Penn State Values: Integrity

Often in this section of our weekly memo, I discuss things that I have been thinking about and need to concentrate on for myself and the department. For the past few months, I have been thinking about Penn State Values and what they mean to us as a department in our daily lives. In particular, I have been thinking about how I can more fully embody them and promote them as a standard for everyone in the department. I believe that all members of our department strive to manifest the Penn State Values although we are human and sometimes fall short. Bench marking our adherence to these standards and hold ourselves accountable for these values is the first step.

In the coming months, we will be having some activities to help us explore Penn State Values. These workshops coupled to evaluations and climate surveys should help us to identify the areas where we need help in fully upholding and demonstrating these values. Our department will be stronger when everyone engages in these activities and shares their experiences of the times that we succeed and the places that we fall short. Over the next couple of weeks, I am going to review the Penn State Values to begin to prime the pump.

According to the Penn State Values, “INTEGRITY: We act with integrity and honesty in accordance with the highest academic, professional, and ethical standards.” The author So-Young Kang says that we often misunderstand the meaning of integrity and she describes integrity as integrating the various parts of ourselves into one complete person. She defines three myths that keep us from increasing our application the principle of integrity:

1) Integrity = just being honest
2) Balanced and compartmentalized life = life of integrity
3) Being in integrity = natural, effortless, just ‘part of who you are’

There are other ways of understanding integrity. I had a colleague who used to talk about being out of integrity with someone when someone reacted in a way that made the other person feel less comfortable in our workplace. This colleague always did the hard thing of going to talk to the person afterward, to bring himself back into integrity with them. This is not effortless and some people avoid having the conversations that would bring them back into integrity. Sometimes you are out of integrity with someone and they don’t want to have this conversation with you or be back in integrity with you right away. Patience is sometimes required.

Below are examples of integrity adapted from the Penn State Values page.

• Maintaining confidentiality when dealing with issues that require discretion.
• Reporting things that happen in a fair and accurate way.
• Conducting research in accordance with federal and PSU regulations on ethical research.
• Appropriate credit given for work.
• Academic integrity and Honor Codes.
• Employee Assistance Program provides confidential services for help in our private and professional lives.
• Following through with investigating breaches of integrity to demonstrate that we value integrity.
• Full engagement with PSU SARI training.
• You@PSU performance review process placing greater emphasis on integrity and other values to meet personal goals.
• Bringing forward the concerns of students around times when we fail to manifest the Penn State Values.
• Not exaggerating our descriptions of situations.
• Using copyright for software and other resources appropriately.
• Informing, educating, and holding students, staff, and faculty accountable to the professional ethical standards of their chosen major fields.
• Increased transparency of budgets and the budget process in our unit.

I am certain that we all have room for improvement and I would like for each of us to take the time to think about where we might make progress. We can start by asking ourselves: what functions could I do with more integrity; with whom am I currently out of integrity and what would I need to do to get back into integrity with them; and what am I not doing with as much integrity as I should because it is hard.

Here is hoping that you are able to integrate all the parts of yourself this week.

Carolee

Stand Up

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This weekend I had the opportunity to participate in an uplifting event. I attended the 10^th Annual Stand Up Award Ceremony held by the Rock Ethics Institute to honor and promote Ethical Leadership. I was invited to speak on behalf of Hayly Hoch (http://sites.psu.edu/standuppsu/hayly-hoch/) a student award winner who is dedicated to sustainable agriculture and bringing an understanding of food systems to all Penn State students. She was one of the dedicated students that helped to get the Penn State Student Farm in the ground (as opposed to off the ground). PPEM faculty had a chance to visit this valuable resource last week. As an interloper in Hayly’s story, I was delighted to meet her family and mentors and see how her trajectory brought her to this outcome. It is her authenticity above all else that drives her to lead in this area.

Each of the awardees have done something significant for Penn State and other communities. Each faced opposition or difficulties in achieving their goals and persevered. In speaking about Hayly, I said I had witnessed her resilience. Although many of their ideas had been rejected, they moved forward with positive energy to find ways to make their projects work. They didn’t dwell on these losses but plotted what could be successful. I keep this in mind and use it as inspiration when the wind has been taken out of my sails by disappointments that inevitably come when we reach to become more than we currently are.

One thing that I truly appreciate about our department is that our students, staff, and faculty Stand Up for what they are passionate about. Some take a nuanced approach of asking questions out of genuine curiosity and others give fiery commentary. Regardless, it is clear that the reasons that members of our department Stand Up is because we care about the people and the program and we remain truly invested in the greater good. We are at our best when we give space to listen to each other and are open to the idea that our perspectives can change when given quality information and sound logic about alternatives.

If you would like a little inspiration to help you Stand Up, watch this video about the former award winners: https://youtu.be/GjNcV7X78gQ

Thank you all for serving as my inspiration, you keep me standing!
Carolee

Forensics in PPEM

Forensic PPEM might give you images of someone studying the microbiology of a crime scene. But this week I am thinking about several oratory experiences available to members of the department last week. The term forensics comes from the Latin word forensis which means ‘in open court, public’ and can be applied to presentations that are then challenged and defended in a collegial fashion.

Professor Brenda Wingfield joined the department last week for a sabbatical visit and offered to facilitate a research data breakfast club. She kicked off the club meetings by presenting her work on a conundrum she is facing in research on the genetics of mating type loci in her fungi of favor from the genus Ceratocystis. She explained that the research data club is an opportunity for someone to present raw data or early in a project in order to have friendly challenges about the approach and meaning of the results. She at FABI they meet before 8 AM and use this to improve their students’ abilities to defend their work and to make it better. The meeting was a success as a virologist, Dr. Rosa, looked at this problem from a different angle and provided some excellent ideas that may help solve the puzzle. We hope to see you at this week’s event. Please arrive by 9:30 AM to gather breakfast items and be ready for the speaker by 9:45 AM.

We saw an additional case of this during this week’s Microbiome Meeting. Where a documentarian presented their proposal for studying a complex microbiome problem. The scientists in the room where challenged to accept the process by which the artist was exploring knowledge. The artist was challenged with the knowledge held by the scientists and was supported to take the next step to make her work more scientifically rigorous. What came out of this was the idea for a grant.

This kind of challenge and improve approach was also mentioned in the brown bag lunch at which faculty, graduate students, and staff discussed successful strategies to grant success. One student shared that it was the challenges that he received by showing his proposal to several people in sequence that helped him to dig deep and write a successful grant. A faculty member shared that it was the comments back from a grant being rejected several times that helped make it better and finally get funded.

This congenial challenge and support approach is not new to our department. Our first written History authored by Dr. Tammen describes how this was done in the past. “This series of courses was to be “topped off” with a rigorous “challenge and defend” course on the advanced principles and concepts of plant pathology. This course was offered by Dick Nelson, one of the key leaders of our faculty in the development of our graduate program. He taught this course in the evenings in his home located just a few blocks from campus. The students were assigned premises for out-of-class study; after a week of preparation, they met for open discussion. They were told to come prepared to either attack or to defend the premise, but didn’t know which until Nelson made the assignment on the spot. The students considered the course to be a rigorous and challenging, but outstanding, experience. It prepared them well for their comprehensive exams and, equally important, for active participation in professional forums. In time, this course became a part of the lore of the graduate experience in plant pathology at Penn State by all who experienced it.”

Over and over again, I have seen the faculty in the department use the principles that are used in forensics in dealing with contentious issues. It is refreshing to watch as individuals disagree about approaches and outcomes using data and precedent without getting personal. A few times when I have seen someone step over that line, I have heard them apologize for getting so passionate. Minds can be changed and common ground found if we are all open to the process of collegial debate. With the goal of getting better at this myself, I am trying to adopt and use the techniques I see in those members of the faculty who are the best at this. It seems as though they hold curiosity as the main driver in these conversations rather than getting their way.

In these times where our political landscape is filled with personal attacks and lack of or distortion of data, it feels really good to be in a place where we focus on the issues rather than the personal. I hope you will continue to encourage healthy and collegial debate in our research and our programs.

Here’s to a challenging week.
Carolee

We Are Compassion

This week we banded together to support Diane Yoder (the PPEM Office Manager) and her family in the aftermath of the devastating fire that gutted their home Friday morning. Just as they have only begun to pull their lives back together, we have only begun to support them. Diane, Steve, their children, and their extended families are grateful for the support members of the department and college have been giving. When I think of the term WE ARE, it is our compassion for one another and our sense of community that I think of.

There will be plenty of opportunities to help in the coming weeks. The family will be moving into temporary housing and will be having their home rebuilt. We are still collecting clothing and household items for them. You can bring items to the conference room on Fridays or to my house (we are starting to store stuff in our garage). You might consider an anonymous cash donation which can be given to Christina Dorsey or you might give to the online campaign https://www.generosity.com/emergencies-fundraising/steve-and-diane-yoder-house-fire-fundraiser–2. In just two days we have raised ~$2000 mostly from donations of $25 and $50 online and more in cash. That is amazing. It is also impressive how many donations are coming from people in the college outside of our department.

Keep your eyes open for an opportunity to share more than a meal at our April potluck. Nancy and Judy are already scheming.

One thing that I truly appreciate about this department is that we come together to support each other. We are individuals with differences of opinion, but we work together for the good of the whole, while supporting each individual. Now more than ever the PPEM feels like family and like home. I am sure that Diane will appreciate that more than ever when she returns to work.

Thank you all for your compassion.

Carolee

Wild and Precious Life

“She’s my favorite!” Rachel Martin said of Mary Oliver three days ago on NPR in discussing a new poetry book celebrating poets. She’s my favorite too and oddly, in the last week, I have heard three women including a yoga instructor, an author of a book on untapped skills, and now Rachel Martin talk about this American poet and winner of the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize with veneration. It brought me back to her poem The Summer Day. When I interviewed for my current position I start my presentation to PPEM with a quote from this poem, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” This phrase is inspirational, full of possibility, and reminds us that we have something unique to contribute, a personal mission. The larger poem contemplates mortality and simple pleasures while inviting us to step out of our day-to-day to see the larger picture. I see this as my job for the department. I step out of the focus on my own research and pay attention to the larger picture of how our department fits within the college, the university, and our disciplines. I am conscious that our department can be inspired to reach its potential.

The value of working on something meaningful and fulfilling comes alive any time we are reviewing our plans for the coming year. We are now in the season when the faculty review their accomplishments for the last year and goals for the coming year with me. I ask, what is it you plan to do with this one year of your one wild and precious life and did your work this year take you closer to your ultimate goal and mission? Hopefully the work we did last year will inspire us to move forward to ensure that our choices continue to be something worthy of our limited time.

As spring begins tomorrow, I am contemplating how to accomplish all that I want to do this year while balancing time for hearth, heart, and health. Another rich and rewarding quarter year has come and gone. Each quarter adds up to a year and those slowly but surely add up to a lifetime. Now is the time to decide what will we do this spring to add to our “wild and precious life”?

Happy Spring Everyone,
Carolee

The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

—Mary Oliver

Ubuntu

My personal mission statement is based on two principles. The first is the philosophy of Ubuntu which when directly translated into English from Bantu, means humanity. Ubuntu has many nuances. This video recording of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, describes the Bantu word Ubuntu and I think it is a part of this philosophy that most of the members of PPEM understand. We open our doors and welcome strangers. I often think that strangers are just friends I haven’t met yet.

Speaking of welcoming strangers, I want to thank everyone who participated in the Graduate Recruitment Weekend last week. We had 11 bright and dynamic students from

Friends we just hadn’t met yet. Graduate Student Recruiting Weekend 2017

around the US and Costa Rica travel to our PPEM home. I believe that they felt welcomed. We opened our doors and shared what we have to give. They are strangers no more. Thanks to the recruitment committee who did a great job of selecting outstanding candidates for us to interact with. We have two additional students headed our way in the next few weeks and I know you will make them feel as welcome. Thanks to the heroic job that Carol Boring and Beth Gugino did to make sure that the 11 students this week arrived here in time for their interviews despite Thursday’s weather. Thank you all for meeting with them, showing them around, and for giving them your honest opinions about the department and the university. We want them to know who we are before they get here. I believe that like last year and the years before, many of the top candidates will choose our department for our strengths. It was the potential of the department and the feeling of Ubuntu that was the tipping point for me in my choice to come here.

The other meanings of Ubuntu also speak to me because I believe in the value and agency of all human beings. The expressions of this philosophy that echo in my head are that: 1) we are not diminished when lift others up, and 2) I am who I am by the role I play in the human family. I have always found joy in the success of others and therefore have tried to help those that are investing in themselves and ask for advice. My role in the human family is as a connector and guide and it is my goal to help others feel joy when others are lifted up. I am feel grateful to be in a position where it is my job to help others to achieve their goals and to be of service, even when they aren’t directly in line with the department’s or my own. This is one reason that my emotions were so mixed when one of last year’s recruits decided that an academic life would not serve his personal mission. I was happy for him to be heading toward his more authentic self, but sad to lose a great researcher. In the end, I was rewarded to know that his reflection in the #OwnBestMentor workshop helped him make this choice. His happiness is worth the effort of being away from my family and putting on those weekend workshops.

Although I juggle the chaos of the department head’s office, I always have time to help you take you next step on your career or with problems you may be having in the department. That is part of the PPEM and my commitment to you even when you leave and go on to be successful elsewhere. So far, I have helped PPEM members craft excellent letters of application, CVs, nominations, letters of recommendation, and other promotion documents. I have helped them strategize the best start up and retention packages. I have helped students to peacefully transition from a lab in which they were not successful to one where they could be. You may think I am here to only help members of my lab, or the faculty, or one group, or another, but in truth, I am ready to help and promote anyone who invests in themselves. Although we are taught to be insular and independent, seeking and taking help is one hallmark of success. Reaching out helps put you in context with the rest of your community. If you don’t feel like you can work with me to take your next step, please reach out to someone else in the department for help. Because our department lives Ubuntu, those around you are willing to lift you up.

Have an uplifting week.
Carolee

Who is on your board of directors?

Members of an academic department are peak achievers. When we are fulfilling our mission we are advancing and extending knowledge through education of our students and the public at a brisk pace. In order to keep up our extraordinary impact and high energy we must be able to keep one eye on the ultimate goal of our work. Understanding what drives us is crucial to motivate us to excel during those late nights (or early mornings) when we need to get one more replication of an experiment completed, we need to proof read a paper again before we send it out the door, or any other task that requires that we work longer and harder. That is one reason why a personal mission statement, displayed prominently in our work space, can be useful and why I try to help people craft their personal mission statements (https://bullpennblog.wordpress.com/personal-mission-bull/). Personal mission statements help us keep focused on what is important.

What if in addition to our personal mission statements, we had a board of directors too? A board of directors is an elected group of individuals that are responsible for overseeing the activities of an organization. They are responsible for the long-term welfare of the

The Board of Directors Chez Carolee & Jean-Philippe

organization. They discuss and vote on affairs of the organization to ensure that the organization has the resources to advance its mission. If you could recruit anyone, who would you have on your personal board of directors? Who among your mentors, family, colleagues, and most respected influences are your top advisors? Whose views do you want guiding and encouraging your activities and actions?

This weekend I spent time making a slide show/collage of my virtual board of directors. I chose photos of the people whose opinions, actions, and impact I want to be part of the organization that is me. Next time I have a sticky issue to solve, I am going to pull out this slide show/collage and “ask” my virtual board how to solve the problem. I have often done this with individuals in the past. I have thought, “gee, how would Patti handle this situation.” That gives me more options than just my own reaction and way of functioning. I look forward to looking at issues through the lens of the entire board of directors. In some cases, I will actually reach out to the living breathing board members, but not all my board members are alive. Additionally, I have set up a virtual board meeting at the end of each month to give me time to ask the big questions of my board:  Am I being positive about the products and services or am I being self-deprecating and thus not inspiring my organizations? Am I getting the training and education I need to excel in my personal mission? Am I truly leading or just pushing the ball in the direction it has always been headed?

I hope you are intentionally building the support system you need and that you are working in ways that make others count you as part of their board of directors.

Have a great week.
Carolee