By Beth Eppinger

When you wrote a long report as a professional or a research paper as a student, did you wonder if your supervisor or instructor would actually take the time to read it? If you had this doubt, you likely did not believe they cared enough about your time or efforts. When I was an RA, my RD and senior RA left the staff suddenly. During the interim time of no leader, I of course still had to perform my job duties, which included completing program evaluations. In the middle of a program evaluation, I wrote a very snarky sentence about my displeasure with the lack of leadership. I learned within a few days that indeed, someone in the central office still cared enough to read my evaluation and call me in for a meeting. They were clear yet kind that my unprofessional approach was not the correct method of communicating. We ended up having a very good conversation, and communication with the remaining staff quickly improved.

The idea of caring is not mine alone. Just last year, Kevin McClure published The Caring University. Instead of being about how we as practitioners can care for our students, it instead focuses on employees. A caring university cultivates the strengths of its employees so the entire institution may benefit. Focusing on the workforce does not mean students are no longer the focus, but instead strengthening the workforce keeps a department or university student centric. The book may be aimed at university-wide change, but it has plenty of nuggets of wisdom for anyone in higher education. I encourage you to give it a read or a listen as an individual or a team effort. What you learn from it could become a blog post!

How do you show your employees and colleagues that you care about them? Caring may be a more touchy-feely word than you are used to in the workplace. Other more professional words instead of caring may include supportive, attentive, communicative, collaborative, trust, and inclusive. What are you going to start, stop, or continue doing to show genuine care to others around you? Keep reimagining what you, your colleagues, your employees, and your student staff need to feel they are genuinely valued in your department. We all know someone who is burned out or overwhelmed. Show them some care.