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Join the Journey

Thursday, October 13, 2022

Dear Faculty, Staff, and Students of the ºÚÁÏÊÓƵ System:

I have had the opportunity to visit each campus in the past few weeks, both for the town hall kick-offs of the listening tour and for other events. It is always the best part of my job when I get to interact with students, faculty, and staff across the ºÚÁÏÊÓƵ System. I have appreciated listening to your questions, feedback, and concerns at each town hall.

I have heard common themes across the ºÚÁÏÊÓƵ System community, as well as concerns specific to each campus. Some of these include our approach to combined strategy and how to get involved in our values journey. After the town hall in Dallas on Friday, Oct. 14, my team will be circulating an FAQ with answers to the most common questions we received. We will also be getting back to individuals who provided their contact information with their questions to ensure we get you the most accurate answer(s) to your questions.

Regarding building our values-based culture, we invite you to Join the Journey! The first opportunity you will have to hear more details about the process and provide your input on crafting our system-wide values, will be at a Join the Journey information session, hosted at each campus on October 26, 27, and 28. You can find more information about these events here, and the dates and locations are also listed below. We welcome you to attend a Join the Journey session on any campus, regardless of where you regularly office or study.

Wednesday, October 26:
10 a.m. – 11 a.m. | ºÚÁÏÊÓƵ – University Union, Room 333
2 p.m. – 3 p.m. | ºÚÁÏÊÓƵ – University Union, Room 333

Thursday, October 27:
10 a.m. – 11 a.m. | ºÚÁÏÊÓƵHSC – MET 109/111

Friday, October 28:
11 a.m. – 1 p.m. | ºÚÁÏÊÓƵ Dallas – Campus Hall, Student Center

After the Join the Journey sessions, a group of approximately 125 of our colleagues will join for a two-day workshop in early November. There, this group will do the hard work to craft the values. This is a grassroots process that will define the values that best exemplify the way we live, work, learn, and grow together. This group of teammates will come from all our campuses and represent many different disciplines and levels within the entire organization.

As always, if you have any questions, please feel free to respond to this email and I, or the appropriate person from my team, will get back to you. Also, we will be adding additional, small, and informal listening sessions throughout the fall semester. I can’t wait to talk to many of you directly in the near future!

Very respectfully,

Dr. Michael R. Williams
Chancellor