Some summary observations here and in the next several blog posts, but before diving into them, I have to tell you how much I appreciate and am inspired by your willingness to speak openly to me on any topic, however challenging or difficult. It is so important for me to hear from you.
Your insights, your voice – they ground me in the work, and shape my thinking and leadership. It is an honor to be trusted with them, whether you tell me in person, at chancellor@passhe.edu, or, increasingly I hope, as part of a more public and inclusive ongoing conversation.
So thank you
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1. We are fully committed to our students and constantly asking whether we are doing enough for them.
At every university, I met with faculty and staff in groups ranging in size from 10 to more than 30 people. And at every one of those meetings, our students were front and center in our conversation.
Students today are so different from students even five years ago. Their needs are different: the pressures they face, the anxieties they feel, the way they engage with us, the way they engage with one another, the way they learn and engage with information. Our passion for our students and their success, our concern that we do right by them, our drive do our best and help them navigate their challenges, build on their strengths, and prepare for a rapidly changing world is a primary motivation under everything we do.
It is also at the heart of a second theme I encountered everywhere…
2. We are wide open to change.
I was inspired at every university in virtually every discussion by our willingness to explore new ways of doing things in every aspect of our work: from the way we look after our facilities to how we engage with students and support them in residence halls, on sports fields, in dining centers, and, of course, in their teaching and learning.
This openness to change showed up in the results of a survey I conducted at every university – a survey intended to get at our readiness, willingness, and ability to change.
Our openness to change emerged so frequently in conversation that I started asking you to explain why. Responses touched on several things: the severity of our various challenges, intellectual curiosity, but above all, concern for our students.
And these weren’t general conversations about change. They were specific and focused on areas where we need to improve our practice and where we are already applying ourselves. This is one thing I value most about our culture… we never spend too long “admiring the problem”, preferring instead to jump right to “solutioning.” Hallelujah!
Hot topics? They won’t surprise you. Counselling, academic and career advising, financial aid packaging, supplemental instruction, the use of high-impact instructional practices, our students’ first year experience, credit transfer, online instruction.
Here’s good news -- as we discussed these topics, we recognized together that they are not only hot across our system but across all of US higher education. We pointed in each of these areas to emerging, evidence-based industry good practices and to examples of them at universities across the country and inside this system.
The question is no longer what to do to improve our students’ success, but how to do it here.
3. We are resilient.
I encountered anxieties about the future, about the challenges our university and system face, and about the impacts those challenges could have on us personally. These anxieties are real and we need to acknowledge and be willing to speak openly about them.
I am honored so many of you were willing to share your concerns with me. Those were courageous moments for which I want to say, “Thank you.”
A few observations follow:
Our challenges are significant. But I am confident we will address them, not all at once, not always easily, but address them we will by working together in the months and years ahead. Our universities have evolved several times in their proud and long histories. They will continue to evolve.
The second has to do with our culture. Our universities are like families -- their members share a common identity and culture. That culture is a huge asset but only if we nurture it.
At every stop on my tour, conversation veered into how, operating under financial constraint, people sometimes act outside their values: husbanding scarce resources, hoarding information, and focusing on advancing their unit or their university over others. These threaten collaborative approaches that contribute so much to our students’ experience and our universities’ collective success.
I was grateful for the opportunity to discuss these issues with you. I was inspired by your commitment, despite uncertainty, to act inside our values and with integrity, and to hold ourselves and one another accountable for showing respect to one another, assuming that each one of us is acting with the best of intent, offering trust to one another, working together in the interest of our students and our collective success.
We will get through these challenging times. And I will be transparent, open and honest with you now and forever about where we are and where we are headed – at every step along the way.
4. We want transformation now.
This theme was pervasive. You asked, in effect, what can we do now? And you supplied the answer, reflecting on initiatives already underway. I recorded these as best I could and organized them into a taxonomy of practical actions that can be taken at the individual level (by each and every one of us), at the unit or department level, at the cross-department level within your university, and at the system level (across universities).
Illustrative examples are drawn from material that you supplied in discussion –initiative that you reported to me.
At the individual level:
• Engage a student who is struggling. We know who they are. We can identify them. So many of us do. It means so much, as demonstrated in powerful stories you told me – stories from faculty and professional staff, and also from colleagues in facilities, registrar’s offices, administrative and security roles. Student retention is key to our success. All of us have a role to play in improving it – after all we are family.
• Holding ourselves and also others accountable for acting inside our values. Hard to do because it requires us to engage courageous conversations with civility. It also requires us to give feedback to others (with compassion) and to seek and accept it from others (with humility). And here, we are so active. I collected so many examples of people going out of their way to nurture our culture, strengthen our family, in countless almost unnoticeable but profoundly important acts of kindness and care.
At the unit level:
• Discussing, agreeing, and working on specific behaviors that a unit wants to strengthen with a view to improving its culture. A unit manager working on being an effective unit manager, for example by giving feedback – give feedback with empathy, receive it with humility – or by supporting on colleagues’ professional development.
• Working within a department to improve performance with respect of student success. I recall a department chair creating a platform for colleagues to learn from one another about high impact teaching practices that improve success of students that they teach.
• Introducing an even higher standard of professional practice aimed at improving quality or efficiency (a procurement professional reporting a higher level of diligence in vendor review).
At the cross unit level:
• Addressing specific, well-known challenges. Lots of activity here, sometimes formally organized by the university, but as often organically grown. From my list: improving the first year experience, “writing across the curriculum,” identifying strategies for helping our veterans navigate their unique challenges, taking a whole-student, cross-silo approach to student advising, working campus wide and with alumni to align messaging in ways intended to counter negative narratives about the value of higher education and/or the future of the university.
At cross university level:
• Again organized formally (librarians, career services, leaders of online initiatives) and informally (criminal justice faculty looking at shared programming opportunities) to share information, build professional practice and learn from one another, drive shared services, purchasing, and program.
Finally, as you know, I am convinced the most significant task ahead of us involves us strengthening our culture. Why? Because unless we learn how to work together with joy and compassion and integrity and respect, we will not have the positive impact we want for the students and the communities we serve. As I said in my open forum remarks: “Organizations aren’t great places to work because they are high performing. They are high performing because they are great places work”.
On countless occasions you asked about the work that guides my thinking in this area. Here is a selected sample of some of my faves. If you need a starting point – go directly to Brown’s Dare to Lead and Grant’s Power Moves.
Brené Brown
• Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts
• Daring Greatly: How the Courage to be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead
Daniel Coyle
• The Culture Code: The Secret of Highly Successful Groups
Jeanie Daniel Duck
• The Change Monster: The Human Factors That Fuel or Foil Corporate Transformation and Change
Adam Grant
• Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World
• Power Moves: Lessons from Davos
Dan and Chip Heath
• Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard
Bryce G Hoffman
• American Icon: Allan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company
Kim Scott
• Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity
