Lessons from Liz Walker, PhD, MPH

Ulemu Luhanga: 00:03

Hello listeners, welcome to Educational Landscapes, Lessons from Leaders. On today's episode, we are going to learn from Liz Walker. Welcome to the show, Liz.

Liz Walker: 00:13

Thank you so much.

Ulemu Luhanga: 00:15

To get us going. What is your educational leadership title or titles?

Liz Walker: 00:21

All right, well, I'm going to apologize in advance for the many acronyms, but I'll spell them out at least once. So I am in the Department of Behavioral, Social and Health Education Sciences, or BSHES, at the Rollins School of Public Health. And there I have two main educational roles. The first is the Director of the Office of Evidence-Based Learning, which is an office in our department that is focused on supporting instructors in their teaching and contributing to the pedagogical scholarship in public health specifically. And then my other role is the Director of Graduate Studies for our Master's of Public health program. And in that role I do a whole bunch of things, which I can get into further if you so desire.

Ulemu Luhanga: 01:13

I would love that. And I want to get a clarification before we get into your second role. In the first role, the educating of the teachers. Is that the faculty only or it's also other public health educators, for the office of-

Liz Walker: 01:30

Yes. That's a great question. So it's focused now on instructors in our departments. That includes faculty, adjuncts, doctoral students when they do their teaching training and sometimes when they teach in our department. Yeah, it's focused on our instructors.

Ulemu Luhanga: 01:46

All right, thank you for that clarification. And now to the mouthful, Director of Grad Studies. What do you do in that role?

Liz Walker: 01:55

So in that role, I work very closely with our leadership team and chair, and with our academic advisors, to ensure that our MPH program rolls out smoothly. So that involves being part of the admissions process, recruitment activities. I work very closely with our instructors and our students. And so there's a lot of different aspects that overlap all the time because we have our people that are being recruited. We have our first year cohort. We have our second year cohort, and getting prepared for them to get completed and graduated. But overall it's very challenging but also been a great experience so far.

Ulemu Luhanga: 02:45

That's wonderful. I love, as you said, that it engages so many different people, the administrative side, the educators, and the students. And I'm always fascinated with what recruitment looks, like for a master's program.

Liz Walker: 03:04

I am not involved in the on the ground recruitment. So at Rollins we have an admissions team who does a lot of traveling, and going to conferences, and schools and things. However, the academic advisors and I will do some virtual sessions. And there's also two in-person recruitment sessions, one in the fall and one in the spring, where applicants can come and meet us and learn about our program. So that's always fun to meet students who are applying, and learn what they're interested in and what they want to do at Rollins. So thankfully that's the scope of my role with recruitment.

Ulemu Luhanga: 03:41

And I appreciate though that, that opportunity, because I think about how when I applied to my different grad programs, it was like I sent an application out into the ether. There was no opportunity to necessarily meet with the people and go, "What are you doing?" So I love that that's available in your program.

Liz Walker: 04:06

And one of the fun things is that, in the spring we have, the event is called Visit Emory. And so I came to Emory as an MPH student way back, but I vividly remember coming to visit Rollins for Visit Emory. So it is always fun to be there at Visit Emory, but very much on the other side of things.

Ulemu Luhanga: 04:27

That is awesome. That is awesome. So given these two relatively large roles that you have, what skills do you use in order to get the work done?

Liz Walker: 04:41

It's a lot of critical thinking, a lot of collaboration and teamwork, a lot of prioritizing, and balancing, and managing different tasks. The degree to which I do that successfully... I mean everything gets done eventually and I have wonderful people to work with, thankfully. It can be overwhelming sometimes, but that's all right.

Liz Walker: 05:15

I think it's also creativity, trying to be creative in meeting the students' needs, and working with the students, and engaging them in the process of both the scholarship of teaching and learning. And in the MPH program, we try to get input from our students. And our students give us a lot of input as well on different aspects of our program. And so I enjoy the creative process of trying to figure out how to work in their feedback and their contributions, and have them be involved in the processes too.

Ulemu Luhanga: 05:57

I love that. I love that. And building on what you said about you had the opportunity to do the Visit Emory, and now you are in these roles, I am very curious, what was your journey that led to these current roles?

Liz Walker: 06:14

So it was a winding journey. I fell into public health as I like to say. I was a history and biology double major in college. I should have realized that public health was where I needed to be because I did my history honors thesis on the Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1919 in Great Britain. Little did I know that that actually would have relevance to our current day.

Liz Walker: 06:46

But after that I taught middle school for a short time and got a master's in teaching. So teaching has always been a really core part of what I do and what I love. And then after that, I went and worked in a neurology lab. It was a basic sciences lab. I was dissecting rat brains. I was not good at it. I did not enjoy it. But I found public health because I started volunteering at an HIV AIDS service organization doing HIV testing and counseling. And so that led me to do an MPH at Rollins. And I knew I wanted to stay in academia mainly to teach, but I also much more loved of the research with people, not the research with rats. That was not a good fit for me. Research with people, perfect.

Liz Walker: 07:37

And so I continued on in the PhD program in BSHES. And then I did my postdoc with the FIRST program. FIRST stands for Fellowships in Research and Science Teaching. So it had both a research component. So I had a research mentor, Ben Druss who I still work with. And so that was at Emory. And then I had a teaching mentor at Spelman, shout out to Dr. Karen Brakke. She's amazing. And that's how I got started doing scholarship of Teaching and Learning.

Liz Walker: 08:12

And then when I applied for and was offered the position that I have now in BSHES, in my offer letter, it included the role with Office of Evidence-based Learning. At that point it was assistant director. And I didn't even know anything about it. I didn't know the department was considering doing this office. And it was like I was so excited. It was the thing that I didn't know I needed. And I was just like, this is perfect.

Ulemu Luhanga: 08:48

It's not often that you hear of offer letters including a very clear office, education component. There's the teaching we have to do as academics, but for that, oh yeah, that sounds amazing.

Liz Walker: 09:03

Yeah, definitely amazing.

Ulemu Luhanga: 09:06

So as you reflect on your journey and where you're at now with these two roles, what do you wish you knew before stepping into your roles?

Liz Walker: 09:22

That's a really good question. So I think the hardest thing for me to learn is balancing all of the different pieces that you have going on as a faculty member. So I do mental health research and evaluation. I have teaching. I had OEBL, Office of Evidence-Based Learning. Now I have the DGS role for the MPH program. And so how that all gets done is really hard. And so people did tell me just to give myself grace and to go into it... And people, I think some of the thing is that, some of the things that people told me, "It's going to take you time to get used to the DGS position." I knew that. But it's very different, knowing it in the abstract, and then going through an entire year of the cycle and being like, "Oh wow. Okay, now I know what I'm in for."

Liz Walker: 10:25

But thankfully our department is extremely collaborative and supportive, as is the other. It's been fun to work with the DGSs and the other departments, and with our student affairs office, and student engagement, and our enrollment services office, and our admissions team. So I have all of these people who I can just email or call or whatever, and I know they're there to help with whatever random question or issue that I'm running into. So that's something that I'm extremely grateful for, is the collaboration and support. And it's really a team effort.

Ulemu Luhanga: 11:09

I love that. I love that. I think you're right. So many times people will try and warn you and be like, "It'll be like this." And you're like, "Sure, sure, sure." And then in the middle of it you're like, "Oh, they weren't kidding."

Liz Walker: 11:22

Yeah. Yes.

Ulemu Luhanga: 11:23

But I love that you've got that team dynamic so that as you said, when you're going, "Oh my gosh, what do I need to do?" You can turn to somebody and go, "What have you done??"

Liz Walker: 11:34

Yes, For sure, for sure.

Ulemu Luhanga: 11:37

Wonderful, wonderful. So given that you've got these multiple roles that you've got to juggle, what continuing professional development do you do, if you find time, to keep up with the needs of your roles?

Liz Walker: 11:55

It is sometimes hard to find time, but I think it is extremely helpful and important to do continuing professional development. So it ranges from Faculty Career Development series offered at Rollins. I like the Center for Faculty Development and Excellence trainings. They're amazing. I also go to some conferences when I can. So we have the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health, has an annual meeting each year. And so that's always been really beneficial when I'm able to go to that. So those are the most common things that I do. A lot of reading too, reading books and articles, again when I can.

Ulemu Luhanga: 12:43

Yes, this is why I added that little caveat, when you have time. So as you think and reflect on your journey to date, what advice would you give someone interested in doing the same types of roles that you have?

Liz Walker: 13:02

So I think for Office of Evidence-Based Learning, one thing that's very unique is that our department does support our work. So they support some of my salary to be able to do that work, which is very unusual. And we do have some funds that we can use to support graduate research assistants, and get focus groups transcribed, and things like that.

Liz Walker: 13:27

But even before then, my first foray into scholarship of teaching and learning, my teaching mentor and I, we decided we wanted to try out this project and see what contributed to undergrad psychology students attitudes and confidence in learning statistics. So my advice is to try to, even if it's not an area... Because scholarship of teaching and learning, there isn't a lot of funding for it. There's not always a lot of support. But I'm very grateful that I had the support for my teaching mentor to try it out. And it was something that I really enjoyed. And so it was worth it for me to put in that time. And you have to be creative to how you can fit it in with everything else. But I think it is really worth doing. There's a lot to be learned from the different things we try out in our classrooms.

Liz Walker: 14:27

Another piece of advice again, is to give yourself grace. You can't learn everything all at once. And it'll take some time. And to make those relationships and lean on the other people who have either done it before or going through it with you, because that is crucial.

Ulemu Luhanga: 14:45

Indeed. Indeed. Wise words. Wise words. Thank you.

So as you think about, clearly you have a passion for education. So how do you support or expand education in your profession or through your roles?

Liz Walker: 15:04

So part of the way that I try to support education or expand it through my roles, is a lot of it is through the scholarship of teaching and learning work that I do for public health. In medicine and nursing, in basic sciences even, there's a lot of scholarship of teaching and learning. There's a lot of pedagogical scholarship that goes back a long time. There are numerous journals in each of the fields.

Liz Walker: 15:34

But in public health it's a much smaller, newer area of research. And so we have one main journal. And it's definitely growing, which is exciting, but it's still pretty new. So part of my work is to contribute to the body of knowledge and extend the pedagogical scholarship, and disseminate what we're learning. So through presentations at conferences, and we've done workshops, and a webinar for the Society for Public Health Education, and then publishing articles to try and get what we're learning out farther to extend other people in the field.

Ulemu Luhanga: 16:24

I love that. I note that you've said that about the SOTL in different fields, do you have a sense of why it has taken longer for public health to embrace SOTL?

Liz Walker: 16:39

I'm not really sure. I mean, part of it may be that the focus from a lot of faculty in public health is on their research and their research programs. And so even if you're teaching, your energy is for teaching in your class or your classes, and there's not always that time to do the SOTAL research. So that may be part of it. But I'm not really sure. But I'm excited that over the past 5, 10 years that it has started expanding more.

Ulemu Luhanga: 17:17

Indeed. Indeed. And I think that's great, especially for those who come after you and are learning out of the OEBL. Wait, did I get that?

Liz Walker: 17:27

Uh-huh affirmative).

Ulemu Luhanga: 17:27

There we go. I'm like acronyms. Because then as you said, there are these opportunities, and they're growing for people to engage and be involved, and possibly even inform their other institutions that they go to, that there's this type of opportunity. So that's great. Great, great. So if you think about all the things you've done, what would you say contributed to your biggest successes thus far?

Liz Walker: 17:55

I'm sure you'll not be surprised at my answer. My biggest successes are my colleagues, and collaborators, and students. One of the things that I'm most proud of with our SOTL work is that we've had students engaged in all of the projects that we've done, or almost all of the projects that we've done, and not just as participants. Yes, we've done surveys with them, and focus groups and such. But we have had master students, doctoral students, and postdoc work with us to collect data, analyze data, contribute to manuscripts and presentations. And so that's one of the things that I am most proud of is their engagement in producing this knowledge that we're sharing with others. Because it's really, they're the ones who are in the courses who are receiving this education. And so it means a lot to me for them to be engaged in the research of it too.

Ulemu Luhanga: 18:58

I love that. And because you hear people talking about co-creating things, codesigning and all of that, but sometimes it seems very abstract. It's like, "Oh, it sounds great, but how does it actually look?" So I'm curious, in your case, how were you able to get the students to buy in, because they're also doing their program and then there's this extra thing that maybe they want to do?

Liz Walker: 19:27

Yep. A big part of it is that we have funding to be able to pay them. So we have positions that they can serve as graduate research assistants, and we do have students who are very interested in higher ed and in education. A lot of our recent work has really been around diversity, equity, and inclusion in our curriculum, in our courses. So a lot of our students are very interested in DEI issues, social justice, health equity, and so that ties in well to our work also. But yes, being able to pay them for their work, I feel is very important, but also gives them the space to be able to dedicate time to this work as well.

Ulemu Luhanga: 20:17

So important. And as you highlighted, I think also the alignment with their interests plays a big role. So yes, yes.

Liz Walker: 20:27

For sure.

Ulemu Luhanga: 20:28

Wonderful, thank you. So recognizing as educators and learners we're always learning and growing, what would you say your biggest growth opportunities are right now?

Liz Walker: 20:42

I think I'm still figuring out how leadership fits me and how I fit into leadership. So I've been the Director of Graduate Studies and the Director of Office of Evidence-based Learning for a year and a half now. So I've learned a lot about how I approach leadership. And I definitely see there is a lot of opportunity for growth to happen there. So it's been a very interesting process and also an area for continuing professional development too.

Ulemu Luhanga: 21:22

Indeed, indeed. And I'm going to throw this out there because always really curious. Based off of your experience to date in those two roles, if somebody was to come to you and go, "What does it mean to be an educational leader?" What would your answer be right now?

Liz Walker: 21:46

That is such a good question.

Ulemu Luhanga: 21:49

I know. I'm like, "Ooh." I mean, this is a good point. So take your time. Take your time. But yeah.

Liz Walker: 21:55

Yeah. I think part of educational leadership involves seeing the broader picture beyond just your classroom. So there's a lot of important leadership that happens in the classroom, but even I think educational leadership is thinking about the program curriculum, how it fits in with the broader school systems, preparing our students to go out. We're a professional school, so we're mostly preparing students to go out to be public health practitioners and professionals, and so ensuring that they're getting what they need. And with Office of Evidence-based Learning, thinking about how the things we're trying out, and working on, and doing in our program can translate to other programs more broadly.

Liz Walker: 22:48

So if I can try to make it a little succinct, educational leadership involves really thinking about all of the people engaged in different parts of education, and thinking of the context and the broader scope of the curriculum.

Ulemu Luhanga: 23:04

I love that because I think as you highlighted, a lot of us who are educators, we zoom into that space that we're in. It's like, "Okay, my course, I do all the things." And then when you have this educational leadership role, you're like, "Oh wait, my course fits into this much larger context and sphere. And how do I navigate that?" So thank you for sharing your-

Liz Walker: 23:29

Yeah, and another thing that I think a lot about is supporting instructors and how to support their professional development journey as teachers. And I have my personal teaching philosophy, but I almost feel like now I get to think about the teaching philosophy of our department. And so what are our values in teaching and education as a department, and how do we show that across instructors? So that's been something that's been really interesting to consider.

Ulemu Luhanga: 24:02

That is awesome. As a fellow educator that geeked me out a little, but we'll focus in. So as you continue to reflect on the different things you've done, what do you say you love most about your work and what you do?

Liz Walker: 24:23

So I love the people, of course, the students, my colleagues, the collaborators. And I also love getting to geek out on teaching and research. It's a melding of both of the things I really love to do. So there's something really satisfying of digging into some good qualitative data about evaluation of a course. And not talking about end of term course evaluations, but doing a study of particular teaching strategy.

Ulemu Luhanga: 25:00

Neat. And then how the students perceive it versus how the instructor perceived it. Because I always think that is always one of the most fascinating things where, "Oh, we're going to do this and they're going to get this." And then you ask them what you got out of it and it's like, oh, disconnect. Hmm."

Liz Walker: 25:21

That's part of the fun of teaching. There's always something new to learn and try out. And it's like, "Okay, this didn't work. Let's try this other thing. Oh, I read about this cool thing. I want to try it. Let's see how it goes."

Ulemu Luhanga: 25:32

Absolutely.

Liz Walker: 25:33

"Students tell me, did you like that, did you not?"

Ulemu Luhanga: 25:37

And, "Why didn't you like it, or you liked it," so I know in the future... where the qualitative comes in. And with you, some of that does excite me. Even though quant was where I came from, getting that richness of why, is just, it's awesome as an educator. So I get it. So overall, reflecting on your experiences to date, what would you say are your passions around education right now?

Liz Walker: 26:12

I have gotten really into different aspects of our MPH program that that impact both faculty and student experience, but aren't necessarily just the courses. So we piloted this past year a guest speaker thank you program where instructors could invite one or two guest speakers to their class from outside the Emory community in order to engage community and diverse voices in the classroom. And the department provided gift cards as thank you for their time and their contributions to the classroom. And so I helped roll that out and did an evaluation of it. So I really nerded out on that report. It was a lot of fun. So things like that.

Liz Walker: 27:16

We are doing some work around faculty mentoring of MPH students. So thinking about, I think really a lot, one of the themes of this conversation and just a lot of my work is in the classroom, in our department, how students and faculty and staff really create community together. So it's like everybody has to contribute to this inclusive learning community. And so how we do that in the classroom, how we do that through mentoring. And those are some of the fun things that I've been working on recently.

Ulemu Luhanga: 27:55

I love that.

Liz Walker: 27:55

They're a little outside of the teaching that I'm... I mean I still love my students, I love my classes, but these other kinds of things have been a little different and quite interesting to think about.

Ulemu Luhanga: 28:05

And I think I appreciate that. As you said, when you're talking about your definition of what does it mean to be an educational leader, is that ability to zoom in and zoom out. So yes, you love what's happening inside your course, but you also are like, what's happening in the larger context that my course sits in. So yeah, I get the geeking out. I get it, I get it. So those were my core questions for you that were education and work related, but I do recognize you are more than your career. So what are some things you do outside of work to help you maintain joy in life and practice?

Liz Walker: 28:50

I love that question so much. Some of the things I do are spending time with my family. So my husband and I have two boys. And they can drive me nuts, but also are absolutely amazing humans, and make me laugh all the time. And it's been wonderful as a teacher to see how they discover and view the world. And I think that's kept joy, and excitement, and energy in my life that I wouldn't have otherwise. So that's one thing that's wonderful.

Liz Walker: 29:28

I need to be outside in nature. I feel like I need to hike every so often. And not huge long hikes, but go for a couple miles and just be in the forest for a little bit. That really helps reset me.

Liz Walker: 29:40

And reading. I love to read. I read all the time, books for pleasure. I remember during my graduate school, I didn't read as many books for fun because you know, just get swamped with everything. But after graduate school I was like, "No, that can never happen again." I always have a book that I'm reading.

Liz Walker: 30:05

And I do yoga, which is another thing that just resets me and gives me joy too. So I think those are the main things.

Ulemu Luhanga: 30:17

Awesome. I'm always curious when people read for fun, what is your genre or genres?

Liz Walker: 30:25

Well, I have always loved fantasy ever since I was a kid. One of the books I recently read was The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi, which was just amazing.

Ulemu Luhanga: 30:39

Okay, okay. I'm always curious. I'm always curious. I love that. I love that. So those were my core questions for you for today, but before I let you go, any last words of wisdom for aspiring educators or education leaders?

Liz Walker: 31:04

I think that sometimes in academia in particular, research can be prioritized over teaching, but there are definitely people around who love teaching, and that is really part of their passion of why they do what they do. And so for me, finding those people has been so important, especially for those days where you're like, "The class didn't work," or, "I didn't have enough time to really give them the feedback I wanted," or whatever. Having your support system of like-minded people who can nerd out about teaching, and share ideas, and just be there has been really important.

Ulemu Luhanga: 31:59

Wonderful.

Liz Walker: 31:59

I guess find your people.

Ulemu Luhanga: 32:00

I think that is a wonderful place to end on, that words of wisdom, find your people. And so we are very thankful we found you for today's episode. Thank you again for your time, Liz.

Liz Walker: 32:11

Thank you.