Recent Publication: Growing Orchids Among Dandelions

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes

Last month, a work that I was collaborating on with two amazing colleagues and friends (Deborah Kronenberg and JT Torres) got published.  It was a piece for Inside Higher Ed called, Growing Orchids Among Dandelions and I appreciate the sentiment we put forward in it.  

I know that we didn't necessarily solve anything but I do find metaphors and analogies help me put things into perspective. What I enjoyed about this was not just it was a collaborative effort with two people whom I deeply appreciate as human beings but are also have such rich insights and provocations to my own thinking that it pushes me to see things differently.  

We wrote this piece last fall as we were all navigating new and different work contexts and realized there was something to be said about the overlapping experience we were encountering and had experienced over our collective years in higher education.  

You can read the excerpt below or the full piece over on Inside Higher Ed.

Growing Orchids Among Dandelions

Many of us working in higher education, including those of us in teaching and learning centers, might find that our work is dramatically accelerated by rapid technological change and increasing pressures to be more efficient and productive. Technology adoptions such as smartphones and Slack, video communication, and now generative AI all contribute to the acceleration of the organizational culture.

In her recent essay “Teaching Centers Aren’t Dumping Grounds,” Kerry O’Grady argues that many academic leaders “focus on more instead of on effectiveness and efficiency.” O’Grady recounts continued calls to “create more workshops, more one-pagers or more training when attendance was dismal for initial sessions, or when the original documents went untouched.” She argues that educational developers are in a constant state of emergency response, in which they are tasked with “retroactive cleanup” as opposed to “the work of proactive planning for teaching and learning success.” O’Grady calls for a much-needed reset—something that feels wonderfully exciting—and institutionally unrealistic.

Our collective teaching and working in higher education at more than 20 institutions over 50 years tells us that we are always working with limited agency to significantly change how our centers align with our strategic vision and the changing needs of the institution. Amid the dizzying pace of constant disruption, we feel a need to find a more sustainable and pragmatic approach. O’Grady’s essay inspired us to reflect on our strategic plans and how we support our respective communities. While the “dumping ground” metaphor importantly calls attention to current challenges, we consider a different metaphor that has guided our decisions as we direct centers and support educators.

To read the rest of it, check it out on Inside Higher Ed. 

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