Dr. Antoinette Phillips took on the position as dean for the College of Business. Phillips feels past struggles as well as positions in other administration helped prepare her to be the dean. Her focus in the position will be to help and prepare students.
Courtesy of Communication and Creative Services
The College of Business has appointed a new leader to guide the program. Dr. Antoinette “Toni” Phillips has been named the new dean for the college using her years of experience and knowledge from past administrative and managerial positions. Phillips explains how she did not originally start out on the administrative side of the university.
“I was an assistant professor to start off with,” said Phillips. “And then worked gradually through associate professor and basically was in those positions for 16 years.”
She explains that going from interim department head to assistant dean to interim dean and then finally the dean of the College of Business had been a new path for her in her career.
“I had never been in administration at a university before, but I’ve enjoyed many managerial positions before I went back to get my doctorate,” said Phillips. “I thought it’d be a good challenge, and it turned out I enjoyed it.”
Along the way, she feels she has faced similar struggles that anyone may have to face when taking on new administrative positions.
“When I became interim department head, again my first administrative position here, there was just this whole world that went on that I really as a faculty member knew nothing about,” said Phillips. “That was fascinating to me. So, that’s kind of a learning challenge I really enjoyed. Another challenge that many administrators have faced in the past nine years has been financial situations of the state. Southeastern has been blessed with good leadership, and I think we’ve done a really good job in protecting our students to let us do our central mission without too much interruption to students.”
Before accepting the position, however, Phillips felt it was necessary to self-reflect and evaluate if she had the resources to fulfill the role of dean.
“Really, what I did personally is just be very self-examining,” said Phillips. “I felt professionally this was something I was ready for, but I had to take a good, long look at my life as a whole and see if I had enough resources in terms of time to bring to the position.”
She expresses that her time as a faculty member has helped her to prepare for her current position and understand her colleagues at the faculty level.
“Professionally, I think that I’ve done enough activities that, for example, the faculty are still doing. As a faculty member, I did those things, so I understand the challenges they face and the energies and talents they have to bring to that, so that was integral for the preparation,” said Phillips.
Phillips feels she has good support coming from department heads and her administration members.
“In terms of impact, I’m looking to continue some things that we really started in the past three and a half years,” said Phillips. “We have a really strong administrative team with great department heads who are very interested in doing the best we can do for our students, for our faculty.”
Overall, Phillips’ goal is to keep the needs of the students first and to prepare them for their futures. “We have a really strong program started to involve students in world-ready activities,” said Phillips. “Very excited about that. I think that’s probably the best thing we can do for our students. We also have made some changes in curriculum and probably continue to do so. Really, most of those are market- based, based on what do we think we need to provide students in terms of having them be ready to accept jobs and equipping them with the skills that they need to do that.”