My challenge and aspiration, today, is to maintain a focus on the big picture.

I work in higher education, an industry which is having to rapidly adjust its operations. We are scrutinizing every detail of how courses are offered, how students are supported, and how campuses can function.

In this, we are not alone; just about every industry is (or will) go through something similar. We are lucky to have these challenges, compared to the shutting down of many other types of businesses.

But in scrutinizing every detail, sometimes we lose sight of the big picture. It’s not simply our operations that have been disrupted.

The lives of our college family – students, faculty, staff – are being disrupted at a scale hard to imagine even a few months ago. We don’t know, yet, how deep or wide this disruption will be, or how many waves of it we will be called upon to ride out together.

So today, I’m challenging myself to keep my focus on the big picture: the human family, facing change, loss, and the unknown, together.