So, What Is The Caring University?

Welcome to the second edition of The Caring University newsletter! I’m entering 2025 feeling unusually rested and rejuvenated after spending two full weeks home with my kids. We played a lot of board games, video games, and soccer, and I’m grateful I was able to unplug from work because that’s not the case every holiday break.

In the spirit of newness, I’ve got a few new things as the newsletter evolves. First, I’m featuring a snippet from the book as a little teaser—something I’ll do periodically in the coming months. This excerpt from the introduction offers a definition of The Caring University. Second, I added a new section where I attempt to answer hard questions I’ve? received at speaking engagements. So, let’s jump in!

Book Update: Sneak Peek #1

Since I’ve already used this language quite a bit, you might understandably be wondering, “What exactly is The Caring University?” Here’s an excerpt (lightly edited for length) from the book’s introduction that provides a window into my thinking:

The whole point of the book is to explain prominent problems of the higher education workplace, excavate their roots in the cultures and structures of organizations, and then describe organization-level changes that offer colleges and universities a pathway to move beyond the Great Resignation. I refer to the collective, proactive, ongoing work to enact organizational changes in support of employee well-being as The Caring University. Let’s break down each of the components of this definition.

Collective. Sociologist and New York Times columnist Tressie McMillan Cottom has famously argued, “Institutions cannot love you.” She meant that we shouldn’t lay down our lives to earn the affection of something that isn’t capable of feelings, let alone love. And she’s right. A brick building with columns and Latin inscriptions will not wrap us in a warm embrace. But Cottom was also clear that understanding the limits of institutions shouldn’t prevent people from contributing to the creation of more humane organizations. The Caring University is shorthand for collections of people who make up institutions coming together to do exactly that.

Proactive. The Caring University doesn’t happen organically—it’s the product of planned and intentional effort. Colleges and universities have a tendency to be reactive when it comes to addressing workplace problems and meeting employee expectations. They will pay graduate students more only after they have gone on strike. They will hire a company to administer an engagement survey only after turnover rates spike. Reactive responses usually mean institutions are trying to put out fires and minimize damage rather than pursuing a true human resources strategy. By contrast, leaders pursuing The Caring University proactively plan for and implement improvements before crises force their hand.?

Ongoing. The Caring University won’t materialize overnight and is unlikely to take root through short bursts of effort. This is partly because organizational change often entails the time-intensive work of shifting mindsets. It’s also because demonstrating care is not exactly the default setting of U.S. society. Without ongoing opportunities to consider how to better support employee well-being, many colleges and universities are hardwired to prioritize competition, status, and extractive labor practices. And so, The Caring University is less about reaching a final destination or attaining an ideal state and more about turning support for employee well-being into a routine of campus life with no end date.?

Organizational Changes. Pursuing The Caring University calls for what Adrianna Kezar calls deep or “second-order” change. This is change that is “so substantial that it alters the operating systems, underlying values, and culture of an organization.” Deep change is a process whose success often depends on a range of actors using multiple approaches. Leaders may read “process” and assume a linear model following a change checklist. In reality, deep change is about learning, customizing, and revising when things don’t go according to plan. ?

Employee Well-being. According to the U.S. Surgeon General, workplace well-being hinges on five essential components, each of which centers employee voice and equity and incorporates human needs.?Why is the Surgeon General giving attention to employee well-being? Because employee well-being is a “critical priority for public health” with “numerous and cascading impacts” for individuals, families, organizations, and communities. Simply put, reducing stress and encouraging forms of community in the workplace is a national health concern.

In each of the book's chapters, I detail a range of approaches that exemplify six overarching organizational changes designed to address both organizational cultures and structures that give rise to workplace problems fueling the Great Resignation (see graphic below for a sense of what these approaches cover).

Questions from the Road: The Supervisory Shield

I just returned from Ohio University, where I helped kick-off their University College’s spring retreat with an interactive talk titled “Making Sense of Organizational Change: Lessons from the Caring University.” This was a brand new talk that invites the audience to consider what good organizational change looks like in higher education and do some sensemaking on a change process happening at their unit or campus.

During the Q&A, I was asked: How can supervisors (primarily in mid-level roles) support their teams while a deluge of projects and demands rain down from above? The question reminds me of an idea I've read in forthcoming research from Katherine Cho and colleagues: the supervisory shield. Cho describes the importance of supervisors protecting staff of Color, in particular. However, the shield can also work in the reverse direction, as supervisors prioritize the needs of the institution and shield those above them from any pushback.

Here's one thought I had: we need to make the supervisory shield more transparent and porous. Supervisors should be in the habit of sharing with their teams the number and nature of demands they receive—not with the goal of dumping their stress, but rather inviting their teams into the challenge and facilitating collaborative solutions.

At the same time, supervisors need to be savvy advocates for their teams and allow constructive critique and concerns to flow up. In some cases, supervisors may exercise what little political capital they have and deflect new work by explaining their team is maxed out. But the deflection part (saying no) is really important: supervisors who simply absorb work to protect their teams are setting themselves up for burnout.?

It’s a tricky question and one I’m still pondering. What are your thoughts? Feel free to comment below with how you might respond.

What I’m Reading: Slow Productivity

I don’t read many advice books, but I have become a fan of Cal Newport’s work. Newport wrote Deep Work about a decade ago and, more recently, has written about digital minimalism and smarter use of email. Although I don’t subscribe to all of his ideas, I have adopted his time-block planning method and replaced phone scrolling with book reading. When his new book, Slow Productivity, became available at my local library, I was eager to read it.

Newport’s argument is that knowledge workers’ discontent is a function of equating good work with frenetic busyness. His solution to this is to learn from successful writers, artists, musicians, and scientists, many of whom worked slowly yet intentionally with wildly productive outcomes. From these examples, he advances three core principles: 1) do fewer things; 2) work at a natural pace; and 3) obsess over quality.?

Newport offers concrete practices for each of these principles, but one that resonated with me was limiting your missions. I don’t know about you, but I’ve found myself wearing a lot of professional hats lately (teacher, speaker, writer, leader) and desiring to excel in every one. It can be helpful to take look at the objectives that direct your professional life and ask yourself how scaling back might unlock time to do the work you really want to do.

Quick Insight: The Virtues of Organizational Slack

As part of the research that informed The Caring University, I interviewed an engineering professor who used a basic concept in his field to critique how his institution operates:?

“You can’t run a machine at 100% capacity, and you definitely can’t run people at 100% capacity. You lose efficiency. I really have felt that we aren’t properly evaluating how much work it takes to do some of these initiatives… We’re just not accurately appreciating what it means for faculty and staff.”?

His quote calls to mind something management researchers have studied for decades: organizational slack. Although slack gets a bad rap (e.g., “slacker”), scholars use the term to mean having excess capacity. Most aren’t advocating that organizations should have a ton of excess capacity, but having some slack is really important for innovation and resilience.

Our institutions, teams, and brains can’t easily absorb shock, be creative, or see hidden opportunities when every ounce of energy is being expended to fulfill existing obligations. The reality is that most organizations and the people they employ are running above 100% capacity. So, take it from a professional engineer (and, I would guess, Cal Newport): we need to create a little excess capacity by doing less.

Personally, when I’ve got a portfolio of projects (in my case, advisees, courses, talks, and writing) that offers some breathing room, my whole demeanor improves. Bad news isn’t as derailing. Sprouts of inspiration have space to grow into creative ideas. What would it look like for you to embrace slack?