The University of Oregon has been awarded a $650,000 grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to support the Values-Enacted Leadership Institute (VELI), made in coordination with a $650,000 grant from the Mellon Foundation announced in October.  

Created and facilitated by the HuMetricsHSS Initiative, VELI is grounded in the understanding that all work undertaken in the academy is driven by values, whether explicit or implicit. High-level documents such as mission statements dentify values universities wish to enact, but those values rarely reveal themselves in the social, technical, and financial systems on which academic institutions run, nor are they enacted in a way that filters down to the lived experience of faculty, staff, and students. 

UO Provost Chris Long is a founding member and a principal investigator for the project, working with co-principal investigator colleagues and team members from the University of Maryland, Michigan State University, Carnegie Mellon University, the Modern Language Association and the European University Institute. 

VELI will provide structure, space, and time for teams of faculty, administrators, and staff to articulate shared values and draw up concrete plans for institutional change that are firmly rooted in those values. While other leadership institutes focus on developing the individual, VELI focuses on a team approach, in the belief that values-enacted change comes through collaboration and commitment to shared values and shared goals. 

The importance of this work is underscored by the collaboration between the two funders, Long said. “To receive two grants, made in coordination, from the Mellon Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to support values-enacted leadership and foster transformation across higher education signals both the importance of these efforts and the power of the values-enacted approach,” he said.

The new grant from the Hewlett Foundation will allow the HuMetricsHSS team to host teams from additional institutions at VELI, thereby expanding the community of academic leaders engaged in values-enacted changemaking.  

It will also allow the HuMetricsHSS team to add additional facilitators from aligned initiatives such as Breaking the M.O.L.D at the University of Maryland and the University of Washington’s Futurist fellows.  Finally, it will deepen engagement between the HuMetricsHSS team and the broader academic community, facilitating targeted collaboration with select partners from scholarly societies and universities already involved in transformational leadership work. 

“Incorporating Humetrics into the BTM leadership development program helped prepare our participants to define and enact values as a basis for creating a coherent strategy for change,” said Bonnie Thornton Dill, a co-PI on the HuMetricsHSS team and on Breaking the M.O.L.D at University of Maryland,.“It also helped broaden our thinking about leadership beyond specific positions to the many ways in which faculty lead, strengthening our work in affirming diverse identities, perspectives and knowledge as a basis for assessing and enriching academic life.” 

Michigan State University will also receive a subaward supporting Knowledge Commons, an open access, academy-owned platform that will support collaboration and knowledge sharing among VELI participants and with the greater community of practice in educational research and leadership. , as well as the University First Movers program, which identifies and supports individuals already making transformational, values-enacted leadership decisions to shift policy and practice. 

For more on VELI and to apply, see the HuMetricsHSS website. Applications are due February 12, 2025.