying your best, you know, being able to be creative, you know, being creative, whether you are a student now, or in the future, being creative, to help that company, move forward. Being able to be innovative, what, you know, we learned a lot during the pandemic.

Margaret Mbindyo  
I keep reminding our students I remind them, my students, I tell them remember, the people that came up with a vaccine, they were people that went to school like you, they were able to put their minds together and come up with vaccines that saved all of us. And look at all these innovations that are going around us, you know, talk about all these different apps that are helping us develop, you know, succeed in different areas, whether it's financial area, sending money to Kenya now, for me, it's very easy. I just need to sit, check my phone, send money. Those are innovations. When you think about the different innovations, you are encouraging your students to really think in terms of, of, of what they can do with their brains now without waiting for others to do that. So those are the four eyes, again, of national leadership, idealized influence, intellectual stimulation, individualized consideration, and inspirational inspirational motivation. And that's what the gifts of the writing of the chapter in that book, and also the orchid presentation was all about just challenging advisors, and advising directors to think about these things. 

Matt Markin  
And so you know, as as you're talking about that, in describing the the four eyes, it reminded me of a book review that I read of yours, where you were discussing world scouting and educating for global citizenship. And there's a part in there where you actually wrote that the author concurs with your belief, your personal beliefs of being kind, caring beyond self and finding satisfaction and service to others. And as an advisor, those are your guiding principles, that this is what you hope your students can take away from the meetings that they have with you. And that advising your students to take responsibility and ownership for that time that they have in college, that you hope that they can make that important part of their lives and be responsible world citizens. So I just felt that that was a great tie in to everything that you just talked about.

Margaret Mbindyo  
Thank you. Thank you very much. 

Matt Markin  
then I do want to tie into with our time remaining that, you know, we're talking about transformational leadership. And we're talking about how NACADA has various opportunities for people, for a lot of its members. And one of them also involves around publications. And you and some colleagues, were able to co write a chapter in one of the most recent Nakota publications for academic advising administration, Essential Knowledge and Skills for the 21st century, the second edition, and this particular publication examines the evolving boundary crossing role of the advising administrator, and its complex and diversified higher ed environment. And your chapter that you were part of was academic advising leadership and change management. So I was hoping that you could share with listeners about that.

Speaker 1  
Absolutely, absolutely. Again, my three colleagues and I wrote this chapter, we submitted a proposal to write it based on our work with writing on leadership, transformational leadership, and they were looking for authors who would write about change management. And, Matt, you and I agree that there is a lot of movement when it comes to people looking for different things to do, you know, so many vacuums, you know, in terms of positions, and in terms of people just looking for jobs, or even, like, you know, the what happened during the pandemic, that's that time was hard, you know, when things normalized, people had left jobs, you know, people had just thought about doing other things. And so there were there were so many changes, and, and even as higher head there have been a lot of changes that have come as a result of enrollment numbers, actually, as a result of the pandemic. And there have been so many adjustments, whether it's adjustments related to money, whether you are being taught to be a little bit more careful when you're using resources at you know, in your in your place of work. And so we felt the need to write about that. Because, again, using the four eyes of transformational leadership, we can say that, that the model of transformational leadership assists us in being stewards, good stewards of what we have. And, and so we linked the model of transformational leadership with servant leadership, to write a chapter that, you know, that would inform administrators that will inform anyone that reads it, that, as a leader, you also have to be thinking in terms of who helps Are you training to take over from you when you are gone. Or even if they are not taking over from you when you are going? Being able to recommend them for other positions, how are you training them. So that the knowledge you have as a leader, you're not just keeping it for yourself, you are sharing it with the people you're working together with, because life is very interesting life happens, we all know that. And tomorrow, there'll be a vacuum, and whoever takes over, will they be prepared well enough to carry on, or they won't be able to carry on, because you were selfish, without things are done. You know, sometimes, even here in my university, sometimes I look to see, how many different programs Am I familiar with? Because a university like this, I'm sure a university like yours, has so many different software's and programs, you know, but we all don't know how to use those, only some select group of people know how to access some. And so as a leader, are you able to share that information with others, so that if there is change, that change can be managed effectively? Or not. And so, we feel like we really did, we gave it all, it was not easy to write that chapter, it was, Oh, my goodness, a grueling task, I cannot even tell you the number of times it was sent back to us. Do these, by the reviewers do this, do these do these? You know, and I think of course, this being an academic book, you know, that is just the way it should be that you know, you you you rewrite and write again and take note of a sentence that is not probably clear. Revise it again and again. So that at the end of the day, someone who buys that book and reads the chapter, can really try to see what you meant by every sentence. So again, I'm sure there are many people that would have loved to write that chapter. But we got it. And we are grateful for the work, we produced it, we hope that it will go to really help us. You know, in the in the world of academia, and also in in administration, whether they are administrators of academic, academic advising units, or whether we are just working with students to help them with student success.

Matt Markin  
Yeah, and I'm glad that you, you all kept revising it, because there could have been so many times that when you got the email saying, Nope, we want you to revise this, you could have just said, Okay, we're just not going to move forward with it.

Margaret Mbindyo  
It is wonderful to be that's what that's one thing of us being in working in higher ed, you know, you have to be teachable, you have to be able to work together with others. It's teamwork. It's teamwork. It's teamwork. Because the authors of chapter one are depending on the authors of chapter two, the authors of chapter four, or depending on the authors of chapter five, and so on.

Matt Markin  
Oh, yes, absolutely. So hope those that did purchase it, you know, have gotten to read through it and gained a lot of knowledge from it, or will soon be purchasing it. And this has been an enlightening conversation. And, you know, especially because you're talking about, you know, in the sense knowledge is power, but only if you're able to share that with everyone and work together collaboratively. So, Dr. Margaret Vendio, thank you so much for being on the podcast today.

Margaret Mbindyo  
It was wonderful talking to you. It was amazing and amazing experience and I'm very grateful, Matt, for the opportunity to present and have this conversation with you.

Matt Markin  
Thank you so much