Opening Circle
We had breakfast at 8:00am. I'm in love with the scambled eggs. Then the "opening circle" at 8:30, where we reported on what "struck" us yesterday. Very interesting to listen to all the folks talk. I shared that "I may be wrong but I'm never in doubt" re: my insistance we take salt tablets on our pretend journey to the desert (actually - lost in the desert).
Next we described our definitions of "leadership", which yielded many wonderful definitions. Too bad they are not written down somewhere. I defined "leadership" as "walking the walk" (as opposed to "talking the talk" or "talking the walk") and the fact that staying the course (thru all kinds of weather) will eventually out-shine the louder, grand-standing of the "Glen Becks" of the world. How about "quiet authenticity versus showmanship" as a partial definition? Here's the only other two I had time to write about. Leadership is:
- ...when to push, when to pull, and when to stand aside (my new motto- it's sort of like the Serenity Prayer...."and the wisdom to know the difference...)
- ...committed to the greater good (i.e. not ME!)
Part of this training involves some personality indicators (e.g. myers-briggs, MMPI). One indicator we took before coming to DC is called DiSC, which I described in yesterday's blog. Someone asked if we could order the DiSC for our local boards (good question). The answer is yes. The cost is $25.00 per online test. If we order enough tests, Phadra may be able to get us a discount. This could be verrry helpful as a team-building exercise with our board and committee leaders.
NCHE= Nat'l Council for Higher Education (part of NEA)
Presented by Catherine Boudreau, NCHE VP (I used to have an ex brother-in-law named "Goodreau- I haven't thought of him in years). The NCHE is a caucus of the NEA with the express purpose of monitoring the NEA Board to make sure higher ed (HE) doesn't fall thru the cracks. This caucus is different from the Office of HE, which is part of Constituant Relations (CR). They track inside (NEA) and outside issues, like sub-contracting adjunct faculty, states losing the right to collec bargain, the right to collect dues thru payroll, and for-profit schools. NCHE:
- is an advocate for services, programs and funding
- promotes inclusion of Higher Ed at NEA conferences
- has online prof dev
- protects the integrity of academic work
- increases benefits and improves working conditions for adjuncts
- increases full-time tenure track positions
http://www.nea.org/nche
The upshot: the NEA is the membership, not the institution itself. In other words, the state (OEA) and national level can't fix local problems. But they can provide us with experience, support and resources (which leads to our next topic)
Campaign / War Room Visit
What a great opportunity to see the NEA in action, right now, today. This was one of my favorite activities so far! I'm so glad they included us. We (all 25 or so of us) all came into the space and found seats. It was a little crowded. Then we listened in on the normally scheduled 10:00 briefing (telephone conf for those not in DC). This office really is hopping with action. For example, the U.S. Council of Mayors was meeting in Baltimore at that moment. They were voting on various resolutions, two of which were problematic for the NEA (ESEA stuff). One staff member briefed everyone- he would be going to the conference himself- meanwhile, other staff had each state involved call their mayors and ask them to table the motions for now. The people provided us with a list of mayor attending so we could call them too. Portland Mayor Sam Adams is here, but I was so busy, I couldn't call him. It's too late now, but I'll send him an email and see how it went....
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