Our values and our people are our priorities

As a college freshman in 1988, I was positive I would major in journalism, become an investigative reporter and write cutting-edge news stories about important issues. A year later, I realized my heart wasn't in journalism, so I quit to study political science and philosophy, went to law school, and practiced law for almost 25 years. This week, I will celebrate my one-year “workiversary” as chief operating officer on the CU Boulder campus––and I’m glad I changed paths.

Almost immediately after I began my job, people began asking, “What are your goals for SRS and the campus?” and I had to respond frankly, “I am not quite sure yet.” After all, I hadn’t been on the campus long, hadn’t worked with the SRS units, and I didn’t want to presume that I understood how everything fit together well enough to chart a course. Unlike the 18-year-old who went to college so sure of himself, I’m glad I didn’t come to CU Boulder with a fixed agenda, because it certainly would have been turned upside down in the first few weeks.

We’re now in a different place than we were a year ago, and I’m very hopeful for what comes next. I don’t think we’re going back anytime soon to what we thought of as “normal” a year ago, but our experiences of the past year will no doubt shape our future. We will think differently about how students learn, how we work, and the culture we are creating together.

It’s impossible to embrace someone without opening your arms, and as we consider how to embrace the future, I invite you to consider the words of the Dalai Lama, “Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values.” I’ve been working with my team, and together we’ve discussed the values guiding our work. I want to share them with you, both in hopes that they will help us make better shared decisions and for you to hold me accountable if my actions don’t reflect them.

• Transparency: We must trust each other. It’s unreasonable to ask people to trust leadership blindly, and I’m committed to sharing information with you. It is important to be open and honest about our finances, operations, aspirations and vulnerabilities.
• Agency: We must entrust people to do their best work, allow them to assume responsibility for decisions, and hold each other accountable for progress toward our goals. We will find the barriers that are holding us back and knock them down.
• Empathy: We must value people for their perspectives, respectfully engage with them, and seek to understand how our decisions affect others. People think of CU Boulder as a place, which is true, but its heart lies with the people who study, teach, work, create and live within it. Sharing in each other’s pain, joy, sorrow, excitement and anxiety will make us kinder, help us listen more carefully, and enable us to find better solutions to our challenges.

Former UCLA basketball coach John Wooden said something that resonated with me, ”Good values are like a magnet––they attract good people.” My hope is that if we have good values, we can build upon the strengths we already have, continue to attract and retain passionate and talented people, and create a place where all members of the CU Boulder community feel seen, heard, engaged, and rewarded for their efforts.

In this month’s edition of SRS News, I invite you to read about the people who are embracing our future and CU’s potential. They include OIT’s Aisha Jackson, who is bridging the academic and technology worlds at CU to support student and faculty success, and John Gleason, who is working with regional partners to promote more effective planning, maintenance and operations for campus facilities at Colorado’s educational institutions.

As we continue our work over the coming months, we will share more of these stories and our plans for the future, including building a better and more inclusive campus. For now, you have my commitment to help us advance a person-centered organization that recruits, retains and develops staff in ways that foster greater engagement and trust.

These are the opportunities I welcome as we grow together as a team, and I thank you for all you do. The more I learn about SRS people––about our strengths and our common mission––the more I am confident I made the right decision a year ago.

Thank you all,

Pat