“Taking on a challenge is a lot like riding a horse, isn’t it? If you’re comfortable while you’re doing it, you’re probably doing it wrong.” – Ted Lasso
With the upcoming ACS National meeting in San Francisco, I am working on preparations for the Strategic Planning work the Division will soon undertake. My first task was to construct an application form to allow our members and stakeholders a way to apply for this work. A link to the application form will be sent to you soon after the ACS Fall meeting and it will also be available through our Division’s website. In addition, a letter will go out to our members and stakeholders to provide an overview of the Strategic Planning process and how to apply with the link. Please be on the lookout for this and more importantly, please consider applying!
To prepare for strategic planning, a taskforce has been appointed to develop a list of recommendations for action the Division and members of the future strategic planning committee should consider in their work to foster community, equity, inclusion, and access within the Division. This is an important first step toward building a more equitable and inclusive community, and I look forward to the taskforce’s progress report at the fall meeting.
Apart from this taskforce, I have noticed that a few people have wanted to meet with me or members of the chair succession to share strategic planning suggestions they deem important for consideration, and I wondered if perhaps there are more people who have ideas that they would like to share? For those of you who are Ted Lasso fans, you might recall from season 1 that a suggestion box was constructed to get “constructive feedback” from the team. In the show, they made this fun by offering a cute box and I wish we could have an actual box, but I think the best we can do to match this is to make a “cute” online form. Also, in the show, the coaches anticipated good feedback and they looked for items that they could act on, for example, fixing the shower pressure. In a similar format, I hope by enacting a suggestion form that we will receive good feedback and that we find items that we can act on in our strategic planning work. So please, send us your suggestions, we will be better for it.