Life at CEP with a New Boss!

Here we are, midway through our fellowship years, and I feel like I can finally say that I have fully adjusted to working a 9-5:30 schedule. However, my routine at the Character Education Partnership has been shaken up quite a bit over the past month with the arrival of our new President & CEO, Mark Hyatt! It has been quite interesting to have the opportunity to directly compare the two very different leadership styles represented by Mark and Joe, our former president. Joe was a very detail-oriented, hands-on leader--always in the office, making sure everyone stayed on task and represented CEP in an exemplary manner. Mark, on the other hand, is more of a big-picture, visionary leader. He has a seemingly endless number of ideas and projects that he wants to see CEP take on, and he is usually in the office only three or four days per week so that he can go chat it up with potential donors to fund these proposals.

I am working with Mark much more closely than I ever worked with Joe, mainly because he has essentially filled the role of my old boss (the Director of Resource Development) in addition to serving as President (Joe has stayed on in a part-time capacity to help him keep track of the details). And, so far, I am happy to say that I am really enjoying working with him. He has been so receptive to my ideas for how CEP can further its mission, and he has really emphasized to both Carol and me that he wants us to use our fellowship year to pursue our interests and do work for CEP that we find engaging and, when possible, relevant to our future career path. For example, Carol and I went to a panel this week that reported on the progress of the DC Promise Neighborhood Initiative, which was inspired by the famous Harlem Children's Zone. While it wasn't directly related to CEP's work, I found the panel to be a fascinating opportunity to learn more about early education and child development in an urban setting. And in general, I am extremely grateful for the effort Mark has put in to get to know all of us on staff and to make each of us feel like his equal, and I sense that the future fellows at CEP will have a large say in how they want to contribute to the organization.

That being said, I am also very appreciative for the time I had working with both of my other bosses. I feel like I am having almost two different fellowships in one, because while my role has stayed the same in some major respects (I still do a lot of writing for grant proposals and other fundraising efforts and I am still planning the Exhibit Hall for the Forum), I am working with new people and learning to adapt to their writing styles and their expectations as supervisors. For instance, Mark has encouraged me to pursue my interest in working more directly with students, so I came up with a rough proposal for an essay contest that would bring more students to the Forum--an idea that he is now trying to find a donor to sponsor. I am also working closely with Arthur Schwartz, one of our newest Board members and the former #2 at the Templeton Foundation, to research organizations that serve parents so that we can expand our own outreach efforts to this highly influential but underutilized population in the field of character education. Learning to work closely with and for all of these different people has been a significant opportunity for me to grow as a professional, and I'm looking forward to seeing how my fellowship continues to change and offer new experiences in the months ahead.