Two Days in Sedona
I was fortunate enough this year to be invited to the CEO Roundtable Retreat for UCI. This organization works with UCI to build connections in our community with leaders of a variety of for profit and non-profit organizations. As part of their work bridging our communities, each year the CEOs, their partners, campus leaders, and eight faculty members get together to talk about our latest research, the state of the university, and what new initiatives we might form. This year, I was invited to be one of the faculty speakers. I’ll get to the one hour in which I gave my talk and had some great discussion in a bit, but rather than jump right there, I want to give some context for the event in the order I experienced it.
Now, the logistics… it turns out getting to Sedona is not so easy. The busy grumpy part of me wondered what was so different about Sedona from, say, Phoenix or Tucson. The answer: A LOT!. Sedona is an amazing place, much more lush than the rest of Arizona, and I am glad I had a chance to visit it. I am equally glad to have gotten to drive the 2+ hours each direction with Pramod Khargonekar, our new Vice Chancellor for Research. Even though he moved during the weekend of the retreat (or his wife and kids did anyway), Pramod took the time out to attend this event, and I had the benefit of several hours of his wisdom and insight about national trends in research and what we can do as faculty to improve our situation. As a former NSF program director as well as a successful faculty remember and researcher, he has the background to back up his suggestions. Yes, he did tell me to write more grants and higher quality grants, to which I told him, “yes, and we should all eat less and exercise more,” but he also gave me a lot of nuanced thought about how I can make my research better and more impactful. Perhaps most exciting to me is his absolute commitment to Broader Impacts of research, which he carried with him throughout his career and is dedicated to enhancing at UCI.
One we arrived in Sedona, we had just enough time for me to find out how high that altitude is and be reminded that running hills in that altitude is hard for those of us who live at sea level. I was rewarded for my efforts with some gorgeous scenery, including a family of deer out for their evening meal.
Well, and of course, there was a lovely dinner for us as well. The organizers, having again thought of everything, distributed those of us from campus throughout the hall, allowing no more than two per table. I’ll admit, this made me feel a little bit like a zoo animal at first, but in the end, I loved it. This arrangement forced us, especially those of us who can be a bit shy at times, to really get to know the members of the roundtable. At every meal, I made new connections, including some that will help me better develop my research and improve initiatives at UCI and some who will be new friends.
I was, in theory, there to talk about research. However, I found that people were more excited to hear about our new MHCID program, to find out how to hire our graduates, support capstone projects, and get involved. I also had a couple of people tell me they want their own kids to apply. You know you are doing something right when highly successful parents want to support their kids attending! I already have three meetings set up in the next few weeks to talk about greater involvement from these companies with our students. We can do a lot with resume books, social media campaigns, and formal events, but ultimately, it is this kind of one-to-one connection that gets our students hired. Luckily for me, they are a pretty easy sell.
The next morning, the talks began. I had the privilege of following such esteemed colleagues as the Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs and the new Dean of the School of Nursing. There is nothing quite so good in life as having someone who people really listen to set up your talk without even knowing it, and this is exactly what happened for me. These two excellent scholars and leaders talked about the growing need for low cost, out of clinic care. Guess what? My research (and talk) are all about low-cost, out of clinic care for vulnerable and underrepresented populations. I was ecstatic I would get to give some examples from my lab addressing the very issues these two had raised. So, needless to say, I felt like the talk was going well, with a good audience, lots of thoughtful questions, and so on.
I was answering questions, including one from one of my favorite new friends of the weekend who declared she was being “the grumpy old woman in the room” (as an aside, she is not grumpy nor old, but is a woman, so one out of three). She asked a probing question about limits on technology use by kids that was well phrased and well considered and got at issues of putting so much of this on parents and grandparents who may not feel like they have the experience and knowledge to regulate their kids directly. It started a wonderful lively discussion that continued for me throughout the weekend.
The last question came from one of our leadership council members who I have known since I was a newly minted PhD. He asked about putting some hands-on technology spaces for kids directly on the UCI campus. Since then, we have continued to work together with a variety of leaders on campus and some other great faculty and staff who are already doing STEM outreach. We are looking for new ways to teach STEM on campus while augmenting the wonderful organizations already doing this work around Orange County. Once again, I get to tackle a great new user experience problem… Some people say when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. So, maybe I am guilty of that. But to me, whether its designing STEM educational programs to support kids in our community, designing a new Masters program, or figuring out how in the heck Windows could let me accidentally delete my whole C drive (yeah, that happened this week), user experience REALLY IS the hammer the whole world needs.
Oh, and I also got to close out my weekend with an awesome hike with these lovely ladies:
I am pretty sure my designs will never be as beautiful as that hike in Sedona, but I am also pretty sure they are all more usable than some of those trails. In short, an amazing and worthwhile weekend.
