Hello Everyone,

We’ve seen some great growth over the past few weeks. We’re are now 311 strong! I’m also seeing “open rates” of the newsletter around 70%, which is encouraging. As we continue to grow, I’ll try to share fun metrics and stats.

Much of that recent traffic is coming from LinkedIn, so feel free to like or engage with anything you see there. Even if you don’t agree with me, I’m interested to hear your thoughts as well! Publicly commenting or sending your feedback to [email protected] are the two best ways to do this. I promise I read (and usually reply) to all feedback.

A small shout out to the few that found us through our My15atUSC Facebook page. We have a small but curiously inquisitive following over there. We haven’t yet put much effort in on Facebook, but I hope to grow that group over time. You can also feel free to friend my personal account if you’re on there. I keep it pretty tame…

Lastly, I put WAY too many links in the last email. 13 was just too much. But one encouraging part is that I see the Newsletters having a high re-open rate. I’d encourage you to go back as you have time and click through what’s there. I’ll also recycle some of the ones I think are more important.

As always, if there’s one thing I’m MOST hopeful for, it’s your participation in the surveys and open docs.

Here's what's inside:

1. Surveys (2) and Open Docs (1)

2. Presidential Search

3. Past Data

4. Future Data

5. Discord

6. Other Resources and Efforts

Surveys (2) and Open Docs (1)

Feelings v2.0 and our two surveys are still open. The Culture Survey Alignment only has 9 responses. Help!

• (Closing soon) Re-Engagement Survey

• (Still Open, HELP!) Culture Survey Alignment (Survey)

• Feelings v2.0 (Open Doc) 

Presidential Search

The search for the new president is underway. The Staff Assembly Executive Committee was able to meet with a small contingent from the Presidential Search Committee, including one of the Co-Chairs, Carmen Nava. Personally, I was grateful for their outreach and engagement. They listened and communicated openly. As difficult as the past 12 months have been for the USC community, I’m cautiously optimistic in how this is being approached, at least so far. I would highly encourage you to participate in the surveys and listening sessions. Oh, but sorry, you don’t get listened to if you can’t make it in person to UPC or HSC because something, something, Open Communication. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

While I think we can all agree that the cuts to TAB won’t be reinstated in the immediate future, my plan is to carry on this fight in perpetuity. So many have benefited from this program, and it’s egregious if ANYONE is denied the opportunity to take advantage of what was promised, and what we earned. The future president (and interim) will need to be reminded of this, and so should the search committee. I still have hope that the decisions will be rescinded at some point in the future, as long as we stay engaged and are persistent.

Past Data

This was one of the most overlooked links. It’s a public Google Folder that has data and responses from our community across a few surveys and open docs. I’m attaching our first Feelings Doc here.

As surveys are closed out, I’ll be publishing them in that folder. I’ll continue to review and redact anything that appears to be personal or identifiable before publish stuff. As I’ve always promised, if you see something you’ve written being publicly used and decide you’re no longer comfortable with it, just let me know. I’ll do my best to remove it.

Future Data

As we grow, my goal is to make this effort sustainable, and not completely reliant on me to drive engagement and review content. Between work and family, AYSO, kids breaking their bones, and a potential LA Kings run for the Stanley Cup, life is busy. As such, I’ve been thinking about the following as a more structured process. In theory, we would have My15atUSC “leads” for each area.

For now, I have the first part covered. We already have a few folks helping with content design and posting, but having some folks helping me in the middle areas would be ideal. I also have both My15atUSC .com and .org purchased. If anyone is skilled with web-site design and is willing to contribute a little time, that would be helpful. The .com site was purchased through WIX. The website is where I see us posting some of the longer form content, including our stories.

If you’re interested or able to contribute in a particular area, please email me at [email protected]. I’ll also be reaching out to those of you who who indicated in past surveys that you may be interested in helping. Contributing in whatever capacity you’re able to is always the invitation.

Discord

Here is a new link for Discord (good for the next 7 days). Right now, I’m just working to build that community (in numbers, not content). It will be quiet over there for a bit, but long term I think Discord could serve as a primary way to facilitate the “Prioritization & Categorization” of our responses. With our community upvoting or reacting to survey and open doc content, we can have a “community-review” feel to help determine what we should post. Our designers/posters would be able to pull content directly from there.

As previously mentioned, if you join Discord, I have a General Chat where you can remain anonymous. If you’d like access to the other channels, I’ll reach out to you via private message to confirm your identity. I won’t share your identity with anyone, it’s just to ensure we have verified community members in those spaces.

Other Resources and Efforts

• A Call for Constructive Engagement is an American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) Public Statement signed by over 400 college and association presidents. I emailed [email protected] asking President Folt to sign it. While I’m grateful it was acknowledged, the canned response I got mirrored what was said in a recent interview. Since it’s not directly related to TAB restoration, I decided to post about this on my personal channels and not through here.

• Staff Assembly meets tomorrow at 9:30am. We don’t have any major guests or announcements, but join us if you have the time. We’ll be voting on a Resolution to add the following simple language, “including mental health days”, to the Preventative Care section of the Paid Sick Time Policy.

I think that’s enough for now, but please reach out with anything you’re interested in seeing, or if you have feedback for me on anything.

Take good care, and reach out any time!

Phil