Yesterday's Admin Retreat

Yesterday the TBS admin team held an off-site retreat at evolve! studio in Berkeley, a small space located above the Freshly Cut Florist on 1301 #d California St (across from Monterey Market) that is so hip and locally-driven that it doesn't have a website (it does, however, host regular Soul Collage meetings, a book I gave my wife on her 38 birthday).


The first activity of the day was a presentation and discussion led by Mitch about the differing values, traits, and gifts and challenges of different generations. While our student's grandparents are largely Traditionalists (1922-43), our parents are mostly Boomers (1943-60) or Gen Xers (1961-1980), with a scattering of Millenials (1981-2000) thrown in on the younger end. Each generation has been shaped by very different forces in very different contexts, and understanding how each generation sees, and is seen by, the other generations, is important as we think about both promoting community within our parent body, and clearly communicating about our educational program in our marketing efforts. And, because we are who we are, we also enjoyed applying critical race theory, post-feminist, and other forms of critiques to the concepts we discussed.


The second discussion was a review of the marketing and re-branding efforts undertaken by the advancement office over the last several months. In addition to our incredible new website rolling out next week, we're revising a number of aspects of our communication, from the timing and template of the weekly NewsNotes newsletter to the signature block in our emails. On September 6th we'll be hosting an evening event from 7-8:30 pm with a "brand reveal", a summary of information from last spring's parent survey, and a financial status update.

After lunch (at Lilly's Restaurant down on Hopkins St), we returned for a walk through the Leadership Compass, a tool for self-reflection and leadership development loosely based on the Native American concept of the "Four-Fold Way". We began by gathering into groups based on which working styles we "default" to, whether when stressed or simply as our usual starting point -- the in-charge activist, the visionary, the nurturer, or the analyst. After reviewing some descriptions and materials about these archetypes, we worked in groups to identify and share a) what others should know about us when working with us, b) the gifts and challenges of being in this archetype, and c) our theme song.

The day concluded with a preview of the schedule for Work Week, including finalizing details for the New Faculty Orientation, the schedule of all-faculty and division meetings and the topics that we wanted to discuss at them, and reviewing assignments and roles for next Friday's New Parent Orientation.