Dean's Blog: Fostering an engaged science community
Over the past week, within our busy schedules, many of us carved out time to welcome George Mason's new provost, Jim Antony to share his vision for the university and our college, and our roles in helping attain it.
Along with exploring our research efforts, operational challenges, and opportunities, Antony offered remarks centering around a few themes: expanding our ways of thinking and doing to set a course to the next aspirational levels. (For example, our narrative shouldn’t center on how to keep R1 status. Instead, we should boldly set a course for AAU levels of achievement); empowering leadership and the entire science workforce to perform creatively and collaboratively at a high level; and making sure we don’t lose our professional souls and focus. We should place a priority and value on what is, and should always be, the core of our mission, the impactful teaching and learning experiences and research opportunities we deliver for our students.
Thank you to all who engaged in the visit, attended the gatherings, or participated in his brief yet impactful Fairfax campus walking tour. Provost Antony visited biology and chemistry and biochemistry teaching labs, our greenhouses, and a few shared instrumentation laboratories prior to the open Q&A.
In this spirited session, we discussed the ever-present workload and budget challenges. Among many ideas, Provost Antony suggested we consider how we approach grant writing to include funding requests for GRA and research staff support. When discussing teaching loads, he shared a story that may have given folks in the room some pause; a former Ivy League colleague who, after winning the Nobel Prize in Economics, felt strongly one of his greatest contributions to his department’s work was teaching the university’s Intro to Economics class. Despite his research success, his colleague wasn’t seeking to cease teaching that course. He would not give that teaching assignment up despite the level of success he had achieved. This is the very value of varied perspectives.
Another Q&A discussion point centered on the university’s recent Gallup survey results shared in an open townhall within the past month. It dealt with leadership engagement and the impact less engaged or disengaged leadership can have in our workplace. I was glad to see our department, center, and administrative leadership and many staff and faculty fully engaged in the day’s activities to hear these important questions and messages to chart our future. And I promise you my commitment to active engagement is strong.
I’m offering a variety of ways we can engage, discuss, and bring forward solutions to these issues in more detail. We have the monthly faculty meetings, your own department meetings, the upcoming college townhall on October 29 (you can even submit questions in advance) and on October 24, I’m also starting a new monthly time for faculty, staff, and students to informally connect to discuss what’s on your mind. Called ‘Coffee with Interim Dean Cody Edwards: A monthly casual chat,’ or just ‘Coffee with Cody,’ these gatherings will create a space for folks to share what’s on their mind while also helping attendees better understand others’ concerns, successes, or shared interests. (For example, besides discussing issues and priorities, we learned one of the things Provost Antony is looking forward to doing now that’s he’s in this area is hiking in the nearby mountains.)
Some of us also participated in the recent Stearns Center Innovations in Teaching and Learning Conference or the George Mason HR-sponsored annual Faculty and Staff Engagement Day activities. I encourage those who attended these forums to share best practices, ways to help our colleagues save time or be more impactful in our day-to-day work. We will use the college intranet to update you on our progress on the topics we prioritize and initiatives we undertake.
High levels of engagement take time and commitment. And we must offer and choose our engagement strategically to inform and encourage these elevated ways of working. You can’t be at everything, yet we will continue to offer many ways for you to share your ideas and concerns and engage. Plug in when and where you can. We are each empowered to engage and elevate our scientific enterprise. I look forward to what collectively we can accomplish.
CWE
