Last Thursday I hosted my first faculty lunch of the semester. The idea is to bring together small groups of people from different departments who might not normally interact to get to know each other better, discuss issues of common concern, and begin to build a more cohesive sense of identity and purpose. Eighteen of the twenty people chosen for the first event accepted my invitation.<\/p>\n
Among the topics we discussed were efforts to better coordinate curriculum, Ph.D. student recruitment, infrastructure needs and the elimination of economics from the general education requirements. In each of these discussions there was a desire to spread awareness, bring more people to the table, and generate momentum around ideas. The hour flew by and I was impressed with everyone\u2019s willingness to engage in the conversation.<\/p>\n
As the discussion unfolded, I mentioned an article I had read a few days ago where a company had implemented what they called lunchtime roulette. The idea was to randomly assign people to go to lunch together at the company\u2019s expense. The goal was to drive innovation through idea generation from people who don\u2019t normally get to talk to each other. I commented that I couldn\u2019t afford to send pairs of faculty to restaurants for lunch, but that given our discussion I was willing to set aside some money from the Dean\u2019s Excellence Fund to buy pizza or sandwiches for small groups of people from different departments to discuss an issue of common interest or concern. So here\u2019s the deal:<\/p>\n
If you want to hold such a working lunch, you need to get three other faculty or staff to sign on to a meeting. The four people must come from at least three different departments so that we know the issue cuts across a number of disciplines. The group cannot be a standing committee of the college or a subset of a standing committee. I want it to be an organic group of at least four.<\/p>\n
It will be that simple.<\/p>\n
This policy will be in place for calendar year 2013. At the end of 2013 we will evaluate the program and decide whether to extend it for another year. So get talking.<\/p>\n
Paul Jarley, Ph.D., is the dean of the UCF College of Business Administration. He blogs every week at\u00a0http:\/\/www.bus.ucf.edu\/dean<\/a>.\u00a0This post appeared on\u00a0<\/em>January 21, 2013. Follow him on Twitter\u00a0@pauljarley<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last Thursday I hosted my first faculty lunch of the semester. The idea is to bring together small groups of people from different departments who might not normally interact to get to know each other better, discuss issues of common concern, and begin to build a more cohesive sense of identity and purpose. Eighteen of the twenty people chosen for…","protected":false},"author":132,"featured_media":38640,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"template-twocol.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"lazy_load_responsive_images_disabled":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[31,21],"tags":[1646,6731],"tu_author":[],"class_list":["post-44980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-of-business-administration","category-opinions","tag-faculty","tag-paul-jarley"],"yoast_head":"\n