 students who may transition from minority serving institutions into predominantly white research institutions like the University of Michigan and other related research. So in this case, we will be talking about partnerships which is kind of the center of the MSI initiative. Also a part of these coffee chats, another goal is to highlight the work that folks around the University of Michigan are doing. So there are a number of programs, apartments, schools, colleges, individual faculty members who have relationships with minority serving institutions. And we wanna get that out there. We wanna be able to highlight that in order to kind of establish some best practices as it relates to engaging in these interinstitutional relationships. And also we wanna highlight exemplars from across the country. So we've brought in folks from other institutions who have shown or demonstrated to be exemplars in engaging with minority serving institutions in culturally and intellectually responsive ways. And so that's kind of why we're here today. And before I get moving further, I just wanna kind of make a couple of notes. One will probably be a pretty intimate group here this afternoon. So I'll ask for you all to kind of monitor your microphones and ensure that you're kind of muted while folks are speaking and there'll be an opportunity to kind of engage and unmute and ask questions towards the end of the talk here today. Also the transcription has been enabled. So in the event that it's not shown on your end, you can click at the bottom of the page where it says more and you have a number of options, chat, record, see transcript, you can enable the transcription on your end. Also think it's incredibly important to note that we'll engage in some discussions and sometimes there may be a different viewpoints. And so we just ask that folks kind of be aware of how we engage in these spaces intent versus impact and just kind of being mindful of the space that we share and occupy here. This afternoon. Also I want to acknowledge my colleague Chloe Secor who is in incredible support in ensuring that things kind of get done and helps me to make sure that I don't miss out on some things. But she's just incredible colleagues. I want to acknowledge her contribution to this work along with Jordan Payton who's a graduate student in the higher ed program here at Michigan who also supports this work. And then lastly, Emma Flores as well who also ensures that this work moves forward in the way that it should. And so with that, I'd like to give you a little bit of background on the MSI Initiative in general. So I've been in this role for about four and a half, for about four and a half year time flies apparently. And the idea behind this work is that we support graduate and professional programs across the university in their outreach and engagement efforts with minority serving institutions. And again, as I mentioned earlier, we want to do so in a way that are intellectually and culturally responsive. Yes, we are Michigan. Yes, we consider ourselves to be the leaders and best but we also can stand to learn and benefit from the assets and strengths of institutions elsewhere as well. So that's kind of why we're here. And in developing out this work, I use our guests' work and her colleagues' work to kind of inform how we think about these relationships and what we should be considering as we outreach and how we maintain and sustain and scale relationships moving forward. So with that, I invited Dr. Pamela Edie who was a professor of higher education and education policy planning and leadership at William & Mary. We, I met Dr. Edie some time ago as our work intersects around community colleges and her research centers around community college leadership and development, organizational change, educational partnerships, in addition to like gender roles in higher ed and faculty development. Dr. Edie is also a consultant for a number of campuses around these very topics and university systems and so on and so forth. She's authored a ton of books and a number of articles related to higher education leadership and partnership. So she is certainly an expert and a trusted and valuable source in this space. She received her PhD from the school west of us, also known as Michigan State University, Masters from Cornell University and has a BS in economics from Allegheny College. So without any further ado, I would like to invite Dr. Pamela Edie. She discusses using strategic partnerships to scale change. So thank you Dr. Edie. Thanks for that warm welcome. I do want to acknowledge too that much of the work that I've done on partnership has been in collaboration with Marilyn Amy. So it will feel like she's in the room with us here today. And I'm excited to be able to talk about what we have found over the years with working on partnership. Let's see, I got to get my right, there we are. So part of the issue with looking at partnerships is why are we doing it? And it's often centered around issues of change. And we know there are a lot of pushes for changes on campus that have been ongoing and then some that are coming to the forefront even more so because of the last two years with the pandemic and with reckoning with racial inequities in our country. So trying to think of this in terms of how we're able to work collaboratively to tackle some of the problems that we're all facing together. A big issue that we find with looking at partnerships is the policies that are either in states or in federal grants that are really pushing forward with collaboration saying that you have to collaborate with someone. And so oftentimes you'll see some of these partnerships that are emerging because someone is telling us to do this. So I'll talk a little bit about some of these ideas of motivations. I wanna start with what we have delineated as differences between strategic partnerships and traditional partnerships. When we first started this work probably about 15 years ago, we were looking at trying to figure out what is it about a partnership that makes it tech? What are some of the elements that make some succeed in ways that others don't? And over time we began to have even further delineation between what we labeled as traditional partnerships that tended to be more happenstance that emerged because of a need or a mandate that happened versus strategic ones that had much more thought about how values might align and similarities and goals. And seeing that we see differences in the potential of outcomes for these. It doesn't mean that traditional partnerships are not going to be successful. It's just that the strategic ones have more opportunity for longevity and sustainability. When we looked at some of the literature about partnership, we really saw that there were different reasons and motivations for individuals to wanna do or engage in these collaborations. So as I mentioned before, a big part of this was mandate. So anytime that a state system was requiring something or anytime a federal agency was requiring it, there was a need to say, okay, I gotta look around and think who could I partner with on this? So we see this often with transfer in states. And so in our state in Virginia, we're in the process of doing a complete overhaul on the transfer agreements and trying to have that help with the educational pathway for students. We see it also with respect to economic development. So you often will see partnerships developing between universities or institutions of higher ed and community agencies as ways to help regions develop or to be more desirable for people to come and work in. And then finally, trying to look at this idea of goals and values that are gonna have alignment and that you have similar interests. And so you end up being in the same area and working with others. When we started developing this model of partnership, it took on different formats. And what we essentially came up with are three different phases in this development of partnering. And so the previous slide talks about some of these rationales for motivations to partner. And so here you see them again, illustrated. It could be a combination of these. It could be one of those driving the desire to partner more so than another. When you take a step back then as a leader in this instance and trying to figure out, how do I start looking at this with some intention, especially with this idea of scaling change so that anything that's gonna emerge from a partnership is going to have a longer shelf like it and some sustainability with that. So oftentimes, when you're doing an assessment at this stage, trying to figure out what is it that's driving people to want to participate? Is it that we're just chasing money for a grant? Which is not a bad motivation. It's just understanding that as a source of motivation may mean if the money runs out, then the partnership may dissolve. Is it because there is a link to specific objectives we have both in our institution and specifically within any strategic plans? And then what are some of the reasons that are much more individual? So this notion of social capital comes up quite often in the work on partnership. And sometimes it's the idea of how people know one another. So some of those relationships may be more informal or formal. And so it could be you happen to be going to the gym with the vice president and you happen to have a conversation and learn of an opportunity. It's those kinds of connections that develop social capital among individuals and groups. Looking at this also at multiple levels. So we see a lot at an individual level that might be based on some of the social capital and relationship. And then this idea of dancing with partners was a way for us to capture the fact that you may be engaged with certain individuals because of the similarity at the time. And also the idea of understanding who might be potential partners with us. The second phase in the partnership model that we built is really what I conceptualize is the guts of the model. And what this is really talking about some of the pieces that go into creating and sustaining a partnership. So I've mentioned before already this idea of the objectives. And so trying to come up with shared objectives for the partnership. It's really important to understand what is out there and what is available. So especially as you're looking to develop strategic partnerships is getting a wide expanse of what is going on, who's doing it, how do I get in the circles to begin working with those individuals. You're gonna see over on the right hand side of this slide the idea of the relationships that are critical for forming these partnerships. Some of them are going to be based on the idea of personal expertise. The issue of institutional resources is another aspect of this. And in particular when you're developing a partnership to have this on an even playing field oftentimes we're going to see some partners having more access to institutional resources versus others. And so trying to really address some of the power dynamics that might emerge as a result of that. Looking at the ways in which we can align our intentional goals individually into the partnership is really important as well. So anything that has more of that alignment in the end feels much more natural and sustainable because you're working for similar purposes. In this aspect of developing it it's really important to develop a good communication plan. Often what you see when partners come together is the creation of a new logo or a new mission statement of whatever the partnership or collaboration might mean. And that's really important to come up with some aspects of shared meaning of how everyone can fit under the umbrella of the partnership. It's some of that jockeying for position and figuring out goals that's really critical in these early stages and having those expectations really laid out is an important aspect. So again, if we take that step back and start thinking how do you help as a leader in these situations? It's this idea of trying to establish whatever the vision or objectives might be for the partnership. And you really need to be able to engage in some of the storytelling of this. So how do you talk about this with others? And in particular, if you're looking at a partnership that is bringing together two different entities how do you go back to your home base and be able to talk about it so that people can see the value added by doing this partnership versus feeling it's something that's going to come at a cost to others. The role of capital here is both on an individual level and an organizational level. So the ways in which we're able to employ that matters. So you may have an individual that's partnering that is a valued partner because they have access to some of that organizational capital or at least knowledge that others may not have. So trying to take that assessment of who knows what is gonna be really important. One of the values of having a collaborative space and some of the writing can talk about this as a third space is that you're looking at a place that has some neutral ground so that it's not necessarily embedded in one organization or another. It has more of a safe space with it which often can create some possibilities to be innovative and try new things that may not be possible in the separate partner institutions or organizations. And how we take advantage of that adaptive space is important and how we're able to bring in individual players as well. You're gonna notice in some of the lists that I'm gonna present later in the presentation this idea of double loop learning versus single loop learning. And so if we go back to some of our organizational theories what you're going to see a single loop learning means, okay, I figured out this was one mistake and I have to go and fix this versus double loop learning that's really trying to look at what did I assume here and is that a correct assumption or do I really need to go back and re-investigate that? And that has a linkage to the kind of change that may result from the partnership either first order or a second order of change. I mentioned already this importance of doing an environmental scan and what that is able to do is to identify what kind of resources, both human resources and capital resources might be available. So if you're trying to create a partnership that is going to have some public outreach who has the skills to be able to build websites? Who has the skills to really do great at community engagement and understanding that and leveraging the skills of everyone that is involved as important aspect of leading this kind of change as well. And then this last phase of the partnership model is how do we talk about it and present it? For those who might follow some of my work, I talk quite a bit about leaders and the role of framing. And so how do you frame a situation so that people can see what the possibilities of it are? And you can think of this often in ways leaders are describing as the glass half empty or half full. So how you're able to approach this and tell the story around this will make a difference. And you really want to get to the point in a partnership that people come in with a shared meaning. So if I'm working as a leader with say a K-12 institution or a community college, I wanna make sure when I'm saying we're gonna try to improve student learning that we actually all think student learning means the same thing. And when I'm looking at trying to have certain other aspects that may come out as outcomes, you wanna make sure everyone is on the same page with that. So taking time at the beginning to be able to really look at individual understandings and even workshopping some of that. As we're putting together these objectives, are we having the same understanding of what it means? We're doing on our campus quite a lot with DEI initiatives. So trying to make sure we have the same understanding of what those mean matters because otherwise we're not gonna see the same kind of progress. Looking at elements that are going to be trust building along the way. The more trust individuals have in the process, the more willingness they're gonna have to engage at a really effective level. Sometimes what happens in partnerships if there is unequal power dynamics, you might see a fear level coming in from those that have less resources and less power thinking really they just wanna come in and gobble me up as the partner. They're not really looking at this as an even playing field. So anything that leaders can be doing to build that trust is really gonna make a big difference in terms of the ultimate success of it as well. The framing change that we present in the book on strategic partnerships that Marilyn and I wrote really outlines these three different approaches to how you might frame change. And the visionary framing really gets at the idea of painting a picture of possible futures for the people that are involved. How they're able to see where the end goal is and how it's a desirable place that people can work hard to try to get to that. The next sort of framing that we identify step by step framing. And what this involves is literally identifying shorter term outcomes or goals. So that individuals that may not quite be able to see that end goal or vision of the future, they wanna know how am I gonna get there? So essentially this step by step is drawing out and telling the story of the fears that are gonna get you to that end goal. So first we're going to do this. Then after you've accomplished that goal, then you frame the next step for them. All the while trying to make sure that as a leader you have an eye on that final outcome so that you're again keeping it towards that same deliverable at the end. And then the final is this role of connective framing. And within connective framing, you see a high level of collaboration within the partnership that's emerging. And what we were able to identify in the work we did is that ultimately there was partnership capital that was created that was beyond any individual, beyond any institutional contribution and that there really was much more blending of the partners in this sense. And again, how you're talking about this is the collaboration and showing value for it versus trying to identify player A or player B really is the only reason this is working and these are the only outcomes that we care about. And from a leader perspective, really trying to role model what this means for others. What does it mean to be truly collaborative? What does it mean to amplify voices in a room that might not be getting the attention because of you picked the reason? And that in and of itself can help in building trust is knowing that someone has your back in those instances. And I amplify this point of shared meaning over and over because if we don't mean the same thing of what we're trying to seek, we're not gonna get there. So when I'm looking at an individual level for any of the outcomes I'm seeking, I need to make sure everyone understands this and that we actually mean the same thing when we're moving forward. And a lot of this takes time. And so one of the things that's really important at the beginning of these partnerships is when we have engagement in some of these meanings is to surface some of this. What are the kinds of terms we're using? How are we trying to think about this? And understanding that others at the table actually know a lot and bringing a lot to the conversation. I think that's particularly important when you're working with community partners. Oftentimes there can be this second class status that community partners are dictated into because university is all knowing. And so really valuing what community partners are bringing to the table as well as individuals is really an important component too. One of the things that I think is always useful when we're trying to think about how we're gonna scale change is what does it look like within transformational leadership? And borrowing obviously from Burns and Bess as we're looking at some of the original work here is to understand the various components. So really trying to understand what is it that's gonna motivate an individual so that you're able to meet a person where they are or a partner where they are in case of this so that you're showing value again for that voice and their expertise. Trying to be able to look at what is currently assumed and how do we question that? When we look at policies in place and these tend to be some of the places where partners get caught up. We're not able to do things because an institutional policy doesn't allow us to pay things out in a certain way or hire someone in a certain way. So the question then needs to be what did we assume with that and then how do we change some of those processes to allow some of the benefits of the partnership to occur? And then the idea of inspiration. I think it can be sometimes what something that is much more flashy that we think, oh, everyone has to be this charismatic leader to be able to be inspirational. And I think it's really much more basic than that. It's really valuing what people are bringing and being able to say, I can see a better future for us because we are partnering together. Can you help me? Can we do this together? And trying to really showcase a lot of that is where the inspiration comes from. The creating of what these possible futures can be really borrows a lot from White's work on sensemaking of how do we showcase this and how do we create it together in terms of what is possible? I think it's handy to look at the traditional strategic partnerships in a side-by-side comparison. This was really useful as we were working on the book project here to draw distinction. And as I mentioned at the beginning, it doesn't mean that a traditional partnership isn't good or that it's not effective. It just has certain outcomes. And so understanding those is really useful. And again, if it's coming together by hand and stance versus being very strategic and looking to acquire partners or work with partners that are going to have values that align in strategic objectives, means you're gonna come up with different types of outcomes. Again, outcomes are all good, but how we're gonna be able to look at those in sustaining ways. I think for me, the biggest difference with this is the role of the kind of change that can occur. So if we're looking at some of the second order change, which really means it's deep change, it's changing systems, it's changing possibilities, it's causing some of that introspection that has much more possibilities for longer-term effects and sustainability. It's not to say that some of the first order change that occurs is not good. You know, if we have a grant and we're working with a partner and the grant runs out and that partnership ends, we still had good outcomes, but we don't see some of that having a longer shelf life. So trying to be able to think of how do we see that in a, again, more intentional way is really important. There's lots of examples that we highlight with different cases in some of our other writing to showcase some of these differences a little bit more precisely. And it very well could be that it's something that started as a traditional partnership emerges into a strategic partnership. So again, it's not to be a tally sheet to say one is better than the other. They're gonna have different purposes and just understanding that can help you as you're navigating some of the collaborations you may be doing either internally on campus or with external partners. So when we look to this, you know, how do I pick people, you know, and is it a choice? Now, often it's not a choice that you need to be working with particular partners. And so it's something that is a given. But when you have that chance to really look and try to understand the alignment, then you can see more potential for movement into that strategic partnering possibilities. And trying to understand not only the ways capital works within the partnership, but your own capital. So you acquire your own personal capital over a career by working with individuals by the expertise you have. So trying to think how do I wanna spend that? You know, what is it that is something that I wanna align with? And for units, you know, what is the best for spending the capital of the unit that I have? Both in the prestige they have as well as the real resources that are at your disposal. So trying to make some conscious choices on that. And something that I've been working on much more this fall is the idea of a pause. You know, how do I take a moment to pause when an opportunity is presented or a new collaboration is presented? And to be able to really take that time to figure out how is this gonna align with the objectives that we have. At the end of the book that Marilyn and I wrote, we have a whole section that really talks about questions individuals can pose as they're looking at some of these emerging partners. And it makes me think of a dating app, you know, some of the things. So how do I look at this? Are your values the same as my values? Is this something that we can see having some synergy as a result of that? And trying to understand some of these power dynamics in there and knowing full well what you're bringing to the table versus others are bringing to the table. And by going through a list like this or a longer list, you're able to have frank conversations at the beginning to make sure you're starting off a partnership, basically on the right footing and you have that ability to understand how you're looking at some of the meaning of concepts as you're moving along as well. So I'm gonna stop sharing my screen so that I can actually see you all. And we can have a chance to talk about some questions you might have. I blew through that very quickly because I really like the opportunity for time to discuss as much as possible. So I'll turn it over to you, Edmund, to see how you wanna handle the questions. Great. First of all, thank you so much for the insightful talk. Again, I'm relatively familiar with much of it because I use this on the daily to inform our workbook. I think it's also helpful in making some of the distinctions between some of these more strategic versus traditional or I think of them in terms of formal and informal partnerships. Thank you for that. I welcome folks to drop questions in the chat or unmute yourself or you can do the raise hand feature and then we can unmute you however you all see fit. So are there any questions from the folks in the gallery? Dr. Eddie, hi, it's Kate. Whenever I saw you were presenting, I wanted to be sure to join. As always, I love your stuff and I think partnerships and we've talked a long time about it but we are just starting to realize as a sector and speaking on behalf of community colleges as you know, we're realizing just how important it is. I mean, I'll just say as part of the Aspen fellowship, the whole idea of collective impact is baked right into that curriculum and any of our presidents, VPs, any leader to community college needs to understand that. So I actually have a bunch of questions but I'll just start with, because I think it's helpful just to share like colleges that are doing this well that you're aware of. Like what are some or leaders or however you might answer the question, where can we find really good examples of how people are thinking about partnerships and ways that are really positively impacting their students and their communities? Well, I would say you're mentioning of Aspen is probably a good way to begin looking at that because certainly any of the Aspen award winners have part of the work or partnership in their portfolios. I think at the base level of this, it really comes down to how do we put student center in a lot of the partnerships, especially with community colleges that we're looking at and the more that we can really attend to what is it that is going to support the student, it emerges for these questioning of assumptions. Well, why do we assume they have to take this course in this way or that format? So we see some of that being really helpful with it. I think a leader that asks questions that might be as simple as, well, why do we do that? And so we see this, especially with some of the pipeline issues with transfer. And so trying to understand when you're having, in some cases, three different systems, K-12 community college and the university setting, trying to talk to one another. And I have, we'll just say, lively conversations with my university partners about how we look at community college transfer and what is assumed about what a good transfer student is or is not. And we often will find some individuals coming with deficit mentalities about this. And so leaders that are able to really address that deficit narrative head on are ones that are gonna make really great progress with that. And really coming back and asking some of those questions about this is not serving our students, it's not serving our community in the ways that are gonna be helpful. And when we're looking at some of the, have a call to the unequal challenges that are coming out of the pandemic, trying to understand how do we begin addressing some of these inequities? So I think that's probably another way that I see leaders playing a real prominent role is questioning that and doing it in a public forum that says it's okay to question this. Of course, we could have an hour long conversation. And Kate, I will shamelessly plug the work that we're doing here at Michigan and some of the partnerships that we're creating with minority serving institutions, what we have folks from the College of Pharmacy represented here that are doing some really good things. Our school of public health is doing some really good things as well. So shameless plug about, and I'm happy that word there. There's a question in the chat around like the ongoing pandemic and its impact on strategic partnerships and how leaders, or how can leaders respond to those? Those challenges. Yeah, I think one of the things that the pandemic has really surfaced is the need for more collaboration and in part because we see our resources being so strained. And so the knee jerk reaction is to start saying yes to everything, yes, I should partner with you or you versus taking that step back and saying, why should this work? What is it that is gonna be beneficial and complementary so that it really, in my opinion, heightens the need for them to be much more strategically oriented. We don't have time as much or the luxury to test drive things that are just in this more happenstance way. And I think the other part is that as we are chasing money off and we may be really motivated to say, yes, I wanna do this partnership because it means it's gonna give me this infusion of capital, but it actually, that partnership may take you away from what your mission or goals are. So as hard as it may seem, it may be the right answer is to take a pass on something like that and to rather build and explore something that is much more strategically oriented because you're gonna see a bigger bang in the end for that. Thanks, Ching-Ching. Yeah, thank you, Ching-Ching. I'll go ahead, Richie. Richie. Hi, Dr. Eddy. First of all, this is an excellent presentation and I very much thank you for it. And the biggest sort of take home message that I caught was that we missed some first steps. So I'm with the College of Pharmacy here at Michigan and we developed partnerships with Xavier, Fisk, Spellman and Morgan State. And everyone was enthusiastic. Yes, this would be great to partner with you. And we did campus visits. We met with sort of all the right people if you will, Deans and whatnot. But we never talked about goals. I mean, we talked about we want your students to come and be part of our graduate programs and pursue doctoral degrees here. But we never had the two-way conversation about goals, right? And so I see where that absence has left us with a shaky foundation, if you will, that is probably unsatisfying on both sides of the equation. And so I just wonder if you'd speak a little bit about having to go back and do some retroactive work. Yeah, well, I would say it's number too late. You know, the fact that you can even articulate or recognize this is more than half the issue here. And so trying to frame these kind of things in ways of inquiry is another approach that you can take. And so it begins, again, setting up that value of the contributions and saying, gosh, I'm really curious about or I was wondering about. And so framing that in a way with your partners that opens up possibilities for the dialogue to be able to understand. And there could also be the way you do it was saying, we've noticed that we thought A was going to happen and it hasn't happened. You know, how might we address that? And so when it is looked at as a joint effort, then it's people are going to be motivated versus thinking, gosh, you're just coming because you want our students, you're going to siphon off the best of the best and what does that leave anyone else for? And so trying to really recognize what is that value added and that two-way street will be really important. And that really gets at some of those power differences when you're looking at partnering. And so both sides, it creates different kinds of issues for. And I think for those that come in some ways from this more powerful one, it's incumbent upon those partners to say, I get it. This is the ways I'm going to address this and what I'll be able to do and what I can value. So I think coming with the inquiry would probably be a good next step with it to see where that might go. Great, thank you very much, very, very helpful. Yeah, yeah. All right, and then I saw there was something that came up in the chat. Yeah, Mission Creek. I think this is something that we talked a lot about or thought a lot about with the partnerships is when do we determine that they've met the goals and they can end and say, this was nice and this work as opposed to a place where it is actually spun off to be its own entity with us. I think the idea of the Mission Creek of that another way to think of it could be that the partnership grows bigger than the partners and so it could be something that is going to spin off to a very different entity that is able to be sustainable in and of itself. And so you can see that happening on occasion, especially when you might see some grant funds that started some work that actually generated something that is sustainable beyond the grant funding time as well. I think we struggle always in higher ed with this idea of Mission Creek. You've got community colleges that are trying to play with research and do much more with that Gloria granting because that's what has to happen. There was a talk, I think it was two or three weeks ago at the College of New Jersey where the lead at Carvelle, the lead at the Georgetown shop basically said, you better all turn into striving institutions. And I think that really shook up the audience a bit to say, well, okay, what about we don't want to do that? And in many ways, sort of validating that. And he was talking about the issue that many of the elite institutions have not had to struggle for moments relative to regionals as well. So that to me is a worrisome comment and it gets at the heart of this idea of Mission Creek even in partnership. So how do we say this is who we are and this is what we want to be as part of that as well. Not sure I got to the answer of it, but it was a soapbox I happened to just stand on. Sorry. So I have a question in terms of like balancing the like centering of students with also thinking about like this, like larger share vision or collective impact. And so how do we manage the individual goals of each institution? So for example, from an MSI graduation and placement, like that's a win for an institution. And the graduate professional programs here having students from marginalized and diverse backgrounds enter the graduate programs is a win. So how do you manage center in the student while also kind of maintaining a much larger share vision independent of those individual goals? Some of that can be obtained by understanding and emphasizing that learning is always a collective as well. And so how do we take this from in some ways the private good aspect of an individual being able to obtain some of these things versus the public good aspect of it? Coming economics, I come back to my roots often we're trying to think of it in those kind of ways as a balance act. And I think what we see emerging is much more blending of that. Yes, certainly we're seeing the individual benefiting from this, but it's always the collective that's gonna advance all of us in a better way. So trying to be able to show examples that essentially is the rising tide lifts all boats is part of it. And I think it also begins instilling in students and I would say everyone on a campus this obligation that things are bigger than yourself. Part of this is this contribution to society. So we see a lot of initiatives that are emerging across the country on democratic values within universities and fostering those. So trying to be able to say yes as an individual we want you to succeed. But the way this is gonna benefit all of us is if we are having your success contribute to something that is a little larger with this collective I think is part of it. I think you see some of that in the work that occurs in student engagement and community engagement. So the historic work on service learning is a way to ground some of that as well. Thank you for that. I also have a question related to like you spoke a little bit about outcomes. And so one question that I kind of get often is related to like what does success look like for a partnership? How do we measure success in these spaces? And so my question is all it depends on like what are the goals and vision of like the individual the folks within a given partnership. I mean, we frame things in the context of relationships just based upon the way that the university framed the partnership as something that's more formal. There's some sort of binding document in place. So can you speak a little bit about how folks can kind of think about what success looks like as they develop a relationship? Yeah, and I think it is difficult on the relationship realm to quantify it sometimes. And the thing that always remains unknown is what's the downstream effect of that. And so when you try to get especially with the bean counters at institutions on this they're often looking at quantifiable aspects. I think looking at the power of the relationships can translate in terms of some outcomes that might be with student placements, programming those kinds of things that you can point to that emerged as a result of the strong relationships that occurred. And it's almost as if you begin keeping a tally sheet of sorts that times at a meeting you might host there may be an informal conversation that occurs that two or more individuals go off and end up doing a sidebar collaboration and being able to capture some of those is important in terms of the success because it's not always obvious what is a direct piece that you might see. It's also hard because we're not always creating widgets in any way. So it's not something tangible that we're able to point to. Looking at some of the metrics of climate and culture can often be one way to look at that so that if you are working with a collaboration with another institution or group of students and trying to look at some pre, post kind of assessments of what is happening. Do we see differences in some of the emerging of the complexity of these relationships as measured by things like climate or culture studies? That can be one way too. Very good, thank you. Kate, Kate has a question. Kate. Hey, sorry, me again. This discussion about partnerships, again, it's something I've been talking about for a long time, but one thing we have not been talking about. And again, I'm really speaking mostly from the community college sector, but I think it's higher ed wide. One thing we have not been talking about and I feel like we really should is the whole idea of mergers and acquisitions. We know M&As are happening and higher ed. They're often not talked about too much or reframed to use or reframed. Can you talk a little bit about it, Pam, of like what you see coming down the pike with mergers, acquisitions, or even like the idea of a strategic partnership where there'd be a combination of institutions. And what we can be doing maybe as you know, sector is higher ed, but really community colleges specifically, if you don't mind. What we should be doing to be a little more prepared because we know it's coming. It's coming. And the irony of this is that some of my early work was on looking at mergers because when I worked at the community college, the system was trying to merge some of us together. And again, it was a different era, but same kind of things. Type resources, why do we have all of these? Can we do this, this better? So I've had a long-term interest in this. And so watching what's happening around the country. And you see even historically with the mergers that had occurred in Minnesota is some of the early ones that came across. Connecticut is set to do their mergers in 2023. So I think looking at this from a community college perspective in particular in light of the enrollment declines is trying to write your own path with this as much as possible. In states that have coordinating boards or systems, you see this occurring or the conversations at least occurring at that system level. How might we do the look at a shared presidency or shared resources in some of these ways? What tends to end up happening is a lot of the smaller institutions are in rural locations which are the places that are cultural hubs for that region. So they really can't eliminate a community college in those areas because we have too much economic need and the access needs as well. If you look at some of Nick Hillman's work on educational deserts, community colleges help address some of that. So I think looking at it really requires people to be open to possibilities and to not be thinking just of themselves but trying to think larger. And that is really, really hard to say, yes, I am the president here, but you know what? In the best interest, it'd be better if I wasn't. And that if we had the opportunity to collaborate more with A, B, or C, I think as much of the groundwork that can be laid in advance showing some collaborations that can help sustain an institution that can be useful so that if you are in what might be contemplated as a threatened institution, who can I begin partnering with either for your other two year to begin showing that I'm willing to play in this kind of arena? I think that can be helpful. What is harder to do is to find the time and thinking space to do this. And so oftentimes what happens, it's thrust on you. So like if you look at Wisconsin and the ways that system was just reorganized, if you have a chance to step back and take a session with a number of community college presidents together and sort of one of these, okay, let's shut the door. Let's, you know, there's no mics on how do we really talk about this in an honest way? That has the potential to come up with some creative ideas to address it versus feeling like you're waiting, you know for it to calm down on you. They just did a JLARC study here in Virginia probably four years ago on this very issue. And at that point determined that the community colleges should not work. Now after the pandemic, we may see a different set of contexts that resources really make it. So we need to think of this. And I don't think community colleges are alone in this. We're going to see some of this research resource crunch on all institutions. And it means we have to look inward to say, all right, we've been doing this for 400 years. Is there another way we might do this? Or what is sacrosanct about how we have delivered A, B or C? You know, having been forced to go into the online environment as one example where let me just say as a second oldest institution in the country, we were very reluctant to say we could do online and you had to do it. So you did it. So it's that questioning of long held assumptions that's going to allow us some other kinds of possibilities. But it's really going to take some courage of leaders to be able to do that. I think we, I have to believe our leaders are courageous. Not maybe not every single one of them, but there's enough that we'll be able to say this is again, bigger than me. This is something that we really have to do for the collective, you know, coming back to that point. It'll be hard to figure this out, Kate, you know, this will be a great thing. We're relying on you, Pam. I know, it's very cool. I'm trying, I'm trying. The key point is we have to be proactive about it. Be prepared to start asking those questions with colleagues and be open-minded so that you're prepared or else you're leaving your students and your communities in the lurch. And we don't want that. No, no. And I think it is their self-reflection you have to be ready for. And they're hard conversations. And so again, it's sort of setting up ground rules for that. You know, how do we have these hard conversations? And, you know, I feel like I go into some meetings and people are like, can you just be quiet? And it's like, no, can you not see? This is going to be an issue. And we actually should talk about that. That was an incredibly thoughtful question and response for, I know we're within the graduate school. I'm still a community college nerd. So that's that. It's an interesting conversation to have. And we're almost at time. So I just want to, again, thank you for just taking the time out of your schedule at this time of year, all the things that are kind of going on, just to kind of share your insights and expertise as it relates to these partnerships. And I'm incredibly thankful for you just as an individual. And, you know, again, as I mentioned earlier, what you have done for me on an individual level, but also how, you know, you're working, your co-authors work has informed, you know, my work here at the University of Michigan. So incredibly grateful. So if we can just give a round of applause virtually for Dr. Lee. Well, and I answered email. So if there are things that come up, our president talks about second day thinkers. So over what you heard, if there's something you want to follow up with me, shoot me an email. My email is just my name, Kamala.eddy at WM.edu. So I look forward to engaging in further conversations with you all. Very good. I just dropped it in the chat. Thank you all for joining us here today. There's also, you all will forget this and you'll get an email from me. But our next coffee chat is scheduled for January 26, I believe. We'll have Gina Garcia from University of Pittsburgh joining us to talk about Hispanic serving institutions and their development over time, to kind of help inform how we think about the ways in which we engage with those institutions. So I encourage for you all to kind of sign up there. And again, thank you all. Stay warm. All right, thanks for the invitation. It was really a joyful day. Yeah, it's very good. Thank you. Bye-bye.