10.27.22

Dear Colleagues —

A critical way we contribute to our mission at UIS is helping our faculty and staff feel supported in their work and energized about their role in contributing to a positive university environment for all – this includes for our students and for one another as colleagues.

As I’ve interacted with many members of the UIS community this fall, I am hearing that we have opportunities to improve campus culture. This is an area of great importance to me, and I want to keep listening to ensure I understand — to the best of my ability — where to focus attention and resources as we work to make a positive change.

For the remainder of the academic year, I will be hosting listening sessions open to any faculty or staff member who wants to share their thoughts about our university climate and culture. My leadership team and I will spend the summer exploring the themes discussed during the listening sessions, and we will share back these themes with the university community in early Fall 2023. From there, we will collaboratively identify the next steps on how to best address the themes — either by establishing new action plans or integrating them into our existing work.

This effort will not delay other initiatives underway, such as our upcoming equity salary study for faculty, ongoing work focused on the College of Business and Management climate and the launch of our university-wide DEI strategic planning committee. This is an additional layer of listening that is important for me to do as your new chancellor. I hope you take to heart my sincere openness to hearing from every single individual who wants to be part of this conversation.

Please complete this online form to express your interest in participating in a listening session. A member of the Chancellor’s Office will work to schedule you for a small-group session prior to May 2023. Given the ongoing developments within the College of Business and Management, I will be prioritizing my sessions with CBM faculty and staff first.

Thank you for partnering with me as we work to build the best team possible to help our students succeed!

Janet

Janet L. Gooch, PhD

Chancellor

University of Illinois Springfield