Last winter, the Obermann Center hosted a workshop that asked participants to inquire into two questions: What are our most closely held values at the UI? How do our policies and practices express those values?
Along with the Vice President for Research, International Programs, and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, we sponsored a visit by a team from Michigan State that has developed the Humane Metrics Initiative for the Humanities and Social Sciences (HuMetricsHSS). The group provides workshops at universities, colleges, and professional organizations around the country with the goal of empowering people at all levels of an institution by helping organizations identify their core values and align reward mechanisms with those values—in every domain from grades and funding to promotion and tenure.
The Iowa workshop, which included people from across many roles and areas of the University of Iowa, provided a space to collectively imagine the UI’s future. As Obermann director Teresa Mangum said, “Among the innumerable discoveries I’ve made through my work at the Obermann Center, nothing is clearer than the widespread desire for a career dedicated to meaningful work rooted in shared values. When students and faculty members can agree upon a mission based on intellectual and cultural values, their inspiration and contributions soar.
The rhetoric of ‘productivity’ makes many of us feel like cogs in a machine. The language of values is closer to the reality that we chose to be artists, scholars, researchers, and teachers because we wanted a vocation, not just a job.”
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