Friday Focus: It's a balancing act
June 10, 2021
— by Nettie La Belle-Hamer, interim vice chancellor for research
“It’s a balancing act.” This is a phrase I have heard my mother-in-law apply to many things in the 37 years (and counting) I’ve been married to her son. And, honestly, she is right. It is a balancing act to raise children and work while getting advanced degrees. It is a balancing act to give proper medications to sustain life in someone, like my father-in-law, with multiple illnesses, such as heart disease and diabetes. It is a balancing act to please people on both sides of the aisle, whether it is a wedding or congress.
I have been in the interim vice chancellor for research position for one year now. And, wow. What a year it has been! I kept many, but not all, of the responsibilities of director for the Alaska Satellite Facility while taking on the VCR tasks. At the risk of oversimplifying, I will say it has been challenging to keep an even keel and my eyes on the horizon. It is a balancing act, after all.
Many of the things I am trying to balance are common to many people. Things like wanting to protect myself and my family from contagious disease, and wanting to be with people again. Or, feeling tired of the isolation but feeling awkward at entering back into normal interactions. Or, feeling strongly that we should believe in science again while wanting very much to be respectful of people regardless of what they believe. It is a balancing act.
Some of the things I am trying to balance are unique to being UAF’s VCR in 2021. It is my responsibility to help UAF researchers across all disciplines figure out the balance between decreasing budgets and creating growth, while emerging into the new post-COVID world. UAF, as the research university of the UA system, is expected to not just maintain that but to grow. At the same time, state funding that provides the underpinnings of research has been cut every year for six years. This may be the biggest balancing act of them all!
I do feel that in general, I am balancing things and you probably are, too. — Jeff Warren, meditation teacher and author, talks about how we should seek to be balancing our lives but also allow ourselves to be unbalanced in the process.
So, while the world is telling us to do more with less, to me that doesn’t balance. We need to do less with less — less red tape, less CYA paperwork, less unnecessary processes — and accomplish what is necessary for UAF to thrive. We need to cut down on doing things the way we have always done them just because we always have. Processes need to ensure we comply with the applicable regulations, policies and laws, but need to balance compliance with simplicity and ease. Let’s flip the script on naysayers who think UAF research is hanging in the balance. We are strong and resilient.
I believe we will be successful. But, it won’t be the way we have always done it before — it will be smarter and leaner, working together. We can grow and thrive. We can do this while conducting research responsibly. We can do this while treating each other with respect. We can, and we will, succeed at this balancing act.
Friday Focus is a column written by a different member of UAF’s leadership team every week. On occasion, a guest writer is invited to contribute a column.