Good morning, Student Affairs Roadrunners!
Some of you may recall that I had a similarly titled Monday Message back in August 2020, but this one is a little different.
I’ve been told it was?Glennon Doyle who coined the phrase, “We can do hard things.”?I say, “I’ve been told” because I’m not much of a podcaster and find myself reading more fiction lately than non. But, it is one of my favorite sayings.?My friend Ann Marie told me “we can do hard things” when we talked about hiking Angel’s Landing in Zion National Park, and my friend Kelly shared that “on hard days, we do hard things” as she and her sister climbed a 14er on her father’s birthday, a tough day since he passed away several years ago.
In 2020, I shared this mantra given our work to thrive through the pandemic and to engage in meaningful anti-racism efforts.?In 2023, I’m sharing because we have some tough work ahead of us:
- Dr. Davidson shared her two guiding principles for the workload task force at the spring update:?No one at MSU Denver should have an unsustainable workload, and everything we do should point to student success.??How do we address workload as staff and administrators??It takes a lot of tough conversations, open minds, and a search for strategies we may not have thought about yet.?It also takes empathy; the awareness that the lived experiences of our colleagues are very different from our own and that equity and equality are two very different concepts.
- We have some of the lowest graduation and first-year retention rates in Colorado and among our national peers.?Clearly, what got us here isn’t going to get us there (a 30% graduation rate by 2030).?How do we, to quote Adrienne Martinez, begin the work of “carefully coordinating decentralized systems?”?The new workload task force is a great start, and will build momentum toward operationalizing the MSU Denver strategic plan.?And our own Student Affairs strategic plan is also a key moment to build alliances and strengthen the bonds of collaboration that make MSU Denver a great place to learn and work.
- We know that student engagement yields student success (and also know that we have to take a critical view of Tinto and other scholars who did their work decades ago).?And yet, I frequently hear “but we’re different” or “we’re a commuter school, so it’s harder for us” to build student engagement strategies.?Yup – it is.?We don’t have a playbook to build from, and our teams are constantly taking strategies from other institutions and interpreting them to fit our students.?But MSU Denver students deserve an enriching, engaging experience that builds praxis – the connection between theoretical knowledge and lived experience.?Simply throwing our hands up and decrying the unique circumstances of our students is deficit-based thinking at its worst.?I’m not Ok with that and I know many of you aren’t either.??
So, yes, we have some hard things to do.?So, I googled, “How to do hard things.”?Turns out,?Harvard Business Review knew I’d come looking!?David Rock says that “we can accomplish hard things by practicing the habits of?a growth mindset?and notice when we revert to old ways of thinking and behaving. To challenge patterns or systems that enable or inhibit new habits from taking hold, it’s helpful to have the support of others. One way to do that is by sharing stories of trying, in a setting where attempts are prized as much as the results.”??So, here are a commitments I’m going to make for myself:
- Talk about my failures as much as my successes.?Both are moments of learning; both are important.
- Recognize the fixed-mindset triggers that sabotage a growth mindset and begin desensitizing myself.?Because the things that got me here won’t get me there.??
- Remember that doing hard things requires planning and strategy, not on-the-fly ideas.?I’m the worst for jumping into a project before I’ve had time to think through it fully.?Luckily, I have folks around me who challenge that thinking (thanks, Thuy and Emily!) but I need to be better about owning the work.
These are just a few ideas.?As you think about the work ahead of us and you, what are you doing to support yourself, lean in to a growth mindset, and build the momentum to do hard things?
HR & DEI Leader for Iconic Brands
2 年I love the way you lead, Will! I am working on strengthening my growth mindset skills. As we continue to barrel towards a tough business year, it's so important to try and balance the scarcity mindset that I find can set in for me with a mindset focused on growth and possibilities. Whenever I have had to do hard things, I come up with solutions I never would have expected.