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Academic New Year Resolutions
EDITORIAL
ACADEMIC NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS
PATRICIA GONCE MORTON, PHD, RN, ACNP-BC, FAAN Editor
A
S YOU READ this, you are likely a few weeks into the academic New Year. I wish you a very happy and successful New Year! I suspect you already are deeply immersed into your classes, meetings, and other myriad of duties. I hope that you will take some time to reflect on the past few years, drawing from them the positive aspects that have been your sources of reward, satisfaction, and inspiration. How can you build on these to keep you going for another successful year? The start of a new academic year is also a time to make your New Year resolutions. I hope you will focus these resolutions on at least three areas: your work, your relationships with others, and yourself.
Your Work How can you work smarter and not harder? Take some time to reflect on the processes in which you are engaged and ask yourself where you can eliminate waste. The waste may be time, money, or resources. Eliminating these wastes can be very exhilarating. For example, examine your processes and procedures in comparison with what is required by policy. How many extra steps has your college of nursing imposed that could be trimmed while remaining in compliance with university policy? I arrived at my university in August 2013 and was astonished by the process to be promoted from clinical instructor to assistant professor in the nontenure track. Some faculty submitted packets that were more extensive than those applying for tenure, and the review process was long and arduous, thus consuming an inordinate amount of faculty's time unnecessarily. When you get right down to it, aren't most of these extra steps self-imposed by the college of nursing? Can we work to let go of them in the New Year? 8755-7223
What are your unnecessary processes? Are you ready to take the bold step to get rid of them? Then, of course, there are those committees where we spend a huge amount of our time. What committees could we eliminate outright? I have wondered my whole academic career why we assemble a group of very smart and energetic people into a meeting and then merely hose them down with information. Or we spend hours in meetings debating issues that have no real impact in the big scheme of life. I remember as a young faculty member sitting in a meeting that seemed endless while we discussed if the term paper should be at least 12 pages or at least 16 pages. I recall another meeting where we spent an hour debating if the term paper should be due the day before spring break (so students can have it done and enjoy the holiday) or due after spring break (so that students can have spring break to write the paper). Do these examples sound familiar? I suggest a New Year resolution in which meetings are eliminated if their purpose is to merely deliver information. There are more efficient ways to get information circulated in an organization than to bring together a group of very busy people to hear an information dump. Instead, design the “flipped meeting” that builds on the principles of the “flipped classroom.” The flipped classroom means the students have to read and prepare ahead of time and come to class ready to discuss. Why couldn't we use this same approach for our meetings? Distribute all the information ahead of time and only gather if there is a need to discuss, clarify, or debate issues. Have meetings that use the brains, talents, and expertise of the group. Debate controversial issues; discuss new trends in higher education and how they impact nursing education. Analyze health care reform and its implications for nursing education. Wouldn't these types of meetings be more interesting?
Journal of Professional Nursing, Vol 30, No. 5 (September/October), 2014: pp 367–368 © 2014 Published by Elsevier Inc.
367 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.profnurs.2014.08.001
368
EDITORIAL
In addition to our meetings, we have our academic sacred cows. Declare this year as “Slaughter the Sacred Cow” year! Pick some sacred cows and turn them into hamburger meat. For example, why do we have to hold class every week of the semester? Could we really have classes without Power Point slides? Why are we so hung up on term paper writing? Shouldn't we be teaching students how to write for publication instead? And, please allow the students to use the reference style of the journal rather than the sacred cow reference style of your college. Another sacred cow is the DNP final project committee composition. Faculty often insist that the DNP project must have a committee composed only of faculty from the college of nursing. Why not have members from other organizations who have the credentials and expertise in the topic? I challenge you to hunt down the sacred cows in your organization and celebrate their demise.
Our Relationships With Others Another great New Year resolution would be to make sure to acknowledge people who do things for you. From the person who cleans your office to the coworker collaborating on a project, there are countless people who offer you something in ways large and small. The staff in any college of nursing is the backbone of the organization, yet they often feel unrecognized and unappreciated. Expressing appreciation to these people connects you to others in a very special way. Saying a sincere “thank you” and being very specific about what they do well creates a situation of reward and satisfaction. Another way to build relationships is through fun activities. If I asked you, what fun activities do you have in your college of nursing, how would you reply? Are you struggling to think of something? Academics are often very serious people, but we need to take time to laugh and have fun together. Maybe declare “Wear a crazy hat to work day.” Organize a family picnic so you get to meet the families of your coworkers. Hold a child picture contest where you have to match the picture with the employee. I know of one school that keeps a net up in the grassy area near their building so faculty, staff, and/or students can play volleyball or badminton at lunch time. This same school also hosted movie night for faculty, staff, and students and their families. The movie was projected on the side of a building outdoors, and people brought lawn chairs and blankets to sit on during the movie. What fun activities could your college plan to help bring people together? Important relationships are also built through mentorship. Who have you touched hopefully in a very positive way? Are you willing to make a commitment this year to really take someone under your wing and guide and mentor them? This act of generosity is about giving of yourself so that others may have the best through you.
Shifting your focus outward can be one of the most rewarding experiences of your career. The more interactions you have with the people you work with, the less likely you are to indulge and fester in your own frustrations and negativity. So what are some of the ways you can live outside yourself and your own career trajectory, and turn your attentions to others? Another important aspect of relationship building is to help a colleague when you recognize signs of burnout in them. Too often, there are faculty members who become cynical and negative and bring down everyone around them. Yet, there was a time when these were productive and positive people who had a constructive influence on the direction of the college. You often are left to wonder what happened to them, but rarely do colleagues take them aside and point out the classic signs of burnout. I urge you to reach out to these colleagues in your institution. Otherwise, their toxic fumes spread throughout the organization, and no one benefits from their presence. Tell a friend you are seeing signs of burnout and offer to help in some way. Cover a class for them, offer to be a good listener, help them to see alternatives, or even help them to decide to leave the organization.
Our Selves As part of your New Year resolutions, I hope you will take time to reflect on strategies to take care of yourself. How are you recharging your own batteries? Are you making a concerted effort to take care of yourself—because if you don't, who will? It is only when you are renewed and refreshed that you can be creative and innovative in your thoughts and actions. Sometimes you need to get out of the weeds, let go of the minutia, and focus on thinking more strategically and creatively. Take time and find a place where you can let your creative juices flow. Where are you and when are you the most creative in your thoughts? I bet you did not say “during the work day, sitting at my desk in my office.” To tap your creative talents may mean getting out in nature for a walk or being in a special place with loved one. I urge you to find that time and place and give yourself permission to engage in the activities that will keep you refreshed. Another way to care of you is to work at reinventing yourself. What is something new that you need to learn? Practice professional courage by stepping out of your comfort zone and take a risk by trying or learning something new. In your personal life, try a new hobby or activity this year and enjoy the challenge of the new discovery. And finally, celebrate your achievements. Don't spend so much time focusing on your “to-do” list; rather, celebrate your successes and achievements. Hopefully, they will be the foundation of your legacy. Have a wonderful year!
ACADEMIC NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS
PATRICIA GONCE MORTON, PHD, RN, ACNP-BC, FAAN Editor
A
S YOU READ this, you are likely a few weeks into the academic New Year. I wish you a very happy and successful New Year! I suspect you already are deeply immersed into your classes, meetings, and other myriad of duties. I hope that you will take some time to reflect on the past few years, drawing from them the positive aspects that have been your sources of reward, satisfaction, and inspiration. How can you build on these to keep you going for another successful year? The start of a new academic year is also a time to make your New Year resolutions. I hope you will focus these resolutions on at least three areas: your work, your relationships with others, and yourself.
Your Work How can you work smarter and not harder? Take some time to reflect on the processes in which you are engaged and ask yourself where you can eliminate waste. The waste may be time, money, or resources. Eliminating these wastes can be very exhilarating. For example, examine your processes and procedures in comparison with what is required by policy. How many extra steps has your college of nursing imposed that could be trimmed while remaining in compliance with university policy? I arrived at my university in August 2013 and was astonished by the process to be promoted from clinical instructor to assistant professor in the nontenure track. Some faculty submitted packets that were more extensive than those applying for tenure, and the review process was long and arduous, thus consuming an inordinate amount of faculty's time unnecessarily. When you get right down to it, aren't most of these extra steps self-imposed by the college of nursing? Can we work to let go of them in the New Year? 8755-7223
What are your unnecessary processes? Are you ready to take the bold step to get rid of them? Then, of course, there are those committees where we spend a huge amount of our time. What committees could we eliminate outright? I have wondered my whole academic career why we assemble a group of very smart and energetic people into a meeting and then merely hose them down with information. Or we spend hours in meetings debating issues that have no real impact in the big scheme of life. I remember as a young faculty member sitting in a meeting that seemed endless while we discussed if the term paper should be at least 12 pages or at least 16 pages. I recall another meeting where we spent an hour debating if the term paper should be due the day before spring break (so students can have it done and enjoy the holiday) or due after spring break (so that students can have spring break to write the paper). Do these examples sound familiar? I suggest a New Year resolution in which meetings are eliminated if their purpose is to merely deliver information. There are more efficient ways to get information circulated in an organization than to bring together a group of very busy people to hear an information dump. Instead, design the “flipped meeting” that builds on the principles of the “flipped classroom.” The flipped classroom means the students have to read and prepare ahead of time and come to class ready to discuss. Why couldn't we use this same approach for our meetings? Distribute all the information ahead of time and only gather if there is a need to discuss, clarify, or debate issues. Have meetings that use the brains, talents, and expertise of the group. Debate controversial issues; discuss new trends in higher education and how they impact nursing education. Analyze health care reform and its implications for nursing education. Wouldn't these types of meetings be more interesting?
Journal of Professional Nursing, Vol 30, No. 5 (September/October), 2014: pp 367–368 © 2014 Published by Elsevier Inc.
367 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.profnurs.2014.08.001
368
EDITORIAL
In addition to our meetings, we have our academic sacred cows. Declare this year as “Slaughter the Sacred Cow” year! Pick some sacred cows and turn them into hamburger meat. For example, why do we have to hold class every week of the semester? Could we really have classes without Power Point slides? Why are we so hung up on term paper writing? Shouldn't we be teaching students how to write for publication instead? And, please allow the students to use the reference style of the journal rather than the sacred cow reference style of your college. Another sacred cow is the DNP final project committee composition. Faculty often insist that the DNP project must have a committee composed only of faculty from the college of nursing. Why not have members from other organizations who have the credentials and expertise in the topic? I challenge you to hunt down the sacred cows in your organization and celebrate their demise.
Our Relationships With Others Another great New Year resolution would be to make sure to acknowledge people who do things for you. From the person who cleans your office to the coworker collaborating on a project, there are countless people who offer you something in ways large and small. The staff in any college of nursing is the backbone of the organization, yet they often feel unrecognized and unappreciated. Expressing appreciation to these people connects you to others in a very special way. Saying a sincere “thank you” and being very specific about what they do well creates a situation of reward and satisfaction. Another way to build relationships is through fun activities. If I asked you, what fun activities do you have in your college of nursing, how would you reply? Are you struggling to think of something? Academics are often very serious people, but we need to take time to laugh and have fun together. Maybe declare “Wear a crazy hat to work day.” Organize a family picnic so you get to meet the families of your coworkers. Hold a child picture contest where you have to match the picture with the employee. I know of one school that keeps a net up in the grassy area near their building so faculty, staff, and/or students can play volleyball or badminton at lunch time. This same school also hosted movie night for faculty, staff, and students and their families. The movie was projected on the side of a building outdoors, and people brought lawn chairs and blankets to sit on during the movie. What fun activities could your college plan to help bring people together? Important relationships are also built through mentorship. Who have you touched hopefully in a very positive way? Are you willing to make a commitment this year to really take someone under your wing and guide and mentor them? This act of generosity is about giving of yourself so that others may have the best through you.
Shifting your focus outward can be one of the most rewarding experiences of your career. The more interactions you have with the people you work with, the less likely you are to indulge and fester in your own frustrations and negativity. So what are some of the ways you can live outside yourself and your own career trajectory, and turn your attentions to others? Another important aspect of relationship building is to help a colleague when you recognize signs of burnout in them. Too often, there are faculty members who become cynical and negative and bring down everyone around them. Yet, there was a time when these were productive and positive people who had a constructive influence on the direction of the college. You often are left to wonder what happened to them, but rarely do colleagues take them aside and point out the classic signs of burnout. I urge you to reach out to these colleagues in your institution. Otherwise, their toxic fumes spread throughout the organization, and no one benefits from their presence. Tell a friend you are seeing signs of burnout and offer to help in some way. Cover a class for them, offer to be a good listener, help them to see alternatives, or even help them to decide to leave the organization.
Our Selves As part of your New Year resolutions, I hope you will take time to reflect on strategies to take care of yourself. How are you recharging your own batteries? Are you making a concerted effort to take care of yourself—because if you don't, who will? It is only when you are renewed and refreshed that you can be creative and innovative in your thoughts and actions. Sometimes you need to get out of the weeds, let go of the minutia, and focus on thinking more strategically and creatively. Take time and find a place where you can let your creative juices flow. Where are you and when are you the most creative in your thoughts? I bet you did not say “during the work day, sitting at my desk in my office.” To tap your creative talents may mean getting out in nature for a walk or being in a special place with loved one. I urge you to find that time and place and give yourself permission to engage in the activities that will keep you refreshed. Another way to care of you is to work at reinventing yourself. What is something new that you need to learn? Practice professional courage by stepping out of your comfort zone and take a risk by trying or learning something new. In your personal life, try a new hobby or activity this year and enjoy the challenge of the new discovery. And finally, celebrate your achievements. Don't spend so much time focusing on your “to-do” list; rather, celebrate your successes and achievements. Hopefully, they will be the foundation of your legacy. Have a wonderful year!