Hope everyone is taking time to find joy this fall; I recently got to see aurora borealis in Nebraska, which was awe-inspiring.
In one of the spring newsletters, I wrote about living our values. This fall, I’ve been experiencing of feelings of disconnect as I simultaneously have been engaging in an online professional learning series “Together at Work” from the Adaway Group, while my university system has been announcing budget cuts that include cutting the departments of statistics, earth and atmospheric sciences, and education administration (among others). The Together at Work series has focused on “Leading with Purpose in Times of Change,” and how leaders can and should help institutions make decisions aligned with their values.
One leadership responsibility is helping an institution to set priorities; for instance, many of our institutions are prioritizing improving student retention and graduation rates. One leadership fallacy is trying to have too many priorities, which result in too-scattered of a focus; when everything is a priority, really nothing is a priority. Values can (and should) help us to determine priorities. The Adaway Group offered a values alignment (VA)/mission impact (MI) decision matrix, to show how decisions might be impacted by a particular strategy aligning with values (or not), and aligned with the institutional mission/priorities (or not).
As a wise person said during a PROSPECT site visit interview, “budgets are ethical statements of values.” At the University of Nebraska, we are in a multi-year period of ever-increasing budget cuts. This fall, the cuts (to be finalized) were based on flawed metrics (flawed in every way: inappropriate metrics for some depts, errors in datasets, incorrect applications of statistics, and incorrect interpretations of results). Even presented with compelling evidence about the deeply flawed metrics and flat out wrong interpretation of data informing the budget cuts, the chancellor has stuck with his plans for cuts.
One of the things I love about our PROSPECT project is how we have a clear set of values that we do consistently live into. Some of the PIs met with a few of our advisory board members recently, and shared this information with them about PROSPECT guiding principles & values:
- Prioritize joy and see each other as whole humans
- Balance research & propagation efforts with researcher capacity
- Align PROSPECT members’ career trajectory needs with PROSPECT opportunities/activities
- Value diverse propagation activities: Tools, poems, blog posts, videos, journal articles, etc.
- Engage PROSPECT members in new/relaunched propagation efforts (proto-proposal process)
- Revisit and reflect on PROSPECT goals & priorities each semester
I look at what we are doing (and have been doing), and am glad to see how we have connected as humans, how we have clear and transparent communication, and how we have aligned our priorities with the needs of our members.
This past fall, the overwhelming interest has been to focus on different types of propagation efforts during our whole group meeting times. As we wrap up this semester, I invite you to reflect on how that has felt and how it has gone. We have 2026 and the first quarter of 2027 of PROSPECT funding, and we want to prioritize what you want to do and where you want to go. During our January whole group meetings, we’ll take a little time to discuss this, but you can start reflecting now:
1) How do you hope to spend whole group meeting time during spring 2026?
2) Would you like to be part of a site visit to another PROSPECT S-STEM project? A non-PROSPECT S-STEM project (that also involves transfer students)?
3) What new priorities or goals would you like us to consider as a team?
4) What supports do you need from PROSPECT?
I hope you all have terrific ends of the fall term, and take time to prioritize rest and rejuvenation during winter break.