As noted previously, you can respond to your wilderness experience negatively or positively. Your choice will determine how you survive or thrive and how you will leave the island.
POSSIBLE NEGATIVE, DESTRUCTIVE RESPONSES:
Are you exhibiting any of the following behaviors or have you noticed them in your colleagues?
1. Negative attitude expressed in constant grumbling, murmuring, belly-aching, and complaining
2. Blaming your colleagues, administration, staff, or students (i.e., the “blame game”)
3. Shouting, harsh words, rudeness, insults, put-downs, or mean and nasty comments directed at colleagues, staff, or students
4. Shirking responsibilities by not attending meetings or appointments, disappearing for hours at a time, not being available to students and colleagues, and/or being late for class
5. Becoming hardened and bitter about what’s happening
These behaviors are self-destructive, plus they can make everybody around you miserable. You will drive people away. Further, it is total waste of an opportunity to improve yourself as a professional, as you tackle each challenge.
POSSIBLE POSITIVE, CONSTRUCTIVE RESPONSES:
Alternatively, do any of these behaviors ring a bell?
1. Positive attitude to see this experience as an opportunity to grow and mature, and, just maybe, become wiser and stronger
2. Perceive this experience as: “This is only a test. If this had been an actual emergency, it wouldn’t be taking so long!” It’s just another trial on your professional journey.
3. Persevere and move forward in spite of limitations, barriers, and set-backs
4. Release your creative juices to seek solutions with fewer resources, kinda like that classic scene from Apollo 13
5. Reassess your time management or take a time-management seminar so you can become more efficient at handling the increased number of tasks in less time
6. Be grateful you have a job where you still can do something you love, such as teach or write, or do research or clinical practice, or drive people nuts, or any combination of the preceding
This experience will test what you are really made of (“Yo, preposition boy! Stop ending sentences with you know what!” Sorry.). Your true character will reveal itself, perhaps to the surprise of you and the people with whom you work. Which self is that going to be? How will you exit this wilderness?
Let me know your reactions and any suggestions that can help others survive. We’re all in this academic metaphor together!
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
Have you ever wanted to join the cast of one of the "Survivor" reality-TV series, like the Salahis who crashed the White House state dinner? BTW They need to be smacked! Well, you may have your chance.
With the recession invading our lives over the past 2 years, do you feel you have been somehow transported to a desert island, wilderness, or just a desert on your campus to tough it out until you experience the economic upswing the media said is already occurring? You must have had seasons before where your job was difficult. Or, maybe not.
WILDERNESS ALERT: If you have not or are currently not experiencing any problems out of the ordinary and your teaching, grant money flow, research, writing, and/or clinical practice is booming, STOP reading any further. This blog will be a waste of your time.
For the rest of you, it's: guess what? Time to cry out: "Where's Jack Bauer when we need him?" No, of course not, silly. It's "Survivor" time: This “wilderness adventure” on your campus is like “Survivor: The College Campus!” It is probably very different from previous problems you have encountered. It’s unlike anything you’ve experienced in your career, because it’s due to circumstances beyond your control. However, you can exit this experience better and stronger than when it was initially thrust upon you, but only if you make certain adjustments.
That’s what this blog is all about, plus how to end clauses and sentences without prepositions. How can you use this wilderness time as an opportunity to grow as a professional rather than to squander it and regress with each hit that you take?
SO, WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?
Budget cuts in most institutions of higher education nationwide have been affecting daily operations at the department level. How do you know whether you’ve been hit and to what degree? Check out the list below to note whether excessive cuts have diminished your functioning or your programs’:
• New and old programs cut back or cut
• Current faculty and staff (including IT) positions cut or consolidated
• New full-time and part-time faculty hiring freeze
• Increase in part-time faculty to replace full-time
• Salary freezes, cuts, or furloughs
• Cuts in faculty travel, equipment, resources, and/or sabbatical (What’s that?)
• Delays or cuts in building and facility improvements and repairs
• Increases in course-load and general workload
BOTTOM LINE: “DO MORE WITH LESS!”
How have any of these cuts affected you directly? My next blog will identify the symptoms. Then I’ll examine the possible negative, destructive responses and positive, constructive responses to survive the wilderness experience.
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
