Fall Term 2012 Mission Complete

The term is about over and as customary I take time to reflect on the good, the bad and the... oops.

This term I set out to stabilize the program structure in the following ways:

1. Introduce as many first year students with our community as possible via targeted events.
2. Condense and deliver professional development curriculum for second year students.
3. Throw four high quality professional development events that integrated the goals of the two developmental levels.

What I have learned in each area this term:

1. The living community in the hall is going well, but it has a lot of opportunity still for improvement.
I had been hoping that placing four resident assistants in the hall would help transplant our "sub-culture" of placing school work above social time... and I guess we still have a lot of work to do. There are still not enough students engaged with our project to persuade the behavior of the masses. The resident assistants have mixed response to approaching the "community" as a unified team as they are torn between roles of "enforcer" and "mentor." I was also very concerned that the RA's overwhelmingly voiced added stress of balancing their own needs with the needs of the community.



2. The condensed curriculum for the second years students appears to have been a success. The pace of the seminar was adequate to accomplish our deliverable of profiles and basic digital portfolios. The addition of new members proved to be the perfect inspiration and motivation of returning students to step up their games. The events matched the development levels of the students and we had over 90% participation rate in every single seminar and event. Great success there!


3. The four event were executed flawlessly. We started with meet and greet with over 75 students and 20 faculty, administrators and core local community supporters in attendance. We executed a revised version of the Dean's Lecture with a real executive. This time, providing an intimate lunch with the returning seminar students, the lecture for all of the college to enjoy and the reception immediately following was a perfect balance of energy, contact and learning time for everyone involved. The skill-drill workshop used returning students to "coach" the new students how to shake hands and introduce themselves. We delivered quick instructions to the group and had small teams role playing- many of the students raved about how easy it was to learn such an intimidating skill. The next week we coordinated the networking event with the goal of students finding a professional to set an informational interview and feedback from both the professionals and the students came back overwhelmingly supportive.

What to do next?
Next term I will aim to execute two efficient skill building seminars. The goal of the first year seminar will be to identify natural leadership strengths and potential blind-sides. The goal of the second year seminar will be to articulate their profile characteristics in multi-media and "sticky" stories by the use of online portfolios.

The community building next term will center around the implementation of the new mentors and AKPsi role models.

The events next term will be with the purpose of teaching the students how to hold the "discovery" meeting with a new contact and we will attempt to teach them how to use a contact relationship manager- thank you procontact.me!

In summary, I will quote Lawrence Jackson. "when you know what you do well, just do more of it faster- you will pull away from your competition ten times as fast as trying to always fix your weaknesses"

Thank you Lawrence- mission accomplished.

Reflections on a pilot

What we set out to do:

Convert more under-represented minority students from prebusiness to business or accounting majors.

We suspected that if we introduced a cohort of URM students to complete the prebusiness curriculum together that it would catalyze the broader URM population to pull together to overcome their unique barriers to working through the prebusiness curriculum. In the short term, cohorts would allow direct observation of the unique challenges that need to be addressed for URM students studying business. In the long term, a cohort experience for URM should be the means to for UO (and LCB) to attract larger numbers of high achieving minority students.

Where we've been: 

We have brought two groups of students through the curriculum in a cohort model. The participants in these groups both  persist longer and perform better in the pre-business curriculum in comparison to their peers who are not engaged in the cohort experience.

Where we have learned:

To improve persistence and performance minority students respond to a combination of four elements:

1. Academic support- to address the unequal secondary educational experiences of the students the combination of small study groups, individual tutoring and peer learning was needed to improve overall academic performance.

2. Multi-cultural community- the students thrived by having two physical spaces where they could engage with each other as well as members of the main-stream population (their residence hall and the suite in Lillis). Many of the students lacked social capital upon entering UO and building the community that includes all experiences is vital to growth of all members of the community.

3. Professional direction- the key motivational factor for MOST of the students during their experience was to have interactions with actual business practitioners. While they appreciated ANY experience to engage with a business practitioner, engagement with minority professionals was the overwhelmingly key inspiration for students to persist.

4. Leadership development- the largest social obstacle for students of color in an environment like Oregon is learning how to "in the spotlight" that inevitably occurs when they are the only person of color in a classroom. It demands a faster development of identity and confidence of self in comparison with their mainstream peers. Early exploration of leadership traits and theory allowed for these students to act more confident in their experience as a minority.

We know we our effort is working because:

Our first step was to engage the students in a way that would to encourage them to persist.

Tracking the sophomore cohort students: 25% have converted to the major, 50% will be eligible to apply to the major in the next two terms of 2012. The remaining 25% continues to persist despite unusually high challenges.

Our second step was to discover what it would take to help improve the success rate to meeting the minimum prebusiness requirements.

In the second cohort group, an overwhelming 75% have finished their second year on track to meet the requirements. We accomplished this by utilizing smaller section math courses, small study groups and upper classmen mentoring in the prebusiness courses.

Our third step was to create a "draw" that would engage more URM students in the prebusiness population to reach critical mass within the undergraduate student population.

The attention and popularity of the emerging student group, commonly referred to as CEO Network, is attracting more and more students of color who want to "belong" in the Lundquist College of Business.

What are our next steps:

Now we know what works, it will take strategy to find the ways to institutionalize the four components that both work for LCB and make sense for the students.

Delivering Constructive Criticism

Today I am taking a huge risk. Unlike most other risks I've taken, this one I haven't sat on and reflected for a while. I just got the idea and I started implementing. So if this doesn't go well I guess I'll chalk it up to- lesson learned. But here's the story...

I had been stunted by what to do next for my freshman students at the end of winter term. While they performed well, it wasn't as I had hoped for. I immediately took personal responsibility for some of their shortcomings and spent countless sleepless nights wondering what I could have and SHOULD have done differently.

I sought guidance from my mentor- an award winning pre-business instructor of 30 years. He said one thing over and over in our meeting..."Tayah what do they need?"

 "They need my honest assessment of what they are doing well and where they have the most area of opportunity for growth"

My most important discovery in this process of giving constructive criticism has been finding a way to structure my feedback in a way that both reassures them of their strengths and help them be receptive of their areas for growth. I captured my talking point notes on paper (see pic to right). I then talked out some sample feedback on a video blog. Finally, I went to live recording on you-tube and then forward the recording to them to replay as little or as often as they liked.

So I have spent the past five days recording blogs that assess what they are doing well in academic performance and leadership development and where they may be blind-sided moving forward and therefore pointing out their largest area of opportunity for growth in the next term. Below is a sample of one of my "deliveries."

They are either going to love these blogs- or hate them.

Because I may not get every evaluation perfectly right and I stumble and say stupid things, I'm allowing myself to be vulnerable as their leader- but they are getting my most raw and pure guidance and thats the best I can think to give.

Designing the Diversity Symposium

In spring of 2011 the Committee won our second grant from the Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity. Our proposal was sound and had been endorsed "off the record" by both the Dean of LCB and the VP of OIED. Our goals were clear:

Create a high-quality, intimate event that was both fresh and engaging and would set LCB as a leader for the campus and community in thought and practice for building diversity in the workplace.

Posters designed by students all over campus

I knew the project was going to be a great showcase for LCB and it would help improve relations between other units on campus and some of the local community. But I had under estimated it as an opportunity for me to grow as a leader and as an individual.

I discovered the true strength of my leadership during this process. To accomplish our vision with limited time and resources truly demanded I was efficient with my task management and effective with my communication. I held tight to a vision of the day but gave all authority and power to my other committee members to do their part to accomplish the vision. Inspiring other players in the roles we couldn't fill on our was ongoing.

On the eve of the event, I felt confident- I had pulled together an "A" team of organizers, presenters, caterers, sponsors and allies. All I had to do was set them on the field and let them play their part.

So now what? What is ironic is we choose the theme of the inaugural conference as "rewriting narratives" I in the process of designing that experience for our audience I have re-written my own narrative. One year ago I couldn't imagine anything bigger- now its only a matter of time before I will take this event to a higher level.

Martin Luther King Jr Award 2012

On January 19th 2012 I was honored among revered faculty, friends and colleagues as an honorary Martin Luther King Jr. Advocate for Social Justice.

This honor is given to five UO employees a year and I was humbled to be awarded this honor in my third year of working for UO and the Lundquist College of Business.

What was significant for me in this experience was preparing my thoughts and words to share during the panel- style award ceremony.

I wanted to express my appreciation and