Friday Focus: Leadership momentum

April 15, 2021

Tori Tragis

— by Keith Champagne, vice chancellor for student affairs

As I watched this year’s March Madness NCAA basketball tournament, all of the announcers, game analysts and sportscasters repeatedly spoke about momentum. All of their conversations during a year of underdogs and upsets specifically commented on “shifts in momentum” and “building momentum” to enable your team to win. For today’s column, I will focus on the importance of creating and maintaining “leadership momentum.”

At the beginning of and throughout the global pandemic, we at UAF found the momentum to move forward in a positive manner and direction. We developed effective strategies in the face of uncertainty and we institutionalized strategic foresight. We worked together to harness the special talents, gifts, experiences, expertise and multiple intelligences of those in leadership positions to build a dynamic connection and/or bridge between planning, operations and successful execution of those plans throughout the university community and our various campuses.

Now, as we begin to envision the period beyond vaccinations, a post-pandemic world, and plan for our fall 2021 new academic year, it is important that we maintain the momentum. In fact, maintaining our leadership momentum and working together will be critically important as we address and respond positively and optimistically to our ongoing budgetary issues, academic reviews, administrative reviews, and enrollment challenges. In order to continue to move forward together as a collective university community, we all will have to be authentic, vulnerable, trusting of each other, positive, collegial, collaborative and respectful of each other.

Moreover, those of us in leadership positions throughout the university should consider the following:

1. Continue to create high-performing teams and environments where success is inevitable in the manner that we did during and throughout this global pandemic;


2. Continue to awaken something special in every employee at the university in order to accomplish extraordinary things coming out of this pandemic;


3. Continue to be compassionate, caring, respectful and kind;


4. Work to fully understand ourselves and others and our narratives;


5. Continue to be inspiring, encouraging and helpful to and for each other as we continue to negotiate and navigate our way through this pandemic and all of the complex challenges that I mentioned earlier;


6. Together let’s all work to build a trusting, positive, emotionally healthy and happy university culture and environment for all current and new members of the university community and on all of our various campuses.

Furthermore, as we all reflect on and think about what kind of university we aspire to be coming out of this global pandemic, every person, process, function, office, department, division, college, school, institute, campus and research project are all important to the overall success of the University of Alaska Fairbanks. This is certainly one lesson that I have learned as a result of living through a global pandemic. We are all connected, integrated, interrelated and dependent upon each other to be successful and to have a successful and highly functioning major public Land, Space, and Sea Grant university in the 21st century and beyond.

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.