I am the leader of this ship.

At the core of every organization, hopefully there lies the desire to change something.  Manufacturing, the service industry, education—each one of those, though seemingly different professions, each exist with the perspective to change something.  Manufacturing looks to changing the market and products used to make processes better.  Services exist to aid in those changes sought by clients/consumers.  Education stands to change the ways others view and understand the world.  With this ideology, however, comes great resistance.  I’ve heard many say, “Why fix it if it isn’t broke?”  If I never changed the oil on my car, the cost to fix it when broke would far outweigh small investments in routine maintenance.

While the core of an organization may be to produce change, changing within the organization itself can meet great resistance.  Who gets a seat at the table talking about organizational and administrative change?  And do those folks actually represent the good of the organization?  I started to think about the way in which OSU goes about handling this change.  In my experience so far this year, I’ve seen divisions within the institution take on very similar projects without knowing other divisions were doing essentially the same.  I wonder how much communication goes on between divisions.

This all ties into how much communication exists between departments, colleges, and units.  This year I am fortunate to have the experience working in academic affairs and interact often with student affairs.  I see significant overlap between the two, yet wonder how much these two divisions actually communicate on varied levels (read:  not just top administrators for each).  I wonder if there is any direction on how to collaborate between these units.  How often do these units interact now?  I find it antithetical that we, as university professionals, expect students to make broader connections between subjects and the world, yet the university remains a series of silos.