Getting to know Chief of Staff Derrick Tillman-Kelly
Our next featured College of Engineering leader in the “Getting to Know” series is Chief of Staff Derrick L. Tillman-Kelly, who serves as principal advisor to Dean Ayanna Howard.
An experienced higher education researcher, administrator and project manager, Tillman-Kelly previously served as director of the Fellows Program and Network Engagement for the University Innovation Alliance (UIA). In this role, he worked with member universities to support institutional transformation with the goal of eliminating race/ethnicity, first-generation status, and socioeconomic status as predictors of student success and completion.
As chief of staff, he will help shape the strategic direction of the college by exploring, identifying, and evaluating comprehensive information and data to provide guidance, advice and assistance on a range of issues.
College of Engineering: First, what excites you most about your role as chief of staff and the work that you're doing?
Derrick Tillman-Kelly: I think there are two things really. One is about supporting a leader like Dean Howard—helping to make her time more efficient and effective in ways that allow her to be more accessible to the college, while doing more of the things that we have asked of her. I think the other is being everybody's partner, and I mean that in the realest of ways. For instance, on any given day I'm talking to all members of executive committee, or the frontline staff member that’s helping them think about how what they want to do—or think we need to do—fit into the strategy of the college.
CoE: What do you see as the greatest challenge, and then on the flip side, the greatest opportunity?
Tillman-Kelly: From a challenge perspective, we are a college of Ohio State—a really large institution—but in some ways, we are also as large and complex as a really large university in our own right. Making sure that we're all doing the things that move us in the same direction, rather than competing directions, in ways that still allow all members of the community to feel as if their work is valuable and enhancing our goals is really important. From an opportunity standpoint, we know what society is asking of us right now. We need to be the producers of thoughtful, diverse, intentionally inclusive architects, engineers and planners in ways that allow us to really reimagine the way we do the work.
CoE: What's the most impactful job that you've had?
Tillman-Kelly: When I think about the work that I get to do, the job has varied, but the function has been the same. I work with organizations or individuals that are having a challenging time and help them reimagine solutions, so whether that is my last role at the University Innovation Alliance, where I was helping the universities think that way, or a friend in my everyday life where I’m sort of their go-to “coach.” I have figured out how to absorb lots of information and make sense of it fairly quickly.
CoE: Is there an accomplishment or an accolade you're most proud of?
Tillman-Kelly: I have a niece who went to my undergraduate alma mater and it was not on her radar when she was looking at colleges. Her attending my alma mater sort of extended the way that I thought about the institution because I’m pretty involved as president-elect of the alumni association, but I could see it differently when my niece was a student there versus just being an alum. Her parents had not gone to college, so her ability to navigate that space as a semi-first generation student and go on and fit into her career is a pretty proud accomplishment on my end because I'm her coach.
CoE: You earned your doctorate at Ohio State, and obviously you're employed by Ohio State. What do you like most about being a Buckeye?
Tillman-Kelly: One is the size of Ohio State—the size of the institution, the alumni network, the impact we have on the marketplace, whether we're thinking about sports or research and innovation. We are unique in the way that we are constituted and ultimately the ways in which we influence society differently than some of the other institutions I’ve been a part of. The other part is the way that we have intentionally grounded ourselves in the diversity of our membership. We are not all from Columbus, we're not all from Ohio, we're not all from urban centers or rural spaces, and we are explicit about the fact that we all come from very different walks of life, and that is what makes us better. Bringing the two of them together is what is particularly special to me, because we can be both big and attentive to the individual, the diversity of the folks who comprise the institution.
CoE: Do you have a favorite mentor?
Tillman-Kelly: Dannée Cunningham, who is chair of my church’s board of trustees. When I joined the board in 2019, she was intentional about guiding me—and all the new board members—through the processes of our work and empowering us to ask questions, and encouraged us to not rush to decisions for the sake of efficiency. I think her mentorship shifted though, when I agreed to chair the board of a local non-profit that was getting started in 2020. As I started on that journey with the founder, Dannée made extra time to check in, share how she manages the relationship with other board members and the company’s executive leader, who is our pastor in her case. These “extra” conversations helped me thoughtfully navigate the startup of a non-profit in the early days of COVID. Her attention to my fears, concerns about what I wouldn’t get right, and her reassurance of my ability to competently serve as chair are still helping me today.
CoE: What about favorite hobbies or interests outside of work?
Tillman-Kelly: There’s three. One, I love to bake—cupcakes, brownies, cheesecake. Two is I like to paint as long as you don't give me an assignment, so pretty free-form, abstract sort of painting. And then three I tend to sing a lot. Some of it is formal, like choir for church, but I’m always singing.
CoE: Anything else you’d like to share?
Tillman-Kelly: I had never thought about joining the College of Engineering because from my perspective, it was a very specific kind of space and place. When the opportunity came for the role of Chief of Staff, I could see the college in a slightly different way. I appreciated its complexity in ways that are really exciting. When I thought about engineering, I thought about students taking math classes and solving some sort of structural problem. I had not thought about it from the sense of engineers, architects and planners all being in the same space and that they are structuring society and people’s interface with it, and I didn't think about the other affiliated components of the college, like the fact that there's an airport or a nuclear reactor or any of our research centers. I'm really excited about the exploration of the college, not just how can I help shape where the college is going, but also exploring ways that will allow us to be better stewards and servants of the broader state and country.
by Meggie Biss, College of Engineering Communications | biss.11@osu.edu
