This week I spent much time reflecting and applying one of the concepts I learned about in The Chronicle of Higher Education’s Conflict Resolution training. The training focused on healthy conflict (and how this is productive and allows for the sharing of ideas, and people and organizations to move forward), and high conflict (where forward progress ceases to happen due to binary thinking, emotional responses, and a failure to collaborate). The job of leadership is to recognize when people are in high-conflict situations, engage their rational, intellectual brains, and begin healthy conflict resolution.
​
One of the frames this training used to think about healthy vs. high conflict was a metaphor of an elephant (the emotional way of thinking) and a rider (the rational viewpoint). In healthy conflict, the elephant and the rider are in-synch and working together. In high-conflict situations, the elephant is running rampant, and the rider can not tame the elephant for productive conversation and decisions to happen. A rider with no elephant may be robotic and not be growing and learning because they are not challenged enough with the passion for pursuing difficult decisions with heart and empathy. My job, as a leader, is to hear concerns and emotional responses, and then find ways to activate reasoning to make conversations about concerns productive.

Change is constant. In higher education right now, there are lots of changes—a change in student engagement due to COVID, changes in questioning the value of a degree, changes in media and marketing strategies to recruit and retain students, and changes in course scheduling/offerings—just to name a few. Within universities and schools within universities, there are operation changes, academic policy changes, faculty and staffing changes, and degree requirement changes that faculty are often faced with. Education should be about continuous improvement and constant learning, and both improvement and learning require change. With change often comes conflict, and this can be healthy conflict or high conflict depending on how change is approached and how it is reflected upon.

In my leadership role, I am learning that people handle change differently. Some are resistant to any change and prefer the way things were before. Others approach change with skepticism, allowing change but questioning the purpose and reasoning for changes. Still, others readily move towards change with complete acceptance. If all three different ways to handle change can reach a state of healthy conflict, an organization will move forward as a stronger unit. If, however, one of the ways of handling change is not represented, then an organization can still move forward, but may not do so in a healthy way. I relate this to when I was pursuing my educational leadership doctorate, and the idea that you need people that are ready to jump on board with you, and it’s nice to be surrounded by the “yes” crowd, but there are other times when deep contemplative thought exercises are required for the right decision to be made—and for these types of decisions you need your resistors to poke holes in thinking and challenge you to think in different ways.

Right now, as a leader, I think I have resistors, skeptics, and my “yes” crowd. I am still learning how to have all groups work together, assuming everyone’s intent is the same (a better learning experience for students). I am also still learning the best way to help individuals accept their emotional responses and move towards thinking rationally from multiple viewpoints and perspectives about change. Engaging others in reflective processing after a change occurs needs to start being a part of my practice, and I’m trying to figure out how often and where this best fits. Should reflective processing happen before, during, and after a change? Is it dependent on the type of change? Is reflective processing more productive at different points for specific types of changes? 

Is there a loophole in the contract? The contract states that published and unpublished scholarship is the baseline for evaluation. Can work still be of quality and contribute to the profession’s advancement if it is not published? Can published work (through a blog), or other non-peer-reviewed means contribute to the discipline? After serving on the university-wide promotion committee, these are the questions that I am left with.

If I have a following on a blog and write about my field, am I contributing to advancing the discipline? I blogged consistently during my sabbatical but then stopped abruptly when the summer semester started. I stopped because I was trying to learn a new role while also balancing the teaching and program coordination I was responsible for in the summer. I had the summer and fall semesters to adjust to my new role as Graduate Chair of Education for the Childhood Education and Care Department.

Now, I want to get my thoughts on this new role and the development and learning that has occurred and is continuously occurring. I have decided to do this by blogging my thoughts again, and if this counts towards contributions to the discipline—well, all the better!  

The new role I found myself in starting in May of 2022 was graduate chair. This graduate chair role was constructed based on data from our state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) accreditation visit. It was, therefore, a new role at the university that had never existed until now. The evaluation and report from this visit indicated that our past model allowed program coordinators in each licensure area to set the standards and make decisions autonomously. This created “complex distributed leadership…with unclear decision-making challenges and responsibilities.” The recommendations from DESE were to create a governance structure that led to clarity in decision-making and united licensure program areas. One of the ways this governance structure was addressed was through the creation of this new role, Graduate Chair(s) of Education. Two graduate chair roles were created, one for the Childhood Education and Care Department and one for the Secondary Licensure Department.

When reflecting on the first semester in this role, the two largest take-aways I had were: (1) how collaborative this role can be and (2) how to best frame changes in terms of DESE guidelines and regulations—as this produced the most buy-in and understanding the need for change. This new Graduate Chair role led to many collaborative partnerships with: the Graduate Chair for Secondary Licensure Areas, the Department Chair, Lead Faculty, the Deans, the Office of Field Engagement, and the Office of Student Engagement. Collaboration and partnering with multiple positions within the School of Education and the Graduate School, I think, was the only way a new position like this could carve a place for itself and begin to establish its importance.

The other way the importance of this role needed to be highlighted was by framing how the School of Education was making changes based on the DESE evaluation findings. When changes were communicated without this framing, there was a lot of pushback and discussion that did not always lead to forward progress. When reflecting on why this was, it was because people were questioning the reason or purpose for change. In teaching, we always have students that question, “when will I need to know this?” or “why are we learning this?” so it shouldn’t be surprising that we always advocate for a purpose for learning to be shared with students. All leadership decisions I learned need this same purpose and framing so that changes can be understood, appropriately questioned and discussed, and forward progress and learning can be made.
​
In my first full semester as a leader, my two biggest lessons and learning opportunities were the purpose for decision-making and collaborative working relationships and discussions. I can’t wait to see how this spring semester progresses and what new learning opportunities will present themselves—especially since the role is a little more concrete! 

This week I started planning for the end of my sabbatical, since summer courses are starting in two weeks. I am teaching two sections of a special education law course this summer so I set up the syllabus for that course this week, and started working on the Canvas page. This week there was an opportunity that came across my desk for an Op-ed writing workshop in June. I have never really written Op-Ed articles, instead sticking mostly to research, practitioner, or parent articles, so decided to apply for this. My statement on what I would like to examine as I think about writing Op-Ed pieces was:

“As a K-12 special educator and professor of special education, I am interested in the equity of schooling for all children—and more specifically students identified with a disability. Topics that I would like to look at include: neurodiversity and inclusivity of language (opposed to ableist, pathologizing, and dehumanizing language) used to discuss disability, opportunities for equity in education and employment of individuals.”

The statement had to be 50-100 words so I couldn’t elaborate on any of the thoughts above. I was awarded one of the five funded workshop fees that my university advertised so I am happy with that.
​
This week I also read a book, “Better feedback for better teaching: A practical guide to improving classroom observations.” I read this book thinking about the supervisor training that the university provided and how to potentially improve this and improve supervisory skills in the process. There were several ideas that I highlighted in this book to bring up when planning on improving our practices in effective feedback during pre-practicum and practicum student teaching. One was vetting supervisors through pre-scored videos and checking observation evidence and feedback. Another is adding some guided questions to our current state document for observation. I also wondered if the state could be doing this work to provide training rather than each institution doing their own and having master scorers identified in the state that can then build capacity elsewhere. My thinking also led me to wondering if at the teacher preparation level, we are looking at observations differently than building administrators (who would be doing the observations once the student leaves us and is employed) are. I wondered if a more universal approach to observations could take place between supervisors in teacher preparation and school district administrators. Again, here a state-wide model may work best, or could a teacher preparation institute invite local principals in partnership schools to go through professional development in unison with teacher preparation supervisors?

I highlighted and wrote down many ideas while I read this book just to get conversation happening next semester at my university. One other idea, out of the many that I thought about, was on the use of video and guiding students’ reflections by identifying snippets of the video for them to reflect on. This could help them see what a supervisor calls out as an area needing improvement. The book really emphasized not having the student-teacher watch the whole video because it doesn’t focus their attention and without guidance on where to look, they could identify the incorrect places during the lesson that need some attention. I think this a practice the pre-practicum experience could really use and it could have a direct impact on candidate performance. It could also serve as an audited spot-check on supervisors, and a quick check on their guided feedback skills. This is something I will bring to my school of education’s assessment or dean’s council team in the fall as a conversation starter.  

This week was a week all about proposals. Two conference proposals were submitted and one book proposal review from Emerald publishing was completed this week. The book proposal I was asked to look at was on technologies to support students with learning disabilities in online learning. The review went to the publisher late on Wednesday so I was able to take that project off my plate this week. I also was able to send in two conference proposals for upcoming projects this week. I haven’t been to an in-person conference since February of 2020 so the prospect of being back in person and networking is exciting.

The conference proposals were sent in to Council for Exceptional Children’s Division of Autism and Developmental Disability portal this week. One was on using Disney films to help all students, especially students with ASD, understand and make sense of trauma and reactions to it. The other proposal that I sent in was on state endorsement for Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) licensure uses medical-model language as they set criteria for endorsement and how this is counter to the neurodiversity and inclusive movement. This is a project that is based on discussions I had with an autistic student/colleague before going on sabbatical, and a project that will be worked on in the coming year. Here is a summary of the proposal and upcoming work project:

“The state of Massachusetts has a set of criteria that teacher preparation programs must adhere if they wish to offer an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) endorsement to teachers. This endorsement criteria is all written based on the medical model of disability. This medically-focused model of defining and treating ASD has a trickle-down effect on teacher preparation, our teachers, and in turn, students, both those with and without an ASD diagnosis. It does not promote neurodiversity and, therefore, the medical model, many would argue, does not promote a sense of belonging and inclusion. Coursework was written and approved for my university to offer this endorsement, and when approved this coursework mimicked the state’s endorsement criteria (based on the medical model). but this coursework has gone through many iterations to move it from the state’s medical model to a more inclusive neurodiversity model.

​Changes to reflect neurodiversity and inclusivity are needed in these four courses for ASD endorsement. These changes should be made by talking with autistics and having their voices reflected in the syllabus changes. The goal of making these changes is to move the traditional deficit perspective of disability from the medical model to a ‘socially constructed difference’ or neurodiversity model (Grenier, 2010; Molloy & Vasil, 2003). The importance of seeking the views of individuals with ASD helps to expand professional knowledge of ASD and ‘what it feels like’ to have ASD rather than ‘what it looks like’ to the observer (Davidson, 2010). Through embracing this neurodiversity paradigm and putting it in action in teacher preparation we can move from passive awareness to an acceptance focused frame of reference, and a more inclusive society (Sibley, 2012).

Proposed changes to consult on in course syllabus included: the university wide diversity statement to include avoiding ableist, pathologizing and dehumanizing language; rewriting goals and objectives to avoid ableist, pathologizing, and dehumanizing language; including course materials by neurodivergent individuals; seeing autism viewpoints as the ‘experts’; practicing neurodiversity in the course, itself, by implementing universal design for learning approaches and allowing multiple means of representation, action and expression, and engagement opportunities ; and having debates about ‘hot’ topics (e.g. person-first vs. identity-first language; ethics of ABA; media representations; legal and political policy, civil rights, and marginalization). The ultimate goal would be to eventually have state endorsement/policies reflect these changes in their endorsement criteria.” 

Although the state promotes diversity and inclusivity, setting criteria for endorsement through medical-model language is counter to this. I think if I could make changes in these four courses in this one endorsement program (and still receive the approval for state endorsement), it could be a model for how to revise state criteria and in turn the syllabus and instruction used in other universities in the state. I haven’t worked on a project that I am hoping leads to state regulation changes so this will be new to my wheelhouse, and I think that is exciting. So, even though my sabbatical is coming to an end, new projects are on the horizon! 

This week, I finally cleaned up with final edits three of the four journal submissions I researched and created this semester. I also attended two professional learning communities, one hosted by the Council for Exceptional Children’s (CEC) Early Childhood Special Interest Group, and the other a book study hosted by CEC Teacher Educator Special Interest Group. After attending these two professional learning communities this week, I started to feel like I could integrate back into professional organizations in a meaningful way. It is nearing the end of my sabbatical and this is the first time since February 2020 that I have felt this way. Once COVID hit, I had to take a huge step back from the service I was doing both locally and nationally.  Back in 2020, I was on the National Board for the Learning Disabilities Association of America (LDA), was appointed chair of the education committee, was a state-chapter president, and was on two other local special education focused boards. I chose to either not run for re-election or step down from these roles because of how much I had to and/or was asked to do during the pandemic.

This week I feel like I was finally able to start integrating back into my discipline’s society. It was nice to have conversations about what we all learned, in terms of teacher preparation and the pandemic, and the current projects we were working on. Most of these projects were proactive rather than the reactive responses the pandemic required many to make. I waited so long to integrate back because I know myself well enough to know that I am not a passive participant—meaning I have a hard time giving between 0-100%. I am either actively involved and all-in, or non-existent. So, I have two meetings that I took part in last week, and two more coming up this week, and this is what my schedule will probably look like moving forward—and I am ready for it now.

I also spent time last week just reading the message boards of each organization and looking at up-coming conferences and submission dates. One for the Division of Autism and Intellectual Disabilities (DADD) is where I will work this week to submit a proposal for an upcoming project that I am looking to start with a colleague. I haven’t submitted conference proposals since before the pandemic either—so this is something I need to get back into the swing of things with, as well.
​
My last two years have really been about helping my program and other university’s programs produce high quality online coursework. It was something I went and sought additional training and certification in before the pandemic, and I did this at the most opportune time as I was used by many as a resource throughout the pandemic. I am glad I have this training, and happy to help others but I am also ready to be involved in discipline specific activities and societies again. I am grateful to have had this sabbatical to let me get back into research again, get back into discipline specific professional learning communities, and do so in a way that I did not feel like I was neglecting my family or my teaching and other university “asks”. 

This week my head was spacey from being sick so instead of doing all the final edits (due to not being able to concentrate long enough in front of a screen), I started reading for the professional learning community book study that I will begin this upcoming week on UDL and Equity. I read through Chardin’s and Novak’s (2021) “Equity by Design: Delivering on the Power and Promise of UDL.” The book study will begin on Friday, and on my second read through with the group I will re-read the chapters assigned to go more in-depth. The book, itself, has some amazing links to bring UDL to life and some appendices that will help pre-service teacher candidates think about adding UDL into their lesson plans and their practice. I can bring some of these resources back to my classes and my department so that they can utilize them in their coursework.
​
This week I also went through educational surrogate training in New Hampshire, where I live. An education surrogate is someone that makes educational decisions for an individual on an IEP who has a parent that is unknown or can’t be located, is in DCYF custody, or a judge issued a written order that an educational surrogate is needed for any reason. As an educational surrogate, I will be representing and speaking on behalf of the child and their best educational interests as I fulfill the role of the parent at the IEP (Individualized Education Program) meeting. When assigned a student to work with I will follow their entire educational career until they either graduate from the public school system, no longer need an IEP, or no longer need a surrogate due to adoption or some other reason.

This role will help me keep a different pulse on what is happening in K-12 schooling than I currently have so I think this will be beneficial to my position in teacher preparation. I also think it will be good to use my expertise in this way to help teach advocacy skills to individual students, and to partner with local districts through meaningful communication in IEP meetings. I really want to partner and not be “the know it all” because I have advanced degrees in special education so how I approach communication will be really important in this role. It is usually that teachers at IEP meetings are in a position of power over the parents, but I know that when I was in K-12, if a parent was coming into my district with an advanced understanding of special education I would have been intimidated.  I have to keep this “perceived power” in check and how I approach communication, I think, is the best way for me to do this.

The training, itself, talked about federal and New Hampshire special education laws, appropriate communication strategies, and broke down the IEP process. There were two other individuals in the training with me, a special education director and a high school math teacher—so it was good to be in the company of other educators who want to give back to the profession in this way. After the training, I had to take a test, and I am now officially certified to take on the role of an educational surrogate. The next step is to be assigned a student that lives in my county. I am excited about this opportunity to be in schools supporting a K-12 student and to be forming a collaborative partnership with districts in this new way, as well. 

When I have a working rough draft of a paper almost complete, I need to step away from it for a little while. This week I went back and looked at three papers that were nearing completion and started to make the final adjustments on them. The papers looked at different subject matters: pre-service elementary math teaching, academic questioning in pre-service teacher preparation, and the instruction of differentiation in pre-service teacher preparation. This week I worked on making sure the references were all accounted for and were written correctly in APA format—a tedious task, but one that needs to be done. In addition to this I read through all of the papers making sure to link the literature review with discussion points that emerged from the results of each of these studies. Next week, I will do one more read through, make some last-minute tweaks, and then send these papers off to the organization I worked with. They will get to read through them and ask any questions or seek clarity on anything contained within them. From here, publication will happen.

I will share one of the findings from the discussion for teaching elementary math to pre-service teachers here (just so this whole blog post isn’t solely procedural in nature):
​
“All major components of math content and pedagogy need to be focused on. This needs to be done in a way where courses progressively develop knowledge and address all key content areas-numbers and operations, algebra and functions, geometry and measurement, and data analysis and probability. The grounding of this instruction should be in building conceptual knowledge and then procedural fluency should build on this knowledge. Math concepts need to be linked to operational skills, as interconnected units, so that students understand why and how algorithms work (Ambrose, 2004; Reid, 2013). Intertwining conceptual and procedural knowledge is important because it allows students to have a deep understanding of math and perform it fluently (Hiebert, 2013).  Without having a strong conceptual understanding of math, the procedural skills are not nimbly of effectively used by used students and therefore learning is “fragile” (Hiebert, Gallimore, Garnier, Givvin, Hollingsworth et al., 2003). Conversely, if there is only emphasis on conceptual knowledge then learners struggle with procedural competency (Kajander, 2010). This method for teaching math is often very different than what pre-service teachers encountered in their own K-12 experiences with math (Darling-Hammond, 2006). This cycle of teaching, focused on procedural knowledge, however needs to be challenged otherwise we will have another decade of stagnant performance in math performance (as measured by the PISA, TIMSS, and NAEP assessments) where students show basic procedural knowledge of math, but fail to advance to conceptually applying math to solve problems.”
 
Once these papers are sent off, then I have more data I can look at from these inspection reports or I may move to prepping for the fall research project—the pandemic’s effect on birth to five. I am a little more motivated by the second project right now because I have two kids under five; one who does not seem to be affected by the pandemic, while the other seems to be slightly impacted in her expressive communication (but her receptive communication is exceptionally strong). It may be nice not to sift through and code report data for a little while—given that these last three papers had me in these documents for the last six months. 

The last two weeks, I have not written my personal post because I have been easily jumping into writing and researching. This week I really started diving into the codes for differentiation which were muddier than the other coded reports that I did so because of this I had to organize the structure of results a little differently to paint the whole picture. This has been where I have spent the majority of time my week trying to frame these results in a way that is easily accessible to any reader. I think the goal of synthesizing these reports is to provide a clear-cut structured path that teacher preparation programs can use to strengthen the differentiation (or the other topics I selected to focus on, e.g. math in elementary, academic questioning, teaching observational skills) coursework and “asks” of their program.

To start this improvement, in the realm of differentiation, programs need to have an agreed upon research-based definition of what differentiation is, and this needs to be used by all faculty and consistently across the program. One interesting topic that has come up in some reports and even in some recent inspections I have been on is Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and how programs are using this term to synonymously mean differentiation. When I see this it’s usually not focused on the research-based definition for differentiation which focuses on process, product, environment, and content. When it is taught without this research-based definition in mind it has translated to lessons with choice, but not actually with what students need in order to progress their learning in a lesson. I think this may be due to instructor’s not having the research-based definition of differentiation driving their instruction of UDL.

With UDL, we are looking at a lesson through providing multiple means of representation (the way information is presented in a lesson), engagement (the ways learners are motivated in the lesson), and action and expression (the ways learners showcase what they know/learned in a lesson). When this is done without the research-based definition for differentiation driving it, I often see surface level changes that do not address students that are struggling and students that are high-achievers—it again teaches to the middle (the average on-grade-level students in the classroom). An example of what I mean by this is teacher candidates indicated they are using UDL (multiple means of representation) because they are presenting content auditorily and through the visual-means of a PowerPoint. Technically they are displaying information in multiple ways, but this content is often grade level content not taking into account those on either end of the learning continuum (those that still need pre-requisite skills to the content, and those that have mastered the content). If we are truly linking multiple means of representation to the research-based definition of differentiation, content and varied levels of students needs should be addressed. I bring up this example because this is the scenario that I see the most often.
​
 I think our coursework in teacher preparation really needs to examine and tease this out—that if UDL is done at the surface level true differentiation is not happening. This really needs to begin with all faculty in a program understanding this and guiding students to think this way—and providing feedback on lesson plans, assignments, and teaching so that UDL goes beyond surface-level changes in the classroom. Surface-level is an entry point to start using UDL, but it needs to then be deeply rooted in differentiation so that all K-12 students can progress in their learning. 

This week I was at another inspection and this university is doing so many things well. There data management systems and processes were on-point, they had good content and teaching skills in coursework, and their candidates overall were doing well in the field. They have a number of amazing grant initiatives that faculty are involved in and have some amazing collaborations happening with each other and with their faculty-in-residence models which just began in their local school systems. One of these faculty-in-residence models is happening in the Orange County Public School Academic Center for Excellence (ACE).

The ACE school is the “true” model of a community school. It has everything that a family would need right on site. In education, when the term community school is used, people sometimes mean that the school serves the local community that lives there by providing their education. Some community schools extend a step further by serving the community by connecting families with community partners (dentists, doctors, and other needed services) they may need. This school, however, goes even beyond this and has all the services a family needs on site.
ACE has a preschool, hospital, food pantry, career training, and grade level classrooms (K-8) on-site. It also has extra-curricular activities and enrichment opportunities that extend before and after the school day. This school was built with the conception of this true community—where all services are at one location in permanent fixtures. This really separates it from other schools who retro-fit this partnership and services outreach for families.

While visiting the school and watching teacher candidates teach, I learned that anyone that graduates from high school from this school they are given free tuition to any Florida state university and if they decide to go to medical school in-state this is paid for, as well. This was only one of the activities I was a part of this week, so I did not get to dive as deep as I would have liked to into learning more about this school and its model—but it was one of the many “cool” things I saw this week. This school’s website offers more and I’ll probably spend some time learning more about this school and how the faculty-in-residence model supports their teacher candidates, teachers, students, district initiatives, and community partnerships as they use a wrap-around holistic approach to educating and supporting students. Here is their website: https://ocpsace.ocps.net/

I am posting my week accountability a few days late because after picking Izzy up from preschool on Thursday, I took the girls down to celebrate my mom’s birthday. Last week, I finished up the first draft of the elementary math preparation paper and now just need to spend time editing this. I also received news that the inclusive concurrent enrollment residential pilot initiative was signed off on by the Vice President of Student Success at my university. This means that staring in the fall of 2023 (this upcoming fall), there will be a residential component to our inclusive concurrent enrollment (for students with intellectual disabilities or autism that are 18-21, who are still enrolled in high school but wanting to have some aspects of a college experience) program. This is a big step forward and will allow for more opportunities for this population of student and to really think about neurodiversity and what it means in the university setting.
​
We first started to formally explore this concurrent enrollment initiative, https://www.mass.edu/strategic/MAICEI.asp, at Salem State with an initial planning grant back in the 2015-2016 school year. Back then we mapped out all the key stakeholder groups at the university the planning committee would meet with. In these meetings we share the possibilities of this opportunity, inviting students with disabilities who were 18-21 years old who were still enrolled in high school due to continued support needed in terms of transition services but were ready for and wanted some aspects of a college experience. We also wanted to know the questions and concerns that each stakeholder group had so we could plan out all aspects of the program and have answers before the students entered the university. I have the data from these meetings and have shared it with other individuals looking to explore this opportunity at their institution. This data, however, was useful, when we approached this new planning grant, as well. It was helpful to see the stakeholders and the mapping of when and how we approached each of these groups the first go-round, so we had a better roadmap to execute the current planning grant that was just signed off on. There, however, was a new kink in the roll-out and approach with COVID and everyone being remote for the last two years—in which we did this planning. We had all of our meetings with stakeholder groups via Zoom and brought in another local sister institution, Bridgewater State, and their planning and execution team to help us trouble shoot and answer questions and concerns different groups at the university brought up.

Since I have been on sabbatical this semester the others on the planning team carried this to the final stretch and it was last Sunday that I received news that this planning is coming to fruition which is so—exciting to me. I have been the only full-time faculty member on the planning committee since the inception and to know we are able to offer more services to local school districts, families, and most importantly students that are eager for this opportunity is awesome. During this summer, I’ll do some brainstorming work so that we are ready to open our doors to the first few students we accept—throughout the planning we shared we wanted to be successful so we are starting small and then we will scale to an appropriate size based on capacity to provide high-quality services. I started really diving into the literature, again, on other institutions that have similar residential programs so I could ground myself again in the upcoming work and execution I will get to be a part of.