A considerable amount of my time has been devoted to thinking about equity, diversity, and inclusion recently. In particular, I had the opportunity to participate in several forums the week of Sept. 21.

• University senior leadership — including the Principal, VPs, AVPs, and Deans — spent an entire afternoon discussing how to bring the Declaration of Commitment to Address Systemic Racism to life.

We all know that the strength of the Annual Giving (AG) program has a direct impact on our pipeline at all levels of giving. That is why AG is ready to embark in a direction that will take our program to new heights. Over the past year, partnerships built with the Annual Giving Stakeholders (AGS) Group, Advancement Communications, Marketing, Events, and Donor Relations (CMEDR), Information Technology Management (ITM), and Prospect Research have been critical in laying the groundwork

On behalf of Leigh and myself, I want to express our gratitude to everyone in Advancement for the success that was Homecoming 2020 and Queen’s Day.

Queen’s Day, although more subdued this year, was a great success on social media. I want to thank everyone who worked so hard to engage our alumni online to celebrate Queen’s 179th birthday. In case you missed it, here’s a little video we made of the Queen’s Day 2020 celebrations.

Tableau said it best: Becoming data-driven is a shared journey. It doesn't matter what dashboards or data models we have, to truly create a culture where data and analytics are at the centre of business strategy and decision making takes organization-wide commitment and dedication. As we continue our journey to become an organization that better incorporates data and analytics into our decision making, Advancement Services is pleased to formally announce the Advancement Data Challenge.

On Oct. 16, many of us took the time to don our tricolour attire, share our favourite Queen’s memories, and share our school pride on social media. I myself attended meetings with my Queen’s toque, shirt, jacket, and scarf (a bit overkill, but I love this school)! From the moment I stepped foot on this campus in 2015, I was proud to be a part of this community. Over the years, I have seen different priorities emerge at this school, each accompanied by a new burst of enthusiasm. As we all know, right now one of our biggest priorities is EDI work.

In alphabetical order, accountability is the first value of the Office of Advancement.

I think accountability is demonstrated when someone does what they said they would do to the best of their ability; when people provide updates if it is not possible to fulfill a commitment, including how they will keep moving forward to fulfill that commitment; and when someone takes full ownership of the outcome of their actions or those of their delegates.

That is just my perspective.

For those who don’t remember, Mar. 13 was our last day in the office, and tomorrow, Mar. 16, marks the first anniversary of the beginning of our radically different work experience, remote working.
 

Collaboration is (alphabetically), the second value of the Office of Advancement.  It is a word we use often and in many different contexts.  We have defined Collaboration as follows:  “We work together across disciplines to create shared understandings, reach joint solutions, develop common purposes, and achieve our common goals of positively impacting the Queen’s community and the world.”

There is an Islamic proverb that points out that different flowers make a bouquet. I don’t know a lot about flowers, but I do know that different people make an effective team – people of diverse ages, with different perspectives, different backgrounds, different abilities, and different beliefs.

This week’s newsletter will focus on Integrity as we continue to profile Advancement’s value statements.  Integrity is a complex word we hear on a fairly regular basis, but I’m not sure it’s a word we spend a lot of time thinking deeply about.  The word integrity is used in many contexts and is often used to characterize objects, people, and, of course, organizations, amongst other things.