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Tuesday, September 5, 2017

Two Dimensions of Our Core Values


I love MVCC’s Core Values. They represent the essence of who we are and who we strive to be through four actionable phrases that seemingly have countless layers and dimensions worthy of reflection and exploration. While on a recent morning run, I came upon the significance of how important it is to think about our Core Values guiding our behavior not only with our students, but also with each other. 

For us: Model the Way: “The Way” is not completely defined, and that’s intentional. Modeling the way is about initiative, solutions, effort, reliability, civility, emotional intelligence, and doing the right things in the right way for the right reasons. Yes, we model the way for our students, but we also model the way for each other. Inspire Confidence: While it’s important to inspire confidence in our students, it’s also important to do that for each other. We need confidence in ourselves, in each other, and in our organization to be able to take risks and stretch ourselves beyond our comfort zones to do the extraordinary. Sometimes that confidence is needed to just make changes that seem scary or difficult. We all need confidence, and sometimes we just need to find it in each other. Encourage Excellence: As Debbie Fields of Mrs. Fields Cookies is credited with saying, “Good enough never is.” Given our mission and commitment to our students and community, excellence must be the goal in everything we do. It goes beyond encouraging our students to pursue excellence. We must encourage it in each other. The 70+ year history of this college and the legacy of countless story of excellence and exceptional performance requires each of us to relentlessly pursue excellence and encourage it in each other. Embrace Community: As our community’s college, we do more than reflect our community, we embrace it. Our Utica and Rome Campuses are the go-to places for large-scale community events in both cities, and Team MVCC galvanizes faculty and staff support for numerous community causes. Additionally, our Educational Outreach Center provides a long on-ramp to educational success from inner-city Utica for those who need it, and MVCC’s thINCubator serves as the hub of the new business startup ecosystem in the region. For students: Model the Way: Like it or not, we are role models for our students. The way in which we go about our jobs should represent the best of the world of work for them. They watch everything we do, and that warrants each of us bringing our best to everything we do each and every day, giving our students something they can model in return. Inspire Confidence: Learning is all about change – going from one state of knowing to another – and change can be scary. The confidence that so many of our students must gather and act on can be the difference between persisting or dropping out of college. Too many of our students have been told why they can’t do things instead of receiving encouragement and support, and knowing that we believe in them. While others may focus on their weaknesses, we focus on their strengths. Encourage Excellence: A great deal of research shows that people have a tendency to rise to the expectations others set for them. Our students are no different. The reason this is a core value at MVCC is that encouraging excellence carries a very important corollary, and that is incredible support. We set and keep the expectations high for our students, but we follow that up with providing them with outstanding support along the way. It all comes together in how we encourage excellence in all of our students. Embrace Community: According to research from the Gallup organization, being connected to your community is a key aspect to personal well-being. We embrace our community through our student profile with numerous newcomers and more than 20 different languages on campus, an active LGBT community, our Cultural Series, and Diversity and Global View graduation requirement. Embracing community means finding value in every person and everything by fostering culture and connections and taking pride in who we are.

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