It’s a hard time for higher education across the country. Private and public institutions are suffering from downturns. Resources are increasingly scarce, funding is harder to come by, and everyone is trying to figure out how to survive.

But it’s not enough to survive. For the sake of the school, for the students and faculty, for the whole state – we need to figure out how to thrive. When resources start to get scarce, people start to get nervous and tend to stop being collaborative.

We cannot cave to this sort of paranoia.

More than ever we have to work together. Share ideas. Have the tough conversations. And – importantly – listen to each other. It’s easy to get along when there are plenty of resources and a general sense of abundance. It’s when the belt tightens that it’s difficult to remain as cohesive and cooperative, yet that is also when we need that camaraderie the most.

We have a university made up of four different campuses with very different cultures.

How do we honor those cultures in a way that’s fair for all but still maintains that sense of unified identity that doesn’t distort their individuality? Because at the end of the day we all come together around one school. We are the University of Nebraska.

I’m a night owl, so it’s not difficult to keep me up late. But when I do lie down to get some rest, these are the thoughts that keep running through my head like a song on repeat. How do we come together? Where do we go from here? I don’t know the answer. It’s going to take all of us to find it.

*Barbara’s thoughts as written by Kate based on weekly (fascinating) conversations.