{"id":5776,"date":"2017-02-20T10:00:41","date_gmt":"2017-02-20T15:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.stetson.edu\/faculty-engagement\/?p=5776"},"modified":"2020-11-10T13:35:19","modified_gmt":"2020-11-10T18:35:19","slug":"reflective-spotlight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.stetson.edu\/brown-center\/2017\/02\/5776\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflective Spotlight: Valrie Chambers, School of Business Administration"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Professors are Integrative Learners<\/span><\/em><\/h2>\n

by Valrie Chambers<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

A faculty member recently remarked that we, faculty, should have to take a class every so often just to remember what is like on the other side of the podium. I believe that\u2019s true, but what course to take, and how do we find the time? Then last spring, the Brown Center for Faculty Innovation and Excellence <\/a>at Stetson University-sponsored my participation in\u00a0 Harvard University’s online course, \u201cIncluding Ourselves in the Change Equation<\/em><\/a>\u201d. The course, developed by Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey, was life-changing!<\/p>\n

The premise of the course is that most of us have stubborn life goals for which we make little sustained progress. The course had us identify a large, important goal that we’ve noted is\u00a0stubbornly resistant to progress and challenged us to make a visible<\/em> commitment to change. This process\u00a0required that\u00a0we become strongly motivated to\u00a0change. Without that motivation, minor change issues\u00a0would overshadow the core major issues that require change.
\n\"\"For example, if\u00a0an\u00a0individual wanted to prevent\u00a0her children from having to support\u00a0her in old age,\u00a0she\u00a0might commit to increasing her\u00a0net worth by saving now. \u00a0From there, she might list what she is\u00a0doing (or not doing) that may sabotage or slow\u00a0her progress\u00a0to achieving the goal of independence during retirement.\u00a0For example, she might identify over-spending as a major\u00a0obstacle to saving. However, Kegan and Laskow argue that these obstacles are probably not random. Rather, barriers\u00a0of this nature actually help an individual\u00a0achieve another hidden goal. Perhaps hidden is her\u00a0desire to spare her\u00a0children now <\/em>of any feelings of economic insecurity. That is,\u00a0her resistance to the big goal is part of a hidden \u201ci<\/i>mmunity to change<\/em>\u201d that, like physical immunities, \u00a0protects\u00a0her from even worse emotional damage.<\/p>\n

In other words, by examining what we are doing or not doing, we can identify the hidden competing commitments we are harboring. Only then can we examine the big assumptions that underlie those commitments. <\/span>It is\u00a0possible that these assumptions are only partially true. As such,\u00a0we should test our assumptions\u00a0in small, safe ways. As\u00a0we reign \u00a0in assumptions, we begin to reign\u00a0in our\u00a0resistance to stubborn goals.\u00a0However, to the extent that\u00a0our assumptions remain true, our immunity to emotional damage remains intact as well.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The impact of this course was profound! At a personal level, the course has shattered my\u00a0long-held views of how people, in aggregate, feel and react. On a professional level, I now have more empathy for those who cannot bring themselves to get (or keep) their financial lives in order. I have long known that lack of money was an emotionally-scarring experience, but I\u00a0did not have a framework for providing structured advice to\u00a0others\u00a0on how\u00a0to begin healing from that experience.<\/p>\n

I took this\u00a0course as a semester-long, online extension of\u00a0the on-campus Faculty Learning Community Day <\/a>workshop facilitated by Dr. Kegan. The course was rigorous, but the timing of the weekly assignments was flexible, allowing me to complete them\u00a0\u00a0even with my\u00a0own demanding\u00a0work schedule. I highly recommend this course to anyone who is interested.<\/p>\n

Thank you, thank you, thank you again for your\u00a0sponsoring of my participation in this course!<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

About the Author<\/span><\/h2>\n

\"\"Valrie Chambers, Ph.D., CPA<\/b><\/a>, is associate professor of accounting\u00a0at Stetson University.\u00a0\u00a0At Stetson, Dr. Chambers enjoys designing innovative courses to scaffold learning. She teaches mostly graduate tax courses\u00a0and a few upper-level undergraduate courses.\u00a0Chambers also teaches in the Executive MBA program and recently designed an online tax course for managers to be offered for the first time in summer 2017.<\/p>\n

Prior to joining\u00a0Stetson’s faculty in 2014,\u00a0Dr. Chambers\u00a0worked for a private corporation and then founded her own CPA business which she ran for over a decade before returning to school to obtain a Ph.D. from the University of Houston. Chambers received multiple awards including the Texas Society of CPAs Outstanding Accounting Educator Award in 2012, the Bobby Bizzell Southwestern Deans\u2019 2006 Innovative Achievement Award.\u00a0She \u00a0is also a multiple\u00a0recipient of the Texas A&M System Student Recognition Award for Teaching Excellence service activities, for extensive peer-reviewed publication record\u00a0in journals such as the Journal of Economic Psychology<\/i>, Tax Notes,<\/i> The Tax Adviser<\/i>,\u00a0citations by two different federal courts, and a report by the National Taxpayer Advocate of the IRS.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Professors are Integrative Learners by Valrie Chambers A faculty member recently remarked that we, faculty, should have to take a class every so often just to remember what is like on the other side of the podium. I believe that\u2019s true, but what course to take, and how do we find the time? Then […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[146,194],"class_list":["post-5776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faculty-excellence","tag-stetson-spotlight","tag-teaching-learning-day"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.stetson.edu\/brown-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.stetson.edu\/brown-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.stetson.edu\/brown-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.stetson.edu\/brown-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.stetson.edu\/brown-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5776"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/blog.stetson.edu\/brown-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5776\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12830,"href":"https:\/\/blog.stetson.edu\/brown-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5776\/revisions\/12830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.stetson.edu\/brown-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.stetson.edu\/brown-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.stetson.edu\/brown-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}