Anchored Performance: Protecting Focus and Purpose in Times of Flux
The past few years have asked a lot of the people who keep this university running day to day. State-system disarray, budget contractions, and campus-level leadership turnover have piled up on top of already full workloads, and the start of a new academic year tends to arrive before anyone has had a real chance to reset.
This one-hour virtual workshop is built specifically for administrative faculty and staff who are feeling that weight. It won't fix the structural conditions driving the fatigue, but it will give you a clear-eyed look at what's shaping the current environment, and practical tools for finding stable ground within it before the semester starts.
Register to Attend
What the Session Covers
The workshop moves through three parts: first, a look at the national and system-level trends shaping current conditions at SCSU; second, a set of private self-assessment prompts to help you identify your own stability anchors — purpose, belonging, institutional pride, and agency; and third, strategies for protecting your time and attention so you can sustain your performance without burning out.
A Private, Low-Pressure Format
There are no breakout rooms and no group sharing. This is a highly structured, self-directed session. You'll work through reflection prompts privately, at your own pace, with no expectation of speaking up or performing insight in front of colleagues.
What You'll Walk Away With
Concrete, achievable intentions for the fall, not a theoretical framework. The session is designed to give you something you can put into practice the following Monday morning, focused on the variables actually within your control.
Who Should Attend
Administrative faculty, clerical and professional staff, and anyone who wants a moment to reflect and set intentions before the academic year begins. Open to the SCSU community. Registration required.
Your Facilitator
Dr. Ilene Crawford brings 30 years of experience in higher education as a faculty member, program director, Fulbright scholar, and senior academic leader. She is an International Coaching Federation (ICF) member coach who now partners with leaders at colleges and universities across the country, helping them navigate transitions, clarify their priorities, and lead with purpose and integrity.
Dr. Crawford has coached provosts, deans, and department chairs through complex institutional change, and brings that same grounded, practical approach to this session for SCSU's administrative community.
Why We're Offering This
This workshop is intended to strengthen the middle-manager and administrative layers of the university, the people who keep departments and programs functional and steady while senior leadership transitions play out around them. Scheduled deliberately before the start of the fall semester, it's meant to be a moment to reflect and set intentions, not another task added to an already full plate.
The Administrative Faculty Senate is sponsoring this session in support of our community, in hopes of setting an intentional tone in the coming academic year.