Tech Dean Mike Gotcher set to step down from his post at the College of Emerging and Integrated Studies next month.
The lifelong college professor said he has not kept a countdown of his remaining time until retirement. Gotcher said he wants to remain focused on finishing the job.
“I am excited, but I think there’s a bit of melancholy here,” Gotcher said. “I have been doing this for over 40 years. I’ve been involved in higher education. And it’s a large part of my life. I mean, I’m 68, or I’ll be 68 in August, and 41 years of that, that’s something to think about.”
Gotcher said his path into the profession began at Austin Peay where he participated on the debate team. Gotcher said a mentor encouraged him to pursue graduate school at the University of Florida, which eventually led to his first teaching position at the University of Miami.
“I loved interacting with others, learning new ideas, sharing experiences, teaching new subjects, and it was like, ‘Hey, I do love this job,’” Gotcher said. “And from then on, I stayed in higher ed.”
Gotcher spent three decades teaching at Austin Peay State University before joining Tech in 2017. Gotcher said his motivation for moving into administration was rooted in a desire to be a leader who looked for ways to support the initiatives of others.
“I wanted to become a dean because I wanted to make a difference,” Gotcher said. “I had had so many deans that when you went to ask them for something, they automatically responded with ‘no.’ And I wanted to try to be a different dean. I wanted to be one that I could have the opportunity to say yes.”
Gotcher said his late wife also worked in higher education, allowing the couple to share their professional and personal lives for 42 years. Gotcher said he hopes his tenure as a dean resulted in a positive impact on the students and faculty he served.
“I will miss that,” Gotcher said. “That is the part of the job I will miss. I will miss interacting with others. I will miss being in there making a decision that has the potential to do good.”
Gotcher said his decision to retire is driven by a desire to spend time with his young grandchildren and travel the world while he is still in good health.
“I reflect back on other colleagues that I’ve known that had the opportunity to retire and then waited too long,” Gotcher said. “And when they did retire, they weren’t able to do anything because of physical constraints. And I wanted to try to not let that happen to me.”
Gotcher said the landscape of higher education has shifted significantly since he was a student, moving from handwritten exams in blue books to online testing and digital platforms. And now with the emergence of AI, Gotcher said the education environment looks vastly different from the one he grew up in.
Gotcher said he taught his first online course in 2001 and later learned HTML coding to ensure his students remained competitive in the job market.
“Don’t be afraid of change would be the first thing I would say,” Gotcher said. “I realized that I was never afraid to change. I was never afraid to learn something new. I was never afraid to expand how I saw the world.”