It has taken Pat Hodges nearly 20 years of service as a University employee to become a jack-of-all-trades.
And although she claims to be a master of none, Hodges, executive assistant to the dean of the School of Art & Design (A&D), has mastered the art of flexibility during a career that has led her down several paths.
Beginning with the University in 1987 as a secretary for the School of Pharmacy, Hodges did just about everything, from answering the phone and running errands, to typing faculty papers and making lots of coffee, she says. Following that, she worked for more than a decade with the U-M library system, devoting 15 years first as the assistant to the head of the Graduate Library, and then with the Digital Library Program and Library Administration.
In the early days of her library tenure, Hodges says, the information environment was evolving rapidly and she had to be willing and able to change and shift. With new initiatives always on the horizon, she had to pick up new skills and fill in wherever an extra pair of hands was needed.
In July 2004, Hodges came to A&D, garnering more wisdom to add to her diverse University job experience. She serves as a member of the school’s management team, assists the dean with a variety of projects and tasks, and oversees A&D human resources activities. She interacts with just about every art and design faculty and staff member in some capacity, as well as individuals across campus.
“Working with a variety of people is a plus—your job can be very isolated often times,” she says. “You get more of a global perspective on how the University operates, and it also helps you to build a network of relationships with all types of people throughout campus. This really gives you insight into your own work.”
Hodges’s flexibility has been a vital cog in the University machinery. On the ground floor of the Digital Library Program—a University library effort to develop and expand campus access to electronic information resources—Hodges juggled several duties, including drafting contracts, negotiating with vendors, overseeing publicity for the program and hiring staff.
When international visitors from foreign universities came to witness U-M’s new digital library project, Hodges was excited to see the fruits of her labor.
“It gave me tremendous perspective to work with the international visitors,” she says. “You see people come in with fresh eyes, and it is so gratifying to witness people enjoy what you are doing and for them to think that it is interesting.”
Less than a year shy of her 20th anniversary at U-M, Hodges has as much maize and blue running through her blood as most faculty, staff and students. “I am a very loyal employee; I can’t imagine a better employer,” she says. “This is a very fine place to work. I guess I see myself as a ‘lifer’ at the University.
“I have had good supervisors, good mentors and colleagues,” she says.
And through it all, she has embraced the mission of the University—something that she has grown to care deeply about.
“We are very much about training future leaders,” she says. “We as employees are about doing the work of the University. After asking ourselves, ‘What do our students need,’ we then ask, ‘How can we make that happen?'”
