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Welcome to Fall In-service 2007

Mary Spilde's Letter to Faculty and Staff

Dear Colleagues,

Welcome to the 2007-08 year. I hope that all of you had a wonderful summer. If you were working on campus or at our centers during the summer, I hope you still had some time for rest and relaxation. If you were able to be away for the summer, I hope you had a good break. The summer seemed too busy and too short to me. I did manage to get over to Scotland to take care of my mother for a couple of weeks and had a week's vacation in Mexico which was great.

You may have noticed that you did not receive a detailed in-service letter at home this year. It was replaced with a postcard referring you to the In-service Web site. Yes, it saved some money but the primary reason was to save paper - part of focusing on sustainability, our new core value. You can access the entire in-service schedule at 2011sitearchive.lanecc.edu/inservice. There really is some great stuff going on.

This year we are doing our all-college gathering a little differently. Last year was such a tough year for everyone that I thought it might be a good idea to do something different. You may recall that last year I mentioned the concept of UBUNTU. In its simplest form, it is defined as the "art of being human." With origins in South Africa , UBUNTU is an all encompassing view of world life and humanity. The word itself is Zulu and inspires us to learn from others as we learn from ourselves. UBUNTU is the humanistic experience of treating all people with respect and dignity and understanding that we are all part of a greater whole. This year I thought we might take that concept and put it into practice by spending time taking care of ourselves, each other and this place we all love.

To that end, I will be giving the state of the college address as usual but much shorter than last year. (I can hear you cheering!) Then you will have choices to participate in wellness classes (taking care of yourself); spending informal time with colleagues - going for a walk, having a cup of tea, catching up with one another (taking care of each other); or signing up to do some tasks around the college (taking care of our surroundings). Every year a group of faculty and staff from the college participate in the United Way Day of Caring. Last year about 50 of us worked in the Grass Roots garden. The camaraderie of interacting with one another was great. I thought "why not at Lane," giving us the opportunity to take care of this place, under the leadership of the classified staff. Our classified staff do a great job, and sometimes we may take for granted the fact that our classroom is clean, or the grounds are looking spectacular. There is no better way to appreciate the work they do than to walk in their shoes for a while. Plant the Learning Garden with Jane Ashley or maintain the Learning Trail with Joe Russin; or sign up for a primer on Tai Chi or Pilates, NIA or Thunder Drums (mmmm...I wonder what those are?) with some great instructors.

So bring your work out gear and/or gardening gloves and choose something fun to do with your colleagues!

The all-college gathering begins in the Center for Meeting and Learning with coffee at 8 a.m. We will start the proceedings at 8:15 with my address. After a break, activities will run from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Lunch will be served from 12:15 - 1:15. We are planning to have music in Bristow Square .

As we approach the new year, undoubtedly we will face challenges, but there are also many opportunities. It will be whatever we collectively make of it. Our focus must continue to be on the reason we are all here: to provide quality learning for all of our students. I am confident that by working together we can meet the challenges and come out even stronger.

I look forward to working with you this year and wish you a successful and fulfilling year.

Mary