“How did you accomplish all of these pieces at your institution?”
That’s the question posed at a workshop on data disaggregation I was doing for another institution. While I’d been facilitating conversation, leading activities, and making recommendations based on their circumstances, this question about my institutional activity gave me pause.
“To be honest, we haven’t. We aren’t where we should be on this topic, but here’s the progress we’ve made so far…”
I thought it important to be honest with them. After all, they’re a local institution and may even know people at my institution. I also wanted to point out the necessity for collaboration on such work. In other words, just because I knew what steps to take doesn’t mean I can simply will change or action into reality.
As the conversation continued, we identified some common cultural elements (strengths, opportunities, challenges) and we refocused on their institution. After all, even if my institution was excelling in this domain, we have a different assessment system, processes, resources, and infrastructure of people involved in the work. Successful practices at one institution don’t automatically translate to another.
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