What problem does your work solve and how does it improve the well-being and destiny of our neighbors?
When we remember what we were created for (new and better solutions to the great problems of the world), we stop just “doing stuff” and start solving real problems.
We become fixers and not just doers.
Doers will not survive the hard times which are coming. Fixers will. Stakeholders will support us when we show not what we did, but how our solutions have improved communities because we did it.
During covid, Illinois chancellor Robert Jones called us to action stating, “These are the days when new and better solutions are critically needed. These are the days for which our university was created. 2020 Illinois State of the University address
It was a call to act like the land-grant system of old — to give hope to the toiling millions looking to us, to you.
Let’s take time as colleagues to critically examine if our efforts are solving critical issues that move humanity forward, or if our efforts are just another date on a calendar.