Late in April I convened a two-day Retreat for the Division's Department Chairs to talk about our shared aspirations and aspects of our current reality that hinder our ability to achieve such. What resulted can be best termed the next logical step of the Aims process. We have covered a lot of ground since the Aims process formally wrapped up, but it is also true that many of our new Department leaders arrived after the Aims and so were unable to participate in that important process. The Retreat thus served as a means of integrating these Chairs into the Aims discussion and pushing Aims themes more deeply into the fabric of our goals. Moreover, the Chair meetings took the Aims product that originated from the faculty at large and placed implementation acts around the Aims goals to ensure enactment.

At the retreat we chose to break our discussions out into the three mission areas following the structure of the Aims Action Committees; Chair facilitators described key challenges and cultural impediments that retard progress and led discussions on how the impediments might be overcome. In Education, the Chairs agreed that equitable assignments of departmental teaching were necessary, and that once accepted, departments should be held accountable for delivering their course loads. In Patient Care, the Chairs agreed that roadblocks to cross-departmental program development and operations improvements should not impede implementation of programs when a majority of Chairs favor such. And in Research, the Chairs concluded that improving Divisional performance in key metrics is important but before Departments can be held accountable, the Division must take into account the heterogeneity of BSD research.

Subsequent to the Retreat, we reconvened the Chairs in Divisional Executive Committee and agreed upon some concrete implementation steps that translate the retreat recommendations into Divisional policy. I trust that the Chairs will now feature discussion of these important issues and outcomes as the centerpieces of their routine meetings with Department faculty.

Perhaps most importantly, the Retreat served as a means for our Chairs to meet one another and interact in a different setting. In the final analysis, we will make the most progress in achieving our shared vision through unique collaborations across units and disciplines, bolstered by a willingness to experiment and think creatively.

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