In 1978, Wilsie Bishop moved to Kingsport with her husband, who had gotten a job in hospital administration. Bishop needed a job, so she asked if ETSU’s College of Nursing, then called the department of nursing, needed an instructor.
“I walked in and I said, ‘Do you need any nursing faculty?’” said Bishop. “I had just completed my master’s degree.”
They did, in fact, need an instructor to teach a maternity class. Bishop was hired as a temporary faculty member. The next year, Bishop taught a different course, this time in pediatrics. The year after that, the nursing department needed a chair, so Bishop became the interim department chair.
“And that’s when I went on a tenure track, at that point,” said Bishop. “So, I could no longer be temporary and be department chair.”
After two years of serving as temporary chair, the faculty pushed to have Bishop serve as the permanent chair. Unfortunately, Bishop was told she could not serve as chair because she did not have a doctorate, which the position required.
“Although that was a hard answer for me to receive at the time, it was the best thing in the world that could have happened to me,” said Bishop.
Bishop stepped down as chair, returning to a faculty position, and she pursued her doctorate while continuing to work full-time. During that time, Bishop became an assistant to the Vice President.
“That’s really what moved me over to administration,” said Bishop. “And I knew I liked administration very much.”
Gradually, over several decades of saying yes to positions and tackling challenges and road blocks as they arose, Bishop became ETSU’s Senior Vice President for Academics and Interim Provost in May 2019.
Now, Bishop has announced she will retire on June 30, 2021, and she has some advice for ETSU students.
“Careers are not always linear,” said Bishop. “They don’t always go in straight lines. So, don’t become disappointed if things don’t seem to be working out the way you think they are. Actually, if you say yes to opportunities, sometimes you’ll think you’re taking a right turn when you wanted to go straight, but you’ll get back around to the pathway, or you’ll get on a better pathway than what you had originally planned.”
Bishop also encourages students to say yes to opportunities and take risks.
“Be confident in yourself and say yes,” said Bishop.
Finally, Bishop said to never stop learning.
“Even when you’re retiring, there’s never a point in your life that you can stop learning,” Bishop said with a chuckle.
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