We had our first annual Division of Teaching and Learning Technologies retreat last week, January 9 and 10, and I found it a wonderful experience. We didn’t do much “business.” Instead, I tried hard to keep our attention on the macrocosm: strategy, a sophisticated awareness of the university environment and our place in it, inquiries into the meaning and purpose of our work here and in the world of education and information technology generally, and so forth. I have to say that it took a real effort for me to stick to that vision for the retreat. There’s an amazing and astounding amount of business to take care of, as is true in every academic IT department I know of. Planning the retreat, I felt slightly delinquent. After the retreat, I felt just fine. It was more than worth the stretch.

Three major components, and an optional bonus round, anchored the schedule:

1. Now, Discover Your Strengths provided a profile instrument and a set of useful heuristics to get us talking about individual talents and team co-ordination. Even those who weren’t finally as enthusiastic about this book as I am found it helpful and generative.

2. We spent a good deal of time on a mission statement, still a-borning. The discussion was built on a set of nouns (what do we want to deliver to the University?) and verbs (what actions characterize our work in this environment, especially in support of the nouns?). The mission discussion, like the strengths / team discussion, was very rich.

3. We met with several senior leaders at the University for informal presentations and Q&A. Obviously stemming from my experience at the Frye Leadership Institute this past summer, the idea was to have these leaders talk to us about their role at the University, how that role supported the University’s mission, and (if they were so inclined) how they saw information technologies supporting that mission. I am proud and grateful to say that every one of the leaders we contacted agreed to speak with us, and every one of them brought us a valuable perspective that informed the entire retreat very productively.

4. The bonus round (a late inspiration from yours truly) was the feature film for our optional movie night on Monday, Errol Morris’s Fast, Cheap & Out of Control. I thought these interwoven stories of obsessive, creative individuals who are trying to understand themselves and their work might feed into some of our other discussions during the retreat. And so they did.

My special thanks to our team of Instructional Technology Specialists: Lisa, Jerry, Jim, Martha, Patrick, and Andy. They rose to each challenge beautifully and exceeded all my hopes for engagement and spirited contributions. Now down to business, and chins up.