Faculty Highlight: Professor Leonard Chapman

This month I want to recognize Professor Leonard Chapman from the BS Business Management program for his commitment to leadership at Union and his demonstration of social responsibility, both as a faculty member and as an active participant in his community outside the university. Reflecting on his experience in the U.S. Navy, Professor Chapman said that he learned that “[…] everyone in the organization has leadership potential. It just has to be recognized and nurtured.” He is an outstanding example of someone who recognizes and nurtures that same leadership potential in his students and encourages it in his colleagues.

 

Professor Chapman was born and raised in New York City and graduated from Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts, with a BA in Fine Arts. He went on to the University of California, Berkeley to earn a BS in Civil Engineering and a Master’s degree in Engineering in Municipal Planning.

He brings the experience of at least two careers to his professorship at Union: a career in management and international corporate consulting with Procter and Gamble, and a career as a Captain of the U.S. Navy. He now serves as a full-time Professor with Union’s Bachelor of Science Program.

 

STRASSE: You served in the United States Navy for 28 years, achieving the rank of Captain. What started you on the path and what kept you on the path to being a U.S. Navy Captain?

 

Here is my story. My father served in the U.S. Coast Guard and was into sailing as a hobby. I was raised as his crew and enjoyed the sport during summer breaks from school. During my high school years, we moved from New York City to Sea Cliff, a small town on the north shore of Long Island. We joined the local Sea Cliff yacht club and raced our Star boat on Long Island Sound. The sea became part of me.

 

While I was at Williams College, the local draft board kept reminding me that, as soon as I had my degree, they would be drafting me into the armed services. I wanted to be sure that I would serve in the U.S. Navy. As a result, I decided to enlist in the Naval Reserve and apply for Officer Candidate School (OCS) as soon as I had my BA degree from Williams. I was able to implement that plan, and it worked out fine for me and the draft board.

 

Upon graduation from OCS with the rank of Ensign, I married, and my wife and I began our married life in Chicago. The Navy moved us there so that I could attend their six-month Combat Information Center (CIC) School just north of Chicago. From Chicago, we moved to San Diego  to spend the rest of my first enlistment on a destroyer that was home based in San Diego. My first assignment on the destroyer was as CIC Division Officer in charge of the training and well-being of the 12 enlisted men in that division. That assignment impressed me with the importance of proper training (managerial as well as technical) in preparing for any assignment in any organization. It was also the first real management/ leadership position that I had ever held, and I thrived in it. I thoroughly enjoyed my first active duty assignment.

 

I left active duty to return to school with very mixed emotions. On the one hand, I was committed to obtaining a Master’s degree and, on the other hand, I did not want to be discharged from the Navy. As a result, I decided to stay active in the U.S. Naval Reserve while completing my graduate work. That way, I could continue to grow in the reserve while learning new theory and skills in graduate school that I could apply in the reserve. I also believed that the combination of a BA degree and a MS degree would best prepare me for whatever final career path I would follow.

 

However, I now had a wife and two small children to support. We wanted to remain in California; so, I applied to and was accepted at the University of California, Berkeley. Living in the Bay Area also enabled me to join a U.S. Naval Reserve Ship Program in San Francisco while I simultaneously earned a BS degree in Civil Engineering with a concentration in Municipal Engineering and a Master of Engineering degree in Municipal Planning at Berkeley.

 

Armed with my BA, BS, Master of Engineering degrees, and several years of experience as a division officer in the Navy, I started interviewing for a position in the public sector. I was also advised by the Berkeley placement director to interview with Procter & Gamble. Procter had openings at their Sacramento plant in operations management, and that opportunity seemed to resemble the division office manager/leader role that I had in the Navy, including a well-managed training program to prepare me for my first assignment in the private sector. I decided to join P&G.

 

Just as I was completing my initial P&G training at Sacramento, my Naval Reserve Ship Unit was recalled to active duty. By now I held the rank of Lieutenant and was assigned as Navigator on one of the three destroyers operating out of San Francisco. After three months of refresher training, we headed for the Western Pacific, and I had the opportunity to put my celestial navigation skills to good use.

 

On the way home from the Western Pacific, I found a small group of shipmates who wanted to learn celestial navigation. I organized the group into a class and at sunrise, sunset, and noon we took our sextant readings and plotted our way back across the Pacific. During the day, we had discussion groups on the theory and practice of celestial navigation. This experience reinforced what I had learned during my initial Navy assignment: that I have a passion for teaching and the personal satisfaction that comes from helping others achieve some of their life goals.

 

I was released from active duty a second time and returned to both my P&G assignment in Sacramento and the Naval Reserve Ship Program in San Francisco. My Navy rank and experience qualified me for the position of Commanding Officer on a destroyer escort (DE). I applied for and was accepted for that assignment. For the next three years, I was able to use what I was learning about management/leadership at P&G in my role as Commanding Officer of the DE and, at the same time, use what I was learning about management/ leadership on the DE in my P&G assignments.

 

Toward the end of my DE tour of duty, I was promoted to the rank of Commander and assigned as Commanding Officer of one of the three destroyers in the Naval District’s Ship Program. With this role, I was again able to put into practice what I was learning at P&G as well as what I had learned in my time in the Navy. I made sure that my officers and men were being properly trained for their jobs, especially in the area of leadership. We stressed the platinum rule in our leadership training: “treat people as THEY wish to be treated.” I also further developed my managerial style: management by walking around. After two very successful years as Commanding Officer of the destroyer, I was promoted to the rank of Captain.

 

P&G then moved me to Cincinnati to manage their Shortening and Oils making and packing operations at Ivorydale. In Cincinnati, I joined a Large U.S. Naval Reserve Surface Program and was assigned as Commanding Officer. I completed that two-year assignment by personally enlisting my eldest son into the U.S. Navy. I then officially retired from the Navy—and that’s my story to the question of what started me on the path and what kept me on the path of becoming a U.S. Navy Captain.

 

STRASSE: What lessons did you bring from your military experience into the business world?

 

Before I answer that specific question, let me say that because most of my Navy career overlapped my career with P&G, the learning experiences went in both directions. What I was learning in the Navy I was able to bring to P&G, and what I was learning at P&G I was able to bring to the Navy. The results were amazingly synergistic!

 

As an example, during the five years as Commanding Officer of the destroyer escort and destroyer, I focused on technical and leadership training for my officers and men, emphasizing the specific needs of each individual, as well as their promotional needs as required by the Navy. I also developed my own leadership style of “walking around,” having informal discussions with individuals and groups, and just getting to know my crew as individuals. I was able to bring the learning from those experiences to P&G. At the same time, what I was learning at P&G through formal training and work experience, I was able to bring to the Navy. It was a wonderful combination.

 

Now back to your specific question. I brought two very important principles from my Navy experience to the business world. The first was that everyone in the organization has leadership potential; it just has to be recognized and nurtured. This leadership potential is accomplished in the Navy through the enlisted Petty Officer Rates, the training that Petty Officers receive, and their advancement process.

 

The second key principle that I brought from the Navy to the business world was the importance of proper leadership and technical training for all assignments. This principle includes the importance of followers having input to that training and the key role that leaders have in making sure that exemplary training takes place.

 

I also learned an important personal lesson from my Navy experience. I learned that I have a passion for teaching and mentoring others and thoroughly enjoy the personal satisfaction that comes from helping others achieve some of their life goals.

 

STRASSE: What current projects are you most excited about?

 

I am currently working on three projects that I believe will greatly benefit our students as well as the university. They are:

·         Starfish (My Union Success Team)

·         The new General Education Program

·         The changes coming to Faculty Council Governance

 

Starfish, once fully operational, will provide a platform for program advisors, faculty, and other key players to have all the student information needed to collaborate effectively and to help students complete their classwork on time. This collaboration, in turn, will have a positive impact on retention and enrollment growth. The new General Education Program will result in new and improved Gen Ed fully online courses. My role is to lead in the development of Master Syllabi for all four of our B.S. statistics courses.

I have been a member of the Summit committee, and I expect that the university Faculty Governance changes that have been recommended by Summit will strengthen our Faculty Governance structure and operations. Once implemented, these changes will eliminate current governance overlap, fill in voids, and generally improve two-way communications between Faculty Council and university staff, administration, and faculty. I look forward to my role in this implementation in 2014/15.

STRASSE: What does “social responsibility” mean to you and how do you live out that value – both here at Union and outside of Union?

I believe that to be socially responsible, every person, as well as every organization, must act to benefit society. I lived that value during my years of service in the Navy as previously described. P&G encouraged its employees to become involved with service work in their local communities. I managed baseball, football, and soccer teams while working in Sacramento and Cincinnati. I am now living that value by helping my UI&U undergraduate students attain a B.S. degree.

I have taken some time to realize the true meaning of “social responsibility.” However, I now firmly believe that my personal challenges are to leave the organizations that I touch in better shape than when I found them and to leave the people with whom I come in contact with a positive emotional experience that they will never forget.

I will finish with two quotes from Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965) that are meaningful to me:

“As we acquire more knowledge, things do not become more comprehensible but more mysterious.”

“Everyone must work to live, but the purpose of life is to serve and to show compassion and the will to help others. Only then have we ourselves become true human beings.”

Faculty Highlights: Dr. Rick Chaffee

Dr. Rick Chaffee’s understanding of leadership and mentoring practices is informed by a diverse background in professional ski racing, a Master's degree in Economics from the University of Denver and a Ph.D. in Applied Social Sciences from Union Institute & University. Dr. Chaffee’s has experience teaching both at the high school and collegiate level. He also has worked extensively in leadership training for the Marathon Oil Company, as well as working as a manager for the Catholic Diocese of Toledo. More recently Dr. Chaffee has been recruiting and mentoring members of the National Guard and employees of various corporations to focus on their degree completion through Union Institute & University.For this issue of the Union Strasse, we asked Dr. Chaffee about what has influenced his career path and his passion for socially responsible leadership in the workplace and in the academy.
The Union Strasse: Your first career was as an Olympic skier. What started you on that path of professional skiing?

Dr. Rick Chaffee: I was born in Rutland, VT and my mom and dad both ski raced. My mom was an alternate on the 1940 Olympic Team but that year the games were cancelled because of the war.

There was a ground swell of interest in skiing around Pico Peak near Rutland as a local woman, Andrea Mead Lawrence, became the first American to win Olympic gold medals in skiing in 1952.

This ground swell of interests gave rise to organized efforts to support ski racing in the region. I ski raced from the age of five or so. My sister, Suzy Chaffee participated with me in the '68 Olympics in France and I competed again in Japan in 1972. Our University of Denver ski team won the NCAA Championships during each of my four years there.

TUS: After you transitioned out of skiing professionally, you went on to teach and to help establish the Green Mountain Valley School. What was your vision for that school?
RC: After teaching for six years with Johnson State College, I was asked to help a local academy, The Green Mt. Valley School, become an elite ski racing academy. I taught, coached and was director of community life with the school.

Our vision was to create a high school in which students could excel both academically and athletically. The goal was for faculty, staff and students to create a supportive learning community in which students could pursue their dreams. The school has since developed into one of America’s leading ski racing academies and college preparatory schools.

TUS: You teach in Union's Leadership program and are invested in both educational and corporate leadership training.  What are the aspects of leadership that you see as essential today both in the academic world and in the corporate world? What aspects of leadership do you feel are essential for your students to grasp?
RC: Leadership is influence in service of a common purpose. The participants in our leadership classes become excited when they discover that many of the theories validate an intuition that they have had for some time. The courses I teach with UI&U and those I taught in corporate training, focused on helping both leaders and followers organize what they already know so that it becomes more useful to them. Teaching is especially fun when that happens.

Most Union students are adults with years of experience in organizations. My role then is to bring together a field of knowledge such as leadership and the lived experience of our participant. When that happens, the learning takes place very fast because the participants already know experientially these concepts and theories.What I find most satisfying about teaching leadership is helping our leadership students remember what is most important to them, which is keeping their integrity.

It seems that we are so challenged by the environments in which we work, so caught up in surviving, that we often lose touch with what is most important to us. Such things as:

• Doing our best and being of good will; 
• Avoiding the tendency to create in-groups and out-groups in our organizations. Because our mind operates by categorizing, there is a natural tendency for leaders to classify their followers and thereby create in-groups and out-groups. Building high quality one-on-one relationships with each team member, despite the differences in intelligence, motivation, career aspirations, and skill level, will take us a long way toward developing a sound organizational climate. 

Here is an example of what I enjoy most in teaching leadership. I ask students to respond to this handout as we approach the end of the leadership course. This piece resonates strongly with our leadership participants:

“You are nearly finished with the course.  

Whatever you have learned here, the insights from the instruments, from the theories, from your application of theory to the cases, and all the insights you have had from your whole life, these will not be lost.

What is important now is this: When you find yourself in a situation, whether you are the leader, follower or a peer, do not try to remember these theories or past insights. Instead, be present to the situation, to the people, to the issues….listen. Be open to whatever is happening…to your own thoughts and feeling and the responses and feelings of the other parties. Then draw on your intelligence, your concern for the well being of people and your sense of beauty and fairness.If you do that, if you do your best to be present to this unique situation and these unique people at this unique moment, with deep concern for both people and the task at hand, what you need to know will be made available to you.It is impossible to determine what to do ahead of time, for every moment is new and fresh and calls for its own unique response.It is in the humility of being open and present, trusting that the right words and responses will come to us, that we find our ‘voice’ and truly serve.”  

TUS: Who are the leaders and examples that you look to or aspire to be like? Why? 

RC: In my classes I use Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech and Joshua Chamberlain’s speech to the mutineers of the 20^th Maine at the Civil War battle of Gettysburg. I am also a great admirer of Nelson Mandela and the Persian poets Rumi and Hafiz.These are leaders who were fearless in their support of freedom, equality and community. I admire all who try, as best they can, to live the qualities of intelligence, beauty and love.Ultimately, however, leadership is a matter of the heart.

TUS: What are your current projects that you’re most excited about?  

RC: Our BS Business Management and Leadership faculty have been working together to develop ‘sound guidelines’ for our collaboration forums, ways to strengthen the quality of our on-line courses in CampusWeb.Another project of special interest is an application of ‘Appreciative Inquiry’ to our peer review process. The Faculty Affaires and Development Committee, FAD, has been creating a peer review process that focuses on two things: developing faculty and celebrating the good things happening in the university as we share our interests and our successes with our peers.Appreciative Inquiry is a process for developing organizations by identifying and celebrating its strengths. Or, as Peter Drucker stated so well in one of our training videos for this process [...] “The task of leadership is to create an alignment of strengths that make our weaknesses irrelevant.”

TUS: What does “social responsibility” means to you, and how you live out that value in your life?

RC: My interest in social responsibility at the moment is focused on the leader-follower relationship in organizations whether public, private or corporate. The leader-follower relationship has profound ethical implications. Organizations and their leadership have a social responsibility to see that the leader-follower relationship is ethical.There are many methods that leaders can employ to get things done. There is coercion, manipulation, mutually agreed upon transactions, and inspiration. Only two of these are ethical.

Freedom to follow without threat or coercion is part of social responsibility in our organizations. Our essential equality as persons, despite differences in roles, is another requirement of social responsibility in the leader-follower relationship. The leader-follower relationship has not been a focus of social responsibility until recently. It is, however, a major focus in our Ethics and Leadership class.

Within our own organization, Union Institute and University, it is important that we help each other keep our personal and institutional integrity. That’s how we live social responsibility in our own house.