Writing Your Own Job Description with Dr. Emily Langdon
Not every guest arrives with a polished elevator pitch. Some arrive with a story, a sense of humor, a California accent, and a very clear sense of what they believe in. Dr. Emily Langdon, assistant professor at the University of Minnesota Duluth and partner of UMD Chancellor Charles Langdon, is that kind of guest. In this episode, she joins Mariah and Monique for a conversation that moves from her unexpected path to Duluth to her deep conviction that leadership is not a personality trait you are born with. It is something that can and should be taught, practiced, and claimed, especially by women.
Episode Highlights
How a California Girl Ended Up Putting Down Roots in Duluth
What It Means to Be the Partner of a University Chancellor
Why Leadership Should Be Taught, Not Just Modeled
The Co-Curricular Experience and Why It Matters More Than the Major
What Women in Leadership Rooms Already Know
The Book Emily Recommends and Where to Learn More
How a California Girl Ended Up Putting Down Roots in Duluth
Emily grew up in Northern California, earned her undergraduate degree at UC Davis and her PhD at UCLA, and spent years working in higher education in California and Ohio before landing in Duluth. The move was not entirely a surprise: her husband Charles is a Minnesotan, and she had been quietly watching for the right opportunity to bring him home for years. When a chancellor position opened at UMD, she was the one who spotted it, drafted thoughts for the cover letter, and, by her own cheerful admission, checked the deadline when he thought he had missed it. What she did not anticipate was arriving in a new city with no formal job description of her own, having left a student affairs career in California to support a role the university did not have a clear template for.
What It Means to Be the Partner of a University Chancellor
Emily speaks candidly about the unusual position she occupies at UMD: deeply connected to the institution through her husband's role, yet navigating that connection with constant awareness of how it might be perceived. She disclosed her relationship to colleagues proactively and early, not wanting anyone to feel surprised or manipulated. She also draws a gentle parallel to the first ladies of the United States, noting that being adjacent to a decision-maker does not have to mean being sidelined. It can mean carving out meaningful, independent work in an area you genuinely care about. For Emily, that area is leadership, and she has been finding her way into conversations, classrooms, student organizations, and community events to do exactly that.
Why Leadership Should Be Taught, Not Just Modeled
One of the most substantive threads in this episode is Emily's argument that leadership is a learnable skill, not an inherited trait, and that universities are one of the best places to develop it. She uses a biology lab metaphor that lands cleanly: reading the textbook gives you intellectual knowledge, and dissecting the frog gives you real-world experience, but you need both to truly understand what you are looking at. Leadership works the same way. Gaining knowledge about what good leadership looks like, then actually practicing it in clubs, sports teams, student organizations, and collaborative projects, is what builds the kind of grounded confidence that holds up in the real world. Her concern is that too many students move through college without anyone deliberately teaching them this, even though virtually every university mission statement includes something about developing future leaders.
The Role of Mentorship and Community in Getting Through the Fire
Becky is emphatic that healing of this depth is not something anyone does alone, and her own experience makes the case plainly. Her 12-step sponsor, a meditation and yoga teacher named Holly, introduced her to a frequency of healing she had not known existed, and Becky credits that relationship as foundational to everything that followed. She describes healing as something you absorb by proximity, a collective and tribal process where being in the presence of someone who has already walked through the fire levels you up in a way no amount of personal research or self-reflection can replicate. The mentorship model she experienced is now at the center of how she works with her own clients and students.
The Co-Curricular Experience and Why It Matters More Than the Major
Emily makes a strong case for what higher education calls the co-curriculum: everything that happens outside the classroom. The marketing club where students run a real project. The sorority that, when led well, is actually a women's leadership organization. The percussion ensemble where sub-teams have to coordinate without a faculty member directing every beat. These are the spaces, she says, where students are cutting up the frogs, learning collaboration, accountability, and how to get things done in a group when the stakes are real but the consequences of failure are still manageable. She sees this as the particular gift of college that cannot be replicated anywhere else, and it is part of why she and her husband are investing in their twin daughters' university experiences without hesitation.
What Women in Leadership Rooms Already Know
Some of the most energizing moments in this episode come when Emily talks about women and leadership in the same breath. She describes looking around boardroom tables and committee rooms and immediately clocking which women are going to be the ones who actually move things forward, regardless of their title. She talks about the vice president who is clearly running the meeting while someone else holds the formal authority. And she names something that resonates: when you have been taught what good leadership actually looks like, you cannot be fooled by bad leadership dressed up as confidence. That knowledge is its own form of protection and power.
The Book Emily Recommends and Where to Learn More
When asked for a leadership resource, Emily points to the work of Amy Edmondson, a researcher and author whose latest book explores the value of making mistakes and learning from them rather than treating failure as evidence of inadequacy. The core idea: there is a right way to be wrong, and it involves treating every misstep as data, adjusting, and moving forward rather than getting stuck in self-blame. Emily notes this is particularly resonant for women, who she observes tend to be harder on themselves than the situation warrants. You can find Dr. Emily Langdon through the University of Minnesota Duluth, and Mariah and Monique are already planning to have her back on the podcast for round two.
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