Good afternoon colleagues,
Thank you, President Mason and Senator Gill for your updates. As we approach the end of winter term, let me begin with gratitude...for the work you have done to support our students this term, for our ongoing partnership with the University Senate, and for the care you all bring to the important work of institutional stewardship.
When we were last together, I shared a theory of change for higher education I have been refining for almost a decade. Over our remaining meetings this year, I plan to explore each of its three dimensions: values-enacted leadership, shared purpose between faculty, staff, and student leadership and administration, and creating an honest, holistic culture of performance review. Today, I want to focus on the first: values-enacted leadership.
Now, I know this audience is already familiar with my thinking about values-enacted leadership, but let me ground my remarks here in the high-level finding of the research that informs this approach: culture change in higher education depends on cultivating two intertwined habits. The first is to name the shared values that animate our work. The second is to put those values into intentional practice every day, in every action and interaction.
I have spoken often here, for example, about leading with care and authenticity. I do not claim to do this perfectly. There are days when I'm stretched too thin, when I prioritize the urgent over the important, when I fall short of the leader I aspire to be. Yet, on many occasions since I joined the University of Oregon, this community has shown me what it feels like in practice.
Just a week and a half ago, I had the opportunity to experience authentic and caring leadership in action in the Dreamer Ally training led by our UO Dreamers Working Group. Almost 90 new faculty and staff participated in a three-hour workshop, in which heard powerful testimony from UO Dreamers about how a constant sense of vulnerability and anxiety shapes and mis-shapes their daily lives, pulling focus away from the purposeful work that came here to do. The workshop helped each of us develop a true stance of solidarity rooted in action and coming from a position of care. I was moved by the shared commitment of this community to create structures of support during a period of crisis and oppression. Here was a group of people willing to speak honestly and to be vulnerable. They were there not only to learn, but more urgently, to put their learning into practice as a way of creating a more just and caring future. The working group has trained over 800 Dreamer Allies since 2017, and I want to give a shout-out to Justine Carpenter, Ellen McWhirter, Rosa Chavez, Courtney Garcia, Kristin Yarris, Dinorah Ortiz-Carte, Toby Christen-Malone for leading that effort.
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To take another example of how our university community is working to put its values into practice, last week we brought together academic leaders from all our schools and colleges to plan what’s next for UO Portland. With limited resources available, we have to be strategic and intentional about what we do. The academic programs we create must be innovative and sustainable on our new campus, and they must align with our Oregon Rising goals.
The group agreed that this represents a critical opportunity to make choices that demonstrate our desire to put higher education into practice in the world – by bringing the research and creative activity we practice into meaningful connection with the community around us. When I was on the Portland campus last week, it was heartening to hear how all the programs, from product management and design to architecture and the built environment, from Prevention Science and School Psychology to media communication, legal studies and child behavioral health are translating research and scholarship into real-world impact.
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Last week, I was also able to attend Greater Portland Inc.’s Presidential Roundtable, where representatives from Oregon's public and private universities and community colleges gathered to discuss the future of higher education in our state. It was a valuable opportunity to step back and see the broader ecosystem we're all part of — especially in this turbulent moment. What struck me most was the recognition that we need a comprehensive vision for higher education in Oregon. Not just calls for more funding, though we of course need that too. But a genuine philosophy of education: a shared understanding of what higher education should be and do in this state.
That philosophy has to include seamless pathways from high school through a university degree, aligned with what society actually needs. This requires meaningful engagement with businesses — not just the large international firms, but the middle and small businesses that are the backbone of Oregon’s economy. And it requires the state to recognize that higher education is a catalyst for both economic and human development. We will never activate the full potential of the state and its people without a robust and sustained reinvestment in education. And for our part, we at the university need to continue to work on making good on the promise of higher education to have a meaningful impact on society.
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Let me conclude with a word of encouragement: I hope you can find ways to rest during the upcoming spring break. Now, I am still learning the rhythm of quarters after years on the semester calendar. April may have been “the cruelest month” on the semester system, but it also meant the end was near. Here, we have another full term ahead of us, and I know many of you will spend time during spring break preparing for spring term. I am grateful for all the thought and attention you bring to that work. I also know that, if you don’t find some time over the break to rest and reconnect with what restores you, you will be unable to sustain yourself through the important work we have ahead of us.
Thank you.