Retreat, Reflect, and Research

Allison Druin, Associate Dean for Research, iSchool

“I’m retreating.” So often when we hear these words it brings to mind someone giving up, leaving, or no longer pursuing their goals.  Yet after four “retreats” in 15 days (and 2 other meetings that could be called this), “I’m retreating” brings to my mind a very different experience.  It’s an important time for me to focus on some piece of my work.  It can be a time to reconnect with busy colleagues who like me normally don’t have the luxury of spending a few consecutive hours together, let alone a day.  I’ve found that it can be a time for me to re-energize and look forward to the academic year ahead.

I know for some, “retreating” may feel like valuable time spent that they don’t have.  It may feel like we could instead be writing papers, focusing on grant proposals, or preparing to teach in the semester ahead.  But for me, sitting in a room brainstorming in small groups, or doing a “group think” on a mission statement, or even spending some quiet time considering personal or team goals for the year, can be valuable time well spent.

With each successive retreat over the last few weeks, I found I’ve been more able to ignore the outside world of “To-Do lists” and endless emails.  Instead I’ve been able to start connecting ideas from one retreat to the next.  This was the case as I was listening to a discussion on building partnerships and leadership with my colleagues at the U.S. National Park Service.  As the ideas emerged on strategic thinking, opportunities, and risk, I found myself drawing diagrams that made sense of the mentorship training I just had the week before at a retreat with my colleagues from the ADVANCE Program.  I realized I’d been struggling with how to take the abstract good ideas we all have and make them real.  I wanted to make these ideas a call to action, not just one more To-Do list. And yet as I was reflecting on one back to the other, my random scribbling began to make sense not just for the ADVANCE Program, but for my work with the National Park Service.  It also began to fill gaps in my thinking about partnerships and leadership as I begin to brainstorm this coming week with our iSchool community at the University of Maryland.

So often we hear the words, “we need to build partnerships” but too often they seem like nice words for other people to do.  We can assume that people and partnerships will find us if we just do good research.  Or partners will come if I just write another grant proposal.  Or partnering is for someone else to do that knows the special “secret.” But what I got from my days of retreating and reflecting was a realization that it’s a path we all can take when we take a moment not to run as fast as we can, but to take a deep breath to become aware of our research work, both from inside the university, but externally in the wider research landscape of other universities, companies, and government agencies. 

Many times it’s easy to look at our research and assess what matters, what is valuable, and what needs to be moved forward.  But often we don’t take the time to consider who in our external research environment could be colleagues to collaborate with, who might be competing for the same resources, who might need what we do, and who could help us.  We need to ask ourselves what are the risks and opportunities in starting something new, in stopping what we’re doing, or in continuing what we have been doing.  The risks in starting something new can be as simple as, I might not receive the funding or as complex as this new research activity might compete too much with what I’m already doing.  The opportunities if I succeed may seem overly obvious—I’ve started a new partnership that can expand my research direction, can lead to new resources and/or publications.  In exploring these risks and opportunities more explicitly for starting, stopping, or continuing our activities, I’ve begun to see how I can take what I value as my goals, or my college’s goals and begin to plan my actions.  

As we walk into our new school year, our iSchool will soon be gathering as a faculty to talk about moving from our shared values to taking action.  Thanks to last year’s shared work, our iSchool has agreed that we value research:

1. that has a social impact on the real world which can benefit an individual or the larger society 
2. which is a foundation for future research that can shape our profession, organizations, public policy and more

This coming week our iSchool community will be asking ourselves: How do we communicate our research and how do we build resources?  We’ll attempt to answer those questions by asking ourselves what I learned in retreating--what are the risks and opportunities in starting something new, in stopping what we’re doing, or in continuing what we have been doing?  We’ll explore these questions both from what makes sense within the university but also in the wider external research community.

To some who do strategic planning or leadership training for a living, this may not sound so earth-shattering.  But for me, “retreating” was the only way I could find my way there.   So for all of you who are wrestling with the “what if’s” and the “will I ever’s…” let me suggest- try retreating!  It’s a great first step to reflecting and researching in the days to come.