Month: January 2009

In the first “un” book club meeting, we discussed the book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell.  There was a nice, diverse group of folks who came by the TLC sandbox to discuss the main concepts and relate them to our work here at MIIS.  In his book, Gladwell outlines some relatively hidden secrets to success – timing, opportunity, culture and experience.  The typical success story is told as if the person arose from ashes and took the world by surprise when actually the very opposite is the case.  He highlights cases such as Bill Gates who was born in the exact right year in the exact right town to have access to computers at a young age so by the time he left college, he had more than 10,000 hours of experience working with computers.

Some of the big ideas/questions that came up during the meeting were:

• Should we be trying to recruit outliers, create outliers, raise the curve of outliers or treat each student as if they are a potential outlier?
• How can we “engineer” opportunities for students?
• Timing is so important – we must prepare students so that they are ready to take advantage of an opportunity when the time strikes.

After a successful first “un” book club meeting, the group has decided to move forward and pick a new book to help us frame our upcoming conversation.  The new book will be My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor.  We will be meeting at noon on Monday, February 9th in the TLC Sandbox (Kade, second floor).

The work group of staff members that formed after the last all staff meeting has been working hard to come up with some ideas for the structure of a staff council.  They have met, researched, brainstormed, debated and researched some more to find ideas that might help to organize the MIIS staff into a high performing team.  This group is now bringing three ideas for a structure back to the entire staff population to get their insights as to the best approach to give voice to the entire staff.  The meeting on January 15th, at 3:30 pm in the Irvine Auditorium will be to introduce the ideas and solicit feedback/new ideas.  There is a quick overview of the ideas below, but it is important for staff to attend the meeting  to discuss the various benefits of the different structures.

Regardless of structure, it is the hope that some sort of organization for staff will promote a sense of community, act as a liaison between the various constituents at MIIS, foster a culture of communication and collaboration, and work towards making MIIS more effective in living up to its mission.  All ideas include more all-staff meetings, working with the administration/board/faculty/students, and strengthening communication among the groups on campus.

Representative Structure

• The staff is divided into 8 to 10 groups – each group elects or volunteers one representative to serve for 1 or 2 years.
• Council has a President, VP and recording secretary/treasurer
• The council has various committees such as: benefits/compensation, communications, professional development, event/philanthropy
• Committee chairs solicit help from others on campus to deal with particular issues

3-person Steering Committee

• Steering committee facilitates one or two all-staff meetings per semester
• May also meet with board, faculty senate, or student council
• Provides means of communication between staff and administration
• Committee members nominated and elected by staff
• Serve for one year term
• Voluntary subcommittees formed ad hoc as needed to address current issues and concerns

6-Person Advisory Team

• Small diverse group (5-6 people) – volunteers
• New volunteer opportunities offered annually
• Dynamic/flexible – dependent on the needs/concerns of the staff
• Work off annual agendas set by the entire staff
• Facilitate regular staff meetings (quarterly, monthly?)

See you on January 15th!