Rutgers University Math Department 2015-2019

 Being back in the workplace after being independent for so many years was a surreal experience. The reality of job parameters like having only a limited number of personal days and vacation days and needing to request approval to use them were so unlike anything that I had experienced for the last 20 years, there was a bit of a culture shock. On the other hand, there was an indescribable sense of relief in knowing my health insurance and sons’ tuition would be covered (all three of my sons ended up attending Rutgers).  

When I was presented with a PC on my desk, I was thrilled to see that Microsoft Office including Microsoft Access was installed. Given my experience with MS Access, I knew that I could begin developing applications to help the Math Department run more efficiently without needing to install any additional software. 
 
Prior to working in the Math Department, I thought I was behind the times since I had effectively been unable to keep current during the era that software transitioned to web development. However, I quickly came to realize that with my experience using Microsoft Access, I could build sophisticated multi-user applications with a speed and depth of features that were either impossible or would take vast amounts of resources to build by conventional IT groups.  

During my time in the Math Department, the Undergraduate Vice Chair, Professor A. Shadi Tahvildar-Zadeh, was a forward-thinking innovator who knew of my skill set. Shadi created a committee “Innovations” where we met regularly to discuss ways in which we could make the Math Department run more efficiently through innovative ideas and technologies. 
 
Having been schooled on some of the pain-points the Math Department experienced (assigning instructors to course sections given high volumes of course sections and instructors, deciding who would be invited into Honors classes, handling special permission requests from students, etc.), our Innovations committee discussed ways we might streamline these procedures through technology I could develop. 
 
Something else I noticed was that our support staff were each maintaining their own redundant spreadsheets for their own purposes. These spreadsheets were disjointed, and when one piece of information changed, there was no simple way to ensure that everyone maintaining their own spreadsheets would know to incorporate the update. Therefore, I also developed a relational database to be used by the department to centrally manage the information needed by the math department (and not readily available via the broader University-level enterprise systems). 

This translated into my developing the Solutions Application Suite for the Math Department, which included a relational database and a series of applications to help with work specifically done “in the trenches” in the math department. I continued to develop using MS Access for all these applications. The only major additional software I had installed for my development efforts was MySQL, so we could swap out use of MS Access for the backend database and use MySQL instead. 

As word spread about what I had built for the math department, I learned how unusual what I was doing was considered. I came to understand how the school was very siloed: application development and all things tech related fell under the purview of the School of Arts and Sciences IT department. Non-technical, administrative job descriptions were not designed to allow for the sorts of development I had been producing.

 

Additionally, when others heard that I was working in MS Access, I was unfortunately misperceived as being a novice user who knew how build some basic forms and run some basic queries. I was never able to break out of this stereotype to my satisfaction, and given my Administrative Assistant title, I did not have a voice whereby I could present the depth of my work and explain my techniques. 

While Math leadership tried to create a revised job description for me that would accurately reflect the type of work I had been doing, they found that this was not possible. Technical, software development jobs could only be created through the IT department, and the IT department was not interested in exploring what I had been doing. Instead, I was put on a managerial path – something Math leadership was more empowered to do – and was given the title of Senior Program Coordinator Supervisor, managing the Undergraduate and Graduate instructional office. 

At this time, I had four administrative staff reporting to me and my office was moved to a prominent spot in the department, where my team was the first point of contact for students. I continued to develop and implement the Solutions applications, but now I was also doing my “official” management job as well. 
 
This experience led to one of my first bouts of imposter syndrome -- management of employees in such a large, academic and unionized environment was never a role I intended to play. Other managers playing similar roles at the university had many years’ experiences learning the Rutgers way of doing things.

Despite feeling like a fish out of water, I learned that my experience running Artisan Computer all those years combined with raising my three sons did in fact give me a good intuitive understanding of how to be a manager. Additionally, a co-worker in the Math Department, Sunita Jagtiani-Sanghvi, became a good friend and was always willing to offer a helping-hand.

Please read the next chapter of my blog: Transitions