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Remembering an Excellent Colleague and Friend

Remembering an Excellent Colleague and Friend

Last updated on: January 12, 2025 at 7:00 am by Vance Morgan

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Remembering an Excellent Colleague and Friend 2025-01-11T12:54:51-04:00 Vance Morgan

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I have been in a somber mood for the last few days, ever since the unexpected death of a longtime colleague and friend from the college. Hugh Lena was the Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at Providence College for the last fifteen years of his forty-five year career, first hired as an assistant professor of sociology in 1974. By the time I joined the faculty in 1994, Hugh was a major player in all aspects of the college, including President of the Faculty Senate during my years as junior faculty. Hugh retired in 2020 in the midst of the pandemic; he died 10 days ago after a brief illness.

For those unaware of what a provost is or does, the provost is the top academic officer at a college or university. She or he is, or at least attempts to be, the liaison and bridge between the faculty and the administration. It is a very tough and often thankless job. Over a number of years observing Hugh in this role, it often seemed to me that a good decision from the provost’s office is similar to what a Supreme Court justice once said about decisions from the highest court in the land. A good decision is one that no one on any side is happy with. Even on a relatively small campus such as Providence College with around 5000 students and close to 400 faculty, the provost is a big deal. That’s what made Hugh’s intelligence, honesty, and humility so special. He rose up from the faculty ranks to a position that is often occupied by an outsider poached from some other institution of higher learning.

Hugh’s time as provost overlapped with the two major administrative positions I have held over the years, first as philosophy department chair for four years in the 2000s managing 20-25 faculty, then as the director of our large interdisciplinary, team-taught four-semester course required of all freshmen and sophomores on campus for four years in the 2010s, a position that in a given semester put me in charge of around 75 faculty from all over campus and 1800+ students. These are the years when I got to know Hugh well and came to appreciate on a daily basis his style and manner of leadership.

Being department chair was my first administrative position—it was my turn, but I had no idea whether I would be any good at it or would like it. As it turned out I don’t like administration, but am pretty good at it. I realize now two decades later that I patterned at least some of my leadership style after Hugh’s. I describe my leadership strength as “diplomatic manipulation,” the ability to get people to do what I want them to and have them think it was their idea. Hugh was excellent at that. His workaholic tendencies also matched mine. The only light in the main administration building that was on when I walked past at 6:00 in the morning on my way to my office was Hugh’s—his early hours in the office were legendary.

Shortly after the end of my term as department chair, the college embarked on a total revision of its extensive core curriculum, a process that took a few years to complete. At the center of that revision was a reimagining of our Development of Western Civilization (DWC) program which most of us called “the core of the core,” a program in which I had taught every year since I was hired. Shortly after the core was approved by the appropriate constituencies and signed off on by the college president, Hugh asked me if I would serve as the first director of the new and improved program. This was not on my bingo card; I was convinced that being department chair was the end of my administrative duties.

As a veteran of the program, I knew exactly how challenging the role of director was likely to be. I asked Hugh to give me the weekend to consider his request, hoping that Jeanne would provide me with sufficient ammunition to turn it down. Instead, Jeanne said “I always thought you should be DWC director,” which was not helpful in the least. I met with Hugh on Monday morning ready to accept his offer, but first asked him “Why did you ask me to do this?” His three part answer was “I wanted someone who is a full professor (check), someone who is a veteran of the program (check), and someone who doesn’t give a shit about what other people say or think (!). The last one was the clincher—I had learned as department chair that I had the natural ability to listen to criticism, take it under consideration, decide otherwise, and not take the issue home with me.

That ability served me well over the next four years, but even more important was Hugh’s leadership style. In so many words, Hugh told me to do whatever I thought was needed to guide the program into its new format (and new building in two years), guaranteeing that he would keep his hands off and would not micromanage, but also that he would support me fully and publicly whenever necessary. You can’t ask for a better boss than that, and he was true to his word.

After my four years as DWC director were over, Hugh proposed other administrative roles to me on occasion but was only successful one time in getting me to do it. I’ll never forgive him for talking me into being the interim chair of the most dysfunctional department on campus for one semester—the worst semester of my career. But seriously, as I sat at his funeral mass last Friday with tears in my eyes I realized that the heart of my career had been intimately linked to the leadership and good will of this excellent man.

Upon hearing of his impending retirement in early 2020, I sent Hugh an email. After a few pleasantries and preliminaries, I said the following:

You’ve been an effective and efficient advocate for the faculty throughout your time in the Provost’s office. My gratitude comes particularly from the perspective of the various administrative roles I have held over the past several years while you have been in your leadership position. Especially when I was directing DWC, your support and trust was crucial. I always felt that you trusted me to do what I thought the program needed on a day-to-day basis and would support it strongly if need be. That, to me, is the hallmark of an effective leader, to empower others to do their job, to trust them to do it, and to have their backs if required.

In response, he sent me this, which someday I will frame and put on my office wall:

Thanks for your kind comments, Vance, and for all that you do for the College. I will always consider you as the ideal of a PC faculty member – wise, considerate, widely read, and a superior scholar who can bring his students along on the intellectual journey. The College owes you!

I realize now that this retrospective has turned out to be as much about me as about the man I am remembering. That is so typical of Hugh—empowering others while taking the focus off his own excellence. Rest in peace, Hugh. You made Providence College and me better than you found us.

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