Five Questions With: Dr. Wanda Costen, Provost and Vice President Academic, Dalhousie University

Dr. Wanda Costen is an accomplished academic leader and a champion of inclusive excellence in business and academia.  

Before joining Dalhousie University as Provost and Vice President Academic, she served as dean of the Smith School of Business at Queen’s University and the School of Business at MacEwan University. With academic appointments at Northern Arizona University and the University of Tennessee, Dr. Costen has developed a legacy of fostering collaboration and advancing diversity in higher education. 

A former Fulbright Scholar, Dr. Costen’s research spans managing diversity, addressing racial and gender inequality, women in leadership, and strategic human resources. She is dedicated to reimagining business education to meet the evolving needs of organizations while preparing emerging leaders for success. Her leadership style, rooted in collaboration and inclusion, drives her commitment to shaping equitable and transformative educational systems. 

Dr. Costen holds a PhD in Sociology from Washington State University, an Executive MBA from Pepperdine University, and a Bachelor of Science from the United States Military Academy. Her extensive private and public sector experience in sales, operations, and human resources complements her academic achievements. She also serves on the EQUIS advisory committee for the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD).

With your extensive experience in both academia and the private sector, how do you approach building bridges between the two? What opportunities do you see for universities to better align with the needs of organizations and society? 

From my perspective, at their core, universities provide opportunities for people to have experiences that prepare them to contribute to society, most especially to develop a worldview that gives them the foundation they need to be civic-minded. My fundamental belief is that businesses have an obligation to help address the issues in their communities by investing both human and financial capital to ensure these communities are sustainable. My professional and academic experiences provide me the opportunity to bring academia and the private sector together to see the synergies in the roles we play in addressing critical societal challenges.

I believe it’s essential for academic, business, and government leaders to collaborate, not just business and universities. Each of these sectors has a vested interest in solving societal challenges, but the value added is the unique perspective and frameworks each sector brings to these matters. An integrated approach with shared investment enhances the likelihood of success, and increases the robustness of the solutions. This type of partnership adds value to each sector and the communities in which we live. 

You’ve emphasized the importance of connecting with people to truly understand a community. How has this approach shaped your leadership style, and how do you use these connections to drive meaningful progress? 

As a leader, I think it’s critical to understand what’s important to the people in our organizations and the people we serve. If leaders don’t have deep knowledge of what’s important, what their dreams are and what worries them, we can’t develop meaningful strategic priorities with supporting goals and objectives that align our organizations to those desired outcomes. Fundamentally, I believe it begins with fully comprehending the purpose of our organization through the lenses of its people.

In my past leadership roles (both academic and professional), intentionally engaging with staff has helped me learn the depth of the commitment people have to the organization, and what they believe is its role. Additionally, it has helped me understand how staff members view their roles within the organization, and what challenges they confront while trying to fulfill those roles.  

These discussions provide insight into which processes, procedures, and practices aren’t working well, and the degree to which there is alignment in what the overall purpose of the organization is. The fundamental work of organizational leaders is uniting staff on a common purpose and then working together, across the organization, to identify the strategic priorities that will guide the organization in fulfilling its purpose. From my perspective, this requires a consensus-building approach followed by coaching leaders of functional areas to ensure they have the skills and competencies to facilitate discussions within the unit about how they support the organization’s strategic priorities and the key performance indicators/metrics to measure the unit’s (and ultimately the organization’s) success. 

My practice has been not to do a “listening tour,” but to ask lots of questions of a wide array of people to gather information and data, and then test my assumptions and conclusions for accuracy. Once I have a good understanding of the current state, we can then prioritize the practices, processes, and procedures that impede our ability to deliver on our purpose; while simultaneously turning our focus to what strategic priorities we need to have to propel the organization toward its overall purpose. My goal is to ensure it is widely evident, both internally and externally, that we are living fully into who we say we are.  

Higher education is at a crossroads, facing rapid technological advancements and shifting societal demands. How do you envision universities evolving to remain relevant, inclusive, and impactful in the decades to come? 

Indeed, higher education is being challenged from a variety of angles. It is essential that universities in particular provide innovative and academically-challenging programs that help people develop the critical thinking skills (i.e., the ability to challenge and analyze information), thought processes, and frameworks that allow them to pursue their career goals, while being mindful civic actors.

The foundation of innovative academic programs is ground-breaking research. We must be able to attract and retain world-leading researchers, and inspire the next generation of scholars. Focusing on research that is both inclusive and impactful advances new knowledge that informs the problem-solving needed to address societal challenges. Universities must do a better job of demonstrating how our research can be leveraged to support government initiatives, positively influence the work of the non-for-profit sector, and help industry be more productive. We are an integral component of economic development for the entire country.  

Finally, it’s vital that universities create pathways for a wide array of people to learn, and facilitate access to financial resources so that one’s socioeconomic status doesn’t limit access to post-secondary education.

Universities are at the forefront of addressing complex global challenges. How do you see Dalhousie’s role in preparing students not just for careers, but for creating meaningful impact in an ever-changing world?

Dalhousie University is intentionally focused on being an inclusive civic academic institution. We have a deep connection to Atlantic Canada and to community, especially the Mi’kmaq and African Nova Scotian communities. We fully recognize the role we play in advancing Nova Scotia, Atlantic Canada, and the entire country.

Our varied academic programs signal to future students of all ages, backgrounds, and experiences that whatever their passion and however they decide they want to contribute to society, they can develop those competencies here. We provide co-curricular, extracurricular, experiential and work integrated opportunities for students to develop their whole selves.  

Our students learn from faculty engaged in meaningful and impactful research that is addressing some of the world’s most challenging issues. This means our students get the opportunity to explore current issues (e.g., quality water, international relations, economic impact of tariffs, Indigenous mental health, sustainable agribusiness, and more) across a wide array of disciplines. A multidisciplinary approach provides students with a broad perspective, which is critical for tackling complex issues.

You’ve spoken about the importance of transparency and showing all sides of yourself as a leader. What does being an “authentic leader” mean to you? How do you think authenticity in leadership fosters trust and drives progress within an academic community? 

For me, authenticity means being one’s true self; the willingness to show all of who really one is. It means bringing all of oneself into spaces, especially the workplace. As a young Lieutenant and later entry-level manager, I was advised to keep a distance from my soldiers and direct reports, to remain stoic. Unfortunately, I’m a person who feels things deeply, and someone who genuinely cares about others. Keeping those emotions bottled up and acting like a robot simply meant people didn’t understand my actions, decisions, or thought processes.

As I was taking on my first regional manager role, I was given keen advice from a dear friend: bring all of me to work, show who I really was. That sage advice was a game changer for me. Opening up and showing my deep concern for others and my passion for service, while also expressing my high need for honesty, integrity, and accountability, helped me become a leader people could count on. Supervisors, colleagues and direct reports learned how to engage with me and could predict my responses due to my consistent behavior. They knew my principles and values.

To be clear: it took, and still takes, a tremendous amount of courage to be transparent and authentic, to show one’s humanity. We are often encouraged to shape-shift or change who we are to fit into a particular culture. I’ve found that I can only perform at my best and be most effective when I’m fully being me. Since that day, I strive to bring all of me to work: the good, the bad, and even the ugly. I’m not always my best self, but I’m human. It helps me to realize that on some days, others aren’t their best selves either.

We develop trust over time. One aspect of trust is learning about others and what is important to them — understanding their life experiences and how they move through the world. I believe it’s hard to build trust if one isn’t authentic, if one doesn’t ever show who they really are. When we are authentic and even vulnerable, we let others in. We allow others to see our passion, desires for the future and even our fears. It helps us lead with a level of integrity that is unparalleled and often lacking in people who are in leadership roles. At this particular moment in time in post-secondary education, it’s critical we lead with authenticity and integrity, focused on our core values and the importance of educating people who care deeply about their civic responsibilities.