In a couple of groups this spring, I have been having conversations about what it means to live our values, and how we connect values to actions. I have heard some say that times of stress and crisis really illuminate our core values--and I agree. Although I do not want to give a lot of space to the current intentional chaos happening in the U.S. right now, I do think we are seeing folks’ values in action (and inaction).
Key questions to ponder: how do you live out your values (at work)? What values would someone infer you hold, from observing your actions?
Within PROSPECT S-STEM, we have developed a community I really value and appreciate where we can talk about problems of practice and effective strategies for successfully supporting transfer students, as well as getting to know each other personally and providing support to each other. We came together around more localized partnerships to support transfer students, and now are trying to help share our knowledge and experiences with others. Some of us from PROSPECT S-STEM made some recordings recently to give advice to other Track 3 S-STEM projects. Across a set of short videos, we talk about our lessons learned for navigating S-STEM grant administration involving multiple institutions related to: (1) Pre-planning, (2) It’s in the details, (3) It’s in the relationships, and (4) It’s about recognizing and valuing expertise. As we planned and then created these recordings, I was really struck by how many of the lessons learned (or reinforced/discussed) were around the importance of relationships, and in having robust relationships that are founded on trust and involve multiple people from different groups. PROSPECT S-STEM members talked about having multiple connections between their S-STEM team members and institutional financial aid offices or with advisors.
I see a clear value on relationships in PROSPECT S-STEM, along with making space to hear from all voices, collaborative work, commitment to clear and honest communication, and approaching our project with humility and vulnerability that position us to learn from each other and from our data. With the PROSPECT S-STEM meetings (whole group and various subgroups), one way I see us choosing to live out our value of relationships is to start each meeting by taking time to check in with each other and get to know each other. The “normal” culture of academia does not necessarily make space or time (much less encourage) professional relationships, particularly across departments or institutions.
Some of us have been analyzing PROSPECT S-STEM interview data to uncover the hidden work entailed in establishing, nurturing, and sustaining partnerships across institutions of higher education to support STEM transfer students. We are seeing that too many of us are not getting credit for these relationships, and do not have a way to have our institutions value the time spent on nurturing relationships that help support transfer students. How can we challenge this and get our institutions to value the time investment in nurturing relationships?
I have also been pondering how our personal values complement or are in tension with each other and connect to create the PROSPECT S-STEM collective values. There are many ways people reflect on their values. If you are interested, I invite you to use this tool from the Adaway Group (https://adawaygroup.com/) that is a set of prompts to help reflect on personal values. We have created a set of Google slides just for PROSPECT S-STEM that have the instructions and then a slide per person to explore values.
Some of my core values are being in community with each other, embracing learning, following through with commitments, and expressing creativity and joy. In the face of all the events in 2025, I am trying to choose hope each day (sometimes, for each moment) to hold to my value of joy. The discipline and practice of radical hope is one way to counter external forces of chaos. Jesse Jackson has said that hope plus imagination are our weapons of survival and progress (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csZ7hKz5xww). Hope is not just blind optimism, but instead is about choosing to hold on to our values and take actions to improve situations. Although we don’t have power alone to change the world, our collective voices are louder than the sum of our individual voices. Intentionally being in community with each other is another way to counter the divisiveness we are experiencing in the world.
I look forward to exploring together with all of you: how are we connecting with each other? How can we support each other? How do we choose hope in each moment? How do we change our world?
Authored by Wendy Smith, Project Director of the PROSPECT grant; Professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.