FLEXIBLE PARKING PASSES 9 LEGACY IN A LANDSCAPE 10 EFFECTS OF MICROAGGRESSIONS 14
NE W S YOU CA N USE • A P R I L / M AY 2022
Between
Two Worlds
Editor’s Note
CONTENTS
LEANORA MINAI
Remote Work Lessons At the start of a recent Managing a Hybrid Team workshop, Joy Birmingham asked supervisors to share what they had learned about themselves since working remote due to the pandemic. The responses covered at least a dozen themes, including how to resolve conflict from a distance and ways to replicate virtual “hallway conversations” on a team with a mix of on-site, hybrid, and remotefirst members. “This could be our new normal,” Birmingham, assistant director for Duke’s Learning & Organization Development (L&OD), said later of hybrid work models. She designed the L&OD course Managing a Hybrid Team for managers, supervisors, and team leaders who want to build skills to successfully lead hybrid and fully remote teams. Registration is open for the May 19 and July 20 workshops. According to a survey of managers at Duke by Human Resources in January 2022, most managers say they will allow staff in compatible positions to work some days off-site or primarily remote after COVID-19 is no longer a threat. About 9 percent said their staff would be on-site every work day. Of remote work, one manager noted in the survey that “while it was a necessity, it has had a severe negative effect on the culture of the university, which is built upon collaboration and intellectual interaction.” Another manager reported, “it definitely depends on what you do, but our team hasn’t missed a beat, has delivered work as good and as fast or more productive than in the past.” In our cover story, Between Two Worlds, which begins on page 4, you’ll learn how remote and hybrid arrangements give employees flexibility, while helping Duke retain and recruit talent. But telecommuting may present challenges for high-performing teams, which is why I attended Birmingham’s workshop this year. As a fully remote manager, I lead a small but talented team on a hybrid model, and we haven’t skipped a beat. Most of our processes haven’t changed, and like many of you, we keep team technology simple with Zoom for meetings and Microsoft Teams for chats. One of my most surreal remote moments came as I wrote winter storm updates for the emergency website from Florida. Yet, even with productive outcomes, I’ve learned that fully remote work can be lonely. I miss human interaction, the serendipitous connections that flow naturally when you’re mostly in-person. Now, as we approach a post-pandemic world, the next chapter in the future of work begins. How’s it going for you? Share your insights with me at working@duke.edu.
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4 Between Two Worlds
Now, with increasing volatility in the job market, leaders are balancing between the need to recruit and retain talent with hybrid work, while building and maintaining a positive connection to Duke.
9 Flexible Parking Permit Options
With more staff and faculty working some days from home, Parking & Transportation Services offers daily and multi-day parking permits.
10 A Legacy in a Landscape
Nearly a century after the dramatic approach to West Campus was sketched out by architects from the Olmsted Brothers’ landscape architecture firm, it still creates awe.
12 Soft skills for a hybrid work environment 13 How to make saving a habit 14 The harmful effects of microaggressions 15 Enjoy award-winning golf at a discount Contact us Editor/Executive Director of Communications: Leanora Minai (919) 681-4533 leanora.minai@duke.edu Assistant Vice President: Paul S. Grantham (919) 681-4534 paul.grantham@duke.edu
Graphic Design & Layout: Paul Figuerado (919) 684-2107 paul.figuerado@duke.edu
Jack Frederick Writer (919) 681-9965 jack.frederick@duke.edu
Stephen Schramm Senior Writer (919) 684-4639 stephen.schramm@duke.edu
Working@Duke is published every other month by Duke’s Office of Communication Services. We invite your feedback and story ideas. Send email to working@duke.edu or call (919) 681-4533.
Visit Working@Duke daily on Duke Today: working.duke.edu
Cover: Since the coronavirus outbreak in March 2020 disrupted workplaces, including at Duke, thousands of staff and faculty have navigated a fully remote or hybrid work arrangement. Illustration by Chris Williams, Plastic Flame Press.
2017, 2014 Gold, 2019, 2015, 2013, Silver, 2016, 2009, 2007 Bronze, Print Internal Audience Publications and 2012, 2011, 2009, 2008, 2007 Gold Medal, Internal Periodical Staff Writing
BRIEFLY Duke Nurse Awarded 2021 Outstanding Nurse of the Year
Keep Learning with 50 Professional Courses
Libby Carver, DNP, FNP, was named the 2021 Outstanding Nurse of the Year by the North Carolina Nurses Association Triangle Region for her work as manager of Duke’s Employee Occupational Health and Wellness (EOHW) COVID hotline. Before COVID, Carver was a nurse practitioner with EOHW, caring for injured team members, clearing team members for international travel, and providing tobacco cessation coaching. After the outbreak, she helped develop protocols for eligibility to work, put together the process for Libby Carver triaging callers in need of COVID testing, worked with the team to develop a database that triggered emails to inform team members and their managers of results, and helped implement a way to track COVID vaccine compliance. “It was an overwhelming surprise to be recognized by my professional organization with this tremendous honor,” she said. “… There are thousands of nurses that deserve recognition for their work during the pandemic, and I’m humbled to even be nominated.” The North Carolina Nurses Association Triangle Region established the Nurse of the Year in 2010 to honor outstanding nurses in the Triangle Region. Recipients are chosen based on their contributions that have made significant impact in their community, on their patients, and to the profession of nursing.
As many adapt to a changing work environment, technology and leadership skills remain essential. Learning and Organization Development (L&OD), a unit of Duke Human Resources, can help you build those skills with 50 professional and technical development courses on its summer and fall schedule. From July to December, L&OD will offer 30 courses, most of them virtual, on subjects such as time management, leading hybrid teams, delivering effective feedback, and building accountability in the new work landscape. “We need to be able to have important conversations and hold people accountable whether you’re working in a hybrid, remote or in-person situation,” said Keisha Williams, Duke’s assistant vice president for L&OD. “It’s not business as usual. The whole way we work has changed,” There are also 20 tech courses that will help you sharpen skills with Microsoft applications such as Excel, PowerPoint, and Access. Visit duke.is/brsk2 for L&OD’s full course list.
Spring into wellness
Whether you work on-site, fully remote, or a hybrid schedule, you’ll want to stay connected to news, campus happenings and more related to work and life at Duke. In addition to the Working@Duke magazine, here’s how to stay in touch:
After two years with limited offerings due to COVID-19, staff and faculty can take part again in some programs offered by LIVE FOR LIFE, the employee wellness program. From fitness and nutrition consultations to health coaching, employees will find helpful ways to build routines. “The biggest thing is trying to get people back on track post-COVID and reconnecting with their health goals and having resources available to them again,” said Julie Joyner, program coordinator for Healthy Duke, which includes LIVE FOR LIFE. Programs include: Nutrition consultations. Make an appointment to meet with a registered dietitian twice per calendar year to evaluate diet habits and learn more about how to eat healthy and nutritious meals. Fitness consultations. Whether starting training or wanting advanced training, staff can help with a suitable exercise program that will motivate you to accomplish goals. Pop-up farmers markets. LIVE FOR LIFE is organizing pop-up markets on campus for late spring and early summer. Stay tuned for upcoming dates. Live webinars. Join dieticians for “Food Matters” on April 12 and April 25 to learn more about healthy nutrition habits in the post-pandemic environment. Additional sessions are planned for the summer.
Get news you can use
Visit Working@Duke digital daily [working.duke.edu], where you'll discover a range of topics from human interest to useful information tied to career, health and wellness benefits, and productivity and tech resources. Check your email on Wednesdays for the week’s top headlines in “Working@Duke This Week.” Connect with Working@Duke on Facebook [facebook.com/ workingatduke] and Twitter [twitter.com/WorkingatDuke] for stories, exclusive behind-the-scenes photos, and real-time updates about severe weather, campus traffic, and other happenings. We also love hearing from you. Did you or someone on your team do something special? Did your school, department or unit accomplish something neat? Is there something you’d like for us to cover? Tell us: hr.duke.edu/sendnews
Visit hr.duke.edu/LiveForLife to learn more about these programs and others as they become available.
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Between
Two Worlds Striking a balance between remote work and community bonds
While Brittane George of the Duke University Health System Talent Acquisition team enjoys working remotely, she knows it’s important to stay connected to colleagues and campus. Photo by Alex Boerner.
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rittane George, who has worked remotely since joining Duke last year, recently co-hosted an online job fair for patient-facing positions in Duke’s hospitals. Between candidate visits on Zoom with her Duke University Health System Talent Acquisition team members, George got the opportunity to make small talk with colleagues, who shared restaurant recommendations and asked about her move to Durham from Virginia in late 2021. “Afterward, one of my team members said, ‘You know Brittane, this is the first time we’ve gotten a chance to really chat,’” George said. George cherishes the opportunity to work remotely, pointing to the flexibility to work outside on nice days and the cost-savings without a commute. While she’s taken steps to feel connected by visiting campus and the hospitals, she knows that building bonds with Duke would have been easier had the pandemic not happened. “I work with an amazing team, but when you’re not in the same space, you don’t get to connect in the same way,” she said. Her experience typifies the balance employees and organizations are trying to strike in a post-pandemic era, where hybrid and fully remote work arrangements give employees flexibility, while potentially stretching social connections and organizational culture. Over the past two years, Duke has largely answered concerns about if and how remote arrangements can work. But there are lingering questions as the institution charts its path forward. With hires and departures rising last year, recruiting and retaining top talent, while building and maintaining a positive connection to Duke, remain priority areas for leaders. In an online survey by Working@Duke in December 2021 to assess remote work preferences, 77 percent of about 2,300 staff and faculty who responded said they’d prefer to work remote two or more days per week after COVID-19 is no longer a threat. That echoes a national trend in a 2021 survey by consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) that showed 56 percent of employees would prefer to work remotely two-or-more days per week if given the option.
December 2021 Remote Work Frequency Nearly half of 2,300 survey respondents reported they were working remotely five days per week
Source: Working@Duke Remote Work Survey, December 2021.
At Duke, thousands of staff and faculty, including many caregivers, aren’t able to work remotely due to the nature of their roles. And 4 percent of staff and faculty who took the Working@Duke poll said they prefer not to work remotely at all. One of those employees is Social Science Research Institute Research Associate Mary Anne McDonald, who worked at home at the onset of the pandemic. “I prefer to be on-site because Daniel Ennis, Executive Vice President I believe in the concept of the academic community,” she said. “I am collaborative by nature and value the community of other researchers and scholars ... I missed being able to walk across the hall to ask questions or help solve problems.” Duke’s Executive Vice President Daniel Ennis said that the university is balancing its educational, research and healthcare missions – most of which require an in-person presence – with new approaches in a competitive landscape. “My view is that we’re in the talent business, and we’ve got to listen very carefully to what that talent needs and balance that against the needs of our mission and the ways we need to work together,” Ennis said. Research shows that people want both connection and autonomy. The amount of Duke staff and faculty who listed flexibility as a top benefit of remote work jumped from 16 percent in 2020 to 29 percent last year, according to the Working@Duke survey. And a recent LinkedIn report notes that 63 percent of professionals want “work-life balance” when picking new jobs. “What we have learned overall is that flexibility is here to stay in some way, shape or form,” said Andy Brantley, president and CEO of the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources (CUPA-HR). “It’s essential in terms of your ability to recruit, engage and retain talent across your organization.” >>> continued on page 6
Post-COVID Remote Work Preferences Compared to 2020, significantly more employees reported in 2021 that they would prefer to work remotely five days per week after COVID-19 is no longer a threat
Source: Working@Duke Remote Work Surveys, 2020, 2021.
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Finding and Keeping the Best Each morning, Lacey Rhea, a grants and contracts manager with the Duke Department of Medicine’s Office of Research, sits near a sunny window at home and fields questions from her team about compliance and funding involving Duke’s cardiology, hematology, oncology and cell therapy research. Rhea, who started at Duke in July of 2021, has never met her colleagues in-person. In fact, she’s never been to Durham. “I do hope to visit one day,” said Rhea, who lives and works in Gainesville, Florida. Since the pandemic began, hybrid and fully remote arrangements have become a part of the institution’s future. A survey of around 300 managers at Duke this year shows that nearly 91 percent expect to have remote or hybrid employees moving forward. Offering versions of remote work arrangements for compatible positions will be part of keeping pace with other employers. A January 2022 PricewaterhouseCoopers survey shows that 48 percent of U.S.-based executives saw talent acquisition and retention challenges as the biggest risks for organizations. About 43 percent are offering employees hybrid work options to attract and keep staff. “In the past year, things have changed dramatically, and people are making decisions as it relates to their life circumstances,” said Brantley, the CEO of CUPA-HR. The opportunity to work remotely is what drew Rhea, a Florida native, to Duke after her former employer required a return to the office. “I’m thankful that my department at Duke recognizes that many people are perfectly fine working from home,” Rhea said. Flexibility will continue to be a draw as Duke sees an uptick in hiring, adding 10,317 new full-time employees in 2021, up from 7,061 in 2019. While most new hires are in the Health System, the portion of Duke’s workforce housing its medical research operations also saw an increase, adding 3,255 jobs last year.
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As a research administrator, Aletta Davis works in a field that’s been reshaped by the increase in remote work. Photo by Alex Boerner.
As director of Human Resources for the Duke Clinical Research Institute (DCRI), Dana McDonald finds herself in the middle of a competitive recruiting and retention effort in an industry reshaped by the pandemic. COVID-19 unleashed funding for new medical research, leaving areas such as DCRI with an increase in work. McDonald estimated that DCRI had at least 50 open job postings at any point in the past year. Prior to the pandemic, slightly more than half of DCRI employees worked remotely at least one day per week. Now, all DCRI employees work remotely for at least part of the week, a feature often cited in job listings. “Being completely remote is absolutely a hook,” McDonald said. “You know you’ll get more people to apply when they know there’s a possibility they don’t have to relocate.” Assistant Director of Central Recruitment for Duke Human Resources Michelle Jones, whose team oversees job postings for all of Duke University and Duke Health’s non-clinical staff roles, estimated that the ratio of applicants for
fully remote jobs versus hybrid or on-site ones is about 10-to-1. Currently, Duke is registered as an employer in 10 states beyond North Carolina, meaning it’s compliant with the states’ labor laws, tax structures and more. By this summer, Duke expects to add eight more states to the list for certain exempt staff positions. “This just gives us another tool in the toolbox,” said Duke Associate Vice President for Finance and Controller Barbara Hough, who is part of the state expansion effort. Research Administrator Aletta Davis is one of those remote workers. She joined the Office of Research Administration in September of 2021. Working from her Cary home, she closely collaborates with colleagues in Alamance County and South Carolina. Despite the distance, she enjoys her team members, is fascinated by the research, and relishes the convenience of working from home five days per week. But her appreciation of the flexibility goes well beyond small comforts. Her parents, Bob and Linda, live in West Virginia, near where she grew up. After her mother had a health scare early in the pandemic, Davis spent time back home helping out. While her parents are doing well now, if they have more issues, she’s ready to move to Virginia or Maryland to help. “If the time comes when I need to move up there so I can be close enough to help, I know I have that option,” Davis said. “… so that I can be an excellent employee, as well as excellent daughter. I think that’s the kind of flexibility people want.”
Before the pandemic, Garcia worked among a few hundred colleagues in the 27-story One City Center in downtown Durham. About 14 times a year, he traveled across the United States, meeting with donors, energized by conversations about campus happenings and newfound connections with alumni in various industries. After working from home for 18 months, Garcia returned to his cubicle as soon as it was safe and has gone into the office every day. But nearly everything is different now; he sees fewer than 10 people on-site and Zoom backgrounds and digital messages have replaced in-person hallway chats. >>> continued on page 8
Together, Even When Hybrid After 23 years as a Green Beret in the U.S. Army Special Forces, Randy Garcia wanted a career with another tight-knit group. That’s what drew him to his role at Duke, his alma mater, in 2012. Here, he can establish connections with fellow alumni as a development officer in Leadership Giving, raising money for the Duke Annual Fund in Alumni Engagement and Development.
Randy Garcia prefers coming into the office, where he can work from his cubicle at One City Center in downtown Durham. Photo by Alex Boerner.
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“Relationships are built by in-person interaction,” said Garcia, who is among the 4 percent of staff and faculty who prefer to work on-site daily, according to Working@ Duke’s survey. While an all in-person work environment may no longer be the norm, the worry over building relationships represents a concern shared by Duke employees, who ranked “social isolation” among their top remote work challenges in the survey. The views match national perspectives, including the August 2021 PricewaterhouseCoopers survey in which 36 percent of C-suite executives cite loss of corporate culture as the biggest challenge to hybrid work. In looking beyond the pandemic, Dr. Sim Sitkin, the Michael W. Krzyzewski University Professor of Leadership at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business, said there isn’t a one-sizefits all approach for connecting people with each other and an organization’s mission. While inclusivity, trust, support, and effective communication are key to engendering pride and a sense of belonging among colleagues, each organization must decide what works best and make togetherness a priority, whether people are on-site or remote. “There isn’t one correct answer to this,” Sitkin said. “I think leaders have to think seriously about what the key norms are. What are the key practices that are associated with that culture? Many of them don’t require collocation, some do.” Last year, the Office of Information Technology (OIT) permanently relocated to the Power House, a former power plant in downtown Durham that is about a third of the size of OIT’s former space at the American Tobacco Campus. With 61 percent of OIT staff working remotely most days, the Power House’s shared workspaces offer flexibility for individuals and teams to gather in-person for collaboration. The department also organizes monthly virtual and in-person events to build camaraderie and maintain office traditions. Last spring, for example, an outdoor scavenger hunt
A sign hangs in Duke offices in One City Center in February 2022. Photo by Alex Boerner.
drew 40 participants who searched for clues at King’s Sandwich Shop, Durham’s bull statue, and Motorco Music Hall. For the tech industry where many professionals can work from remote locations, flexibility has helped OIT retain staff. In 2021, when three long-tenured staff members decided to move out of state to follow their partner or be closer to family, OIT designed remote work arrangements that allowed them to stay with Duke. OIT Human Resources Director Martay Smith said one of the employees mentioned that the willingness for OIT to accommodate their move deepened their connection to Duke. As OIT tries to balance the twin desires for flexibility and community, Smith said it’s crucial to not lose sight of the people at the center of Duke. “We’ve always kept an eye on honoring the talent that’s there,” she said. “We have some really brilliant technologists here who have done great things for Duke and outside of Duke. Understanding the value of our employees, that was first.” By Stephen Schramm, Jack Frederick and Leanora Minai
Staff in the Office of Information Technology (OIT) gather in teams for a scavenger hunt through downtown Durham. Photo courtesy of OIT.
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Special Parking Permits to Fit Your Schedule
Occasional parking passes fit Nick Tripp’s schedule better than an annual permit. Photo by Jack Frederick
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Daily and multi-day parking passes offer an alternative to an annual permit
ick Tripp traded in his annual parking permit for an as-needed pass that better matches his remote work arrangement. When he needs to work on-site, he buys a daily parking pass online. “It’s really been fantastic because, financially, it makes more sense for me to buy single passes right now as needed,” said Tripp, IT senior manager in the Duke University IT Security Office. “Having that option is a real bonus.” With more staff and faculty working some days from home, an annual parking permit may not fit the needs of employees with hybrid schedules. To offer options, Parking & Transportation Services sells single and multi-day passes that may provide a cost savings, depending on how often employees come to campus to work. Carl DePinto, director of Parking & Transportation Services, said staff and faculty considering a move to an as-needed permit should first review their work situation to determine what makes the most sense financially. Generally, a single-day or multi-day pass offers savings if an employee works off-site at least three days per week, but the savings depends on each person’s situation. For example, the Broad Street lot costs $54.75 per month for an annual permit. A daily pass offers savings if you come to campus about once per
week, and the annual permit remains a better value for people who come in two or more days per week. A variety of single-day and multi-day passes are available for select university and medical campus parking lots at prices between $8 and $23. For instance, university staff and faculty can select from an $8 single-day pass or $21 multi-day pass, both of which provide access to 10 university lots. “It is convenient because you can get the benefit of parking in a better location, based on the locations listed, than where you may have had an annual permit,” DePinto said. Single and multi-day passes can be purchased online [parking.duke.edu/occasional-parking] within six days of use on campus. After purchase, a QR code sent by email can be printed or scanned from a mobile device at the lot entrance. For Tripp, who purchases a daily permit twice a month to park in the Carmichael lot at Fernway Avenue and Fuller Street, the pass saves him approximately $500 per year. He works to keep Duke’s network secure, so his role lends itself to remote work, but when needed, the occasional pass offers access to reliable parking at reasonable cost. “The value for me is not having to pay for the cost of the full pass when the fractional costs of a pass when I need it will do,” Tripp said.
Learn more about single and multi-day parking permits: parking.duke.edu/occasional-parking
By Jack Frederick
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Legacy in a Landscape Work of iconic firm remains visible in historic campus design
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The approach to Duke University Chapel is an example of the graceful landscape architecture laid out by the Olmsted Brothers’ firm. Photo by University Communications.
ew people can appreciate the drive up to Duke University Chapel like Ron Jones. For 23 years, the bus driver at Duke has piloted the C1 East-West bus, carrying passengers from East Campus to the heart of West Campus around 18 times per shift. Each time, the bus glides down the slight slope of Chapel Drive as glimpses of Sarah P. Duke Gardens appear through trees. Then, the roadway begins an ascent, rising around 30 feet toward campus until the tree-lined corridor gives way to green lawns, sprawling oaks and stone buildings of Abele Quad. “Every time I make that turn, and drive toward the Chapel, it’s breathtaking,” Jones said. “It’s beautiful, even if you see it every day.” Nearly a century after the dramatic approach to West Campus was sketched out by architects from the Olmsted Brothers’ landscape architecture firm, it still creates awe. 10
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“There’s so much elegance to it,” Duke University Landscape Architect Mark Hough said of the gentle fall-and-rise of the Chapel Drive approach. “It’s just enough to give you that sense of arrival. That, to me, is the kind of nuanced design that you sort of take for granted.” When the story of the design of Duke’s campus is told, the Horace Trumbauer architectural firm, which designed Duke’s iconic buildings, is often at the forefront. But quietly, the genius of the Olmsted Brothers’ landscape architecture shines through in peaceful green spaces, graceful roadways and the balance between symmetrical order and rolling woodland. The Olmsted influence gives Duke a shared lineage with some of the country’s most beloved spaces, such as New York’s Central Park and the U.S. Capitol grounds, and showcases how a mix of ambition, artistry and resourcefulness created a campus that, even after decades of growth, remains majestic.
The Story Behind the Design
Trumbauer’s firm turned the clusters of buildings into the smaller, orderly quads seen on West Campus today. And the Olmsted firm left the water features behind, instead letting the rolling woodland, laced with graceful curving roads, provide a lush, tree-filled backdrop for Trumbauer’s buildings, which the Olmsted architects sited atop a dramatic ridgeline. “The buildings were more set into the landscape instead of the landscape being manipulated,” Hough said.
Hough came to Duke in 2000 with a keen understanding of what having an Olmsted Brothers’ landscape meant. He’d previously worked at the Central Park Conservancy, a non-profit that maintains Central Park, the iconic 843-acre greenspace in the heart of Manhattan. It’s the defining work of Frederick Law Olmsted, who, through his work in the 19th century, became recognized as the father of modern landscape architecture. Frederick Law Olmsted, who died in 1903, and the Olmsted Brothers firm started in 1898 by his sons, John Charles and The Olmsted Brothers worked with Duke until the 1960s, Frederick Law Olmsted Jr., designed spaces that honored their offering general plans to guide the growth of campus. Hough clients’ visions but stayed true to the natural character of the land said that as campus grows, he tries to stay true to the spirit of the by using the interplay of light and shade, and thoughtful layers Olmsted firm’s vision, incorporating trees as much as possible of plants, to enhance its features. Their landscapes were also and taking inspiration from a lake that once appeared in early meant to nourish the spirits of the people who experienced them plans of West Campus when designing the Duke Pond that sits through accessible green spaces and an emphasis on harmony on the northwest corner of campus. over eye-grabbing dramatic elements. The legacy of the Olmsted Brothers firm lives on in some of Through Olmsted himself, and the Olmsted Brothers Duke’s most prominent and beloved spaces, from Chapel Woods firm, the Olmsted name is on the to the oak-shaded lawns of East Campus, and the tree-lined landscape architecture of many of the Campus Drive, which meanders for a little more than a mile country’s most beloved spaces, including Asheville’s Biltmore Estate, and elements between the East and West campuses. Senior Associate Director Stacy Rusak has spent several of national parks such as Acadia, the years working in Undergraduate Admissions’ offices in the Great Smoky Mountains and Yosemite. sprawling Campus Drive house originally built for the university “There’s an overarching desire to president in 1931. Each time she takes a walk, or enjoys the view be stewards of the land,” said Hough, from her office window, Rusak appreciates the forested corridor who has written extensively about the Olmsteds and delivered remarks last year of Campus Drive and the rolling hills that surround West Campus, all pieces of the Olmsted Brothers’ enduring vision. at a conference celebrating the 200th “You see squirrels, birds and butterflies, and trees that change anniversary of Frederick Law Olmsted’s with the seasons,” Rusak said. “You feel like you work in a forest. birth. “They tried to accommodate the Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. was one of It feels different than most campuses.” design to fit the topography and have a the landscape architects who worked on the original plan for West Campus. gentle imprint on the land and maximize By Stephen Schramm Photo courtesy of the National its natural qualities.” Association for Olmsted Parks. In the early 2000s, Hough studied Duke’s original plans at the Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site in Massachusetts, where the National Park Service keeps the papers of the Olmsted Brothers firm, which closed in 1980. There, he saw drawings and correspondence that showed how the landscape architecture of West Campus was a departure from what was originally envisioned by the Olmsted Brothers. Early versions of the campus plan, drawn in early 1925, featured clusters of Trumbauer-designed buildings extending out at two different angles from a central chapel. Also, early on there were plans for a large lake where Sarah P. Duke Gardens is now, a round fountain at the traffic circle where Campus Drive and Chapel Drive meet, and a landscape filled with rolling streams and quiet grottos. But after James B. Duke died in the fall of 1925, An early view of West Campus, looking toward the Davison Building, shows how plantings can funding for the construction of West Campus became soften the hard lines of a quadrangle. Image courtesy of the National Park Service, Frederick Law tighter and many parts of the plan were reined in. Olmsted National Historic Site.
A Lasting Imprint
Look through some Olmsted landscape architecture projects: duke.is/pg52a
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Soft Skills for a Hybrid Work Environment
Whether on-site, hybrid or fully remote, strong communication skills are key
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fter 28 years at Duke, Tedryl Bumpass transitioned to a fully remote supervisory role last year and knew solid communication would be central to working well with 11 team members. To enhance her skills, she took a class on email etiquette and will enroll in an effective communication course on LinkedIn Learning. “I tell this to everybody: if there’s a breakdown, the breakdown is usually with communication,” said Bumpass, Duke Clinical Research Institute trials manager. Soft skills — such as leadership, interpersonal communication, and problem solving — are essential, soughtafter abilities, especially on teams with hybrid staff. A Harris Poll last year found that 73 percent of companies value soft skills more than ever before, and that nearly one in five believe they are more valuable than hard skills gained through training or education. “The only thing that will actually keep you in your job are your people skills,” said Joy Birmingham, assistant director for Duke Learning and Organization Development (L&OD), a unit in Duke Human Resources. “IQ gets you in the door, but people skills get you to stay in the business.” In addition to interpersonal communication, here are two other soft skills for any work arrangement.
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Leadership During COVID-19, Natalie Spring needed to hire three researchers and a data analyst on her Alumni Engagement and Development team. As part of the hiring process, Spring, senior director of Prospect Research Management and Analytics, included her colleagues, asking each to suggest strengths and responsibilities for new team members. “Because I extend that trust to them, they extend that trust back to me,” Spring said. “As a leader, it means I have a stronger team.” Spring learned about including others as a Duke Leadership Academy scholar in 2016. Building and maintaining mutual respect and trust are crucial because she and her colleagues collaborate to compile, evaluate, and interpret data to engage donors. “My role is to grow people,” she said. “It’s not just to hire somebody and make sure they show up.”
Problem solving
As director of communications for the Department of Surgery, Scott Behm
manages all official content, including publishing a bi-annual Duke Surgery magazine sent to 4,000 recipients. Before the pandemic, he met with team members in a conference room, where they discussed design, sketched ideas and wrote notes on a dry erase board. When COVID-19 hit, that was no longer possible. Behm found new ways to collaborate in a virtual setting, which became crucial as Duke Surgery moved the print magazine to an online format for the first time. To stay on track, he replicated meetings over Zoom. “When you’re faced with a problem, and you don’t have any way forward but to solve it, that’s what you have to do,” Behm said. Birmingham said that soft skills, which are part of a person’s character or learned through experience, can carry a career to the next level. “We were always asking for an agile workforce,” said Birmingham, “but I think today, that agility is going to help us survive things like a pandemic or dramatic changes.” By Jack Frederick
Workshops Duke Learning & Organization Development (L&OD) offers classes that feature soft skill elements, including “Personality & Effective Communication” and “Navigating Challenging Personalities.” Visit hr.duke.edu/training.
How to Make Saving a Habit
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Amid rising prices, stick with savings goals
rom buying gas for her 50-mile daily round trip commute from her Oxford home to lunch breaks that included restaurant meals, Loretta Ball’s pre-pandemic workdays featured a sneaky amount of spending. But for the past two years, Ball has worked mostly from home, helping her move toward firmer financial footing. She’s applied her savings to credit card debt and her mortgage, and increased her retirement savings. “You don’t really realize how much you’re spending each day,” said Ball, 56, a Duke HomeCare & Hospice Program Specialist. “When you don’t do those little things anymore, you look in your checking account, and you’ve got a little more in there.” While the pandemic added an unwelcome dose of uncertainty, quarantines and lockdowns created opportunities for some to save money. But as life inches back to normal, and prices for essential purchases jump upward, the challenge facing many, including Ball, is how to keep financial progress going. After initially surging as high as 33.8 percent in the pandemic’s first months, the personal savings rate – the percentage of monthly disposable income Americans save or invest – continued to stay higher than normal for more than a year into the pandemic. But starting last fall, that percentage returned to pre-pandemic levels. And spurred by spikes in the price of gas and food, the Consumer Price Index on all goods rose by 7.9 percent between February 2021 and February 2022, adding another challenge to savings goals. Alan Collins, a retirement planner with Fidelity, the primary record keeper for Duke’s Faculty and Staff Retirement Plan, said that smartest way to lock in financial discipline is through a monthly household budget. Ideally, around 50 percent of a
household income should go to essential expenses with 15 percent, if possible, for retirement and 5 percent to emergencies. With spending habits and prices in flux, it’s important to revisit your budget – and in the process, look at the past 90 days of spending to spot changes and see where money is going. “There are usually some areas you can cut back on, such as monthly subscriptions, or dining out,” Collins said. To keep building emergency savings, Margaret Bolton, a senior research scholar who studies behavioral economics at the Center for Advanced Hindsight at Duke, recommends automatic savings account deposits with each pay cycle. “You don’t even have to think about it,” Bolton said. “Treat your emergency fund as non-discretionary. You need to have it.”
By Stephen Schramm
Save the Date Duke’s Financial Fitness Week returns this fall with live webinars on a variety of topics. Visit hr.duke.edu/financialfitness.
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13
Racial
Toward Justice
The Harmful Effects of Microaggressions
Earlier this year, Duke’s administrative leaders attend the “Advancing Equity: Understanding the Climate Survey Data in Your Unit” retreat organized by the Office for Institutional Equity (OIE). Photo by Megan Peterson, OIE.
D
uring a meeting, a Black staff member might be labeled as aggressive by a colleague for speaking up to voice an opinion. “Why do you have to be so loud?” a white coworker might ask. “Just calm down.” The verbal interaction, whether intentionally biased or not, is an example of a microaggression. Microaggressions are hostile, derogatory, or negative slights or acts of discrimination along racial, socioeconomic, religious, gender or sexual identities. The 2021 Duke Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Climate Survey, the first survey of its kind that measured experiences of Duke University community members, revealed that among 12,751 respondents, more than half of Black, Hispanic, Asian, female, and LGBTQ+ members of the Duke community reported experiencing microaggressions in the past year. In the survey, 74 percent of Black faculty and 44 percent of Black staff said that they’ve experienced microaggressions very often to sometimes in the past year.
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WORKING@DUKE
Kimberly Hewitt, vice president for Institutional Equity and Chief Diversity Officer at Duke, said microaggressions negatively affect an institution’s climate and culture, particularly a community member’s productivity and health. “It inhibits your ability to do your work because you don’t feel welcome,” Hewitt said. “You don’t feel like you’re going to thrive in a place where there are some perceptions that are based on negative stereotypes about your identity.” Most often, an underlying cause of microaggressions is that people are not in relationships with diverse people. When people get to know each other, communication lines open. Someone hurt by a comment, or someone who witnessed a slight, may be more comfortable engaging in a conversation about it. “If you haven’t spent time with someone of a different race, of a different gender identity, that’s the space where you have less understanding,” Hewitt said. In the campus survey, faculty, staff and students said opportunities for social interaction would be a useful resource to prevent instances of discrimination and microaggressions. When Shruti Desai, associate vice president of Student Affairs for Campus Life, joined Duke in 2021, she learned more about Jewish culture from Joyce Gordon, director of Jewish Life at Duke. That positive exposure has helped Desai serve students and expand her own understanding of microaggressions. “It’s made me a better advocate of Jewish students,” said Desai, who is Indian American. “Microaggressions around Jewish identity are not something that I’ve always picked up on. Now, I’ve been educated to pay attention to those things.” The Campus Climate & Assessment Subcommittee is creating a plan for how individual units and departments can improve the experience of underrepresented groups at Duke. Taking personal responsibility to build relationships with community members who are different is a positive first step, Hewitt said. “At the institutional level, we can’t change the whole place a lot,” she said. “It has to happen at the local level.”
By Jack Frederick
Duke’s Office for Institutional Equity (OIE) offers educational workshops throughout the year: oie.duke.edu
PERQS EMPLOYEE DISCOUNTS
An aerial view of hole 11 on the Duke University Golf Club. Photo courtesy of Duke University Golf Club.
Enjoy Award-Winning Golf
I
at Duke University Golf Club Use a discount to play at the Duke golf course
n 1993, as a fellow in Cardiology at Duke, Dr. Kristin Newby’s lab director invited her to play golf for the first time at Duke University Golf Club. Then, playing her firstever round with a set of rented clubs, she fell in love with the game. “That was the first time I was ever on a golf course, and I was just so hooked,” said Newby, a cardiologist, associate professor of medicine and faculty member of the Duke Clinical Research Institute. Twenty-nine years later, Newby keeps a weekly connection to her first golf experience by playing at least one round on the 120-acre public course, which is next to the Washington Duke Inn. Newby often plays with colleagues Dave Rendall, a physician assistant, and Dr. Chris Granger, a cardiologist. A discount on greens fees at Duke University Golf Club is available to all staff and faculty, who pay $50 to $70 up until 3:30 p.m., depending on the day. The discount rate after 4 p.m. is $35 to $45, depending on the weekday. Staff and faculty can also buy an annual greens fees pass for $3,400, a $1,000 savings. “We’re open to the public, but we want to take special care of our faculty and staff,” said Ed Ibarguen, general manager and PGA director of Golf for the Duke University Golf Club. “They’re the ones that make the University go, and we’re very pleased to be able to provide that recreational opportunity to them.”
The award-winning 65-year-old course was designed by Robert Trent Jones Sr. and updated by his son, Rees Jones. First envisioned in the early 1930s, the course has received top rankings from Golf Digest and Golf Magazine and has been voted best public course in the Triangle by the Triangle Business Journal. Newby, who plays right-handed, has had some of her favorite moments playing golf at Duke, including notable birdies, chipins from the sand trap and other fun times with friends. With one career hole-in-one under her belt at a course in Pinehurst, North Carolina, Newby returns to the Duke course each week looking forward to an opportunity to experience other memorable moments at the first place where she learned the game. “Duke is a special Through the Duke employee course in a number of discount program, staff and ways, but one of them is faculty also receive a 10 percent that it’s about golf,” she discount at Hillandale Golf Course, a said. “There are no houses, public course in Durham. Visit hr.duke.edu/discounts for a full list there’s nothing else, of savings at area businesses except for a beautiful tract and vendors. Your NetID and of land and golf.”
Golf Discounts
By Jack Frederick
password may be needed to access deals.
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SOCIAL
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February 11
Congratulations to Nina King on being featured by Working@Duke as Blue Devil of the Week! She’s the first female director for Duke Athletics and teaches a sports business class here at Fuqua.
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Keep an eye out for the February/March issue of Working @ Duke magazine, which features stories on Coach K’s legacy, racial equity, how @DukeHealth’s nurses stood up to #COVID19, and more. @DukeMBB @DukeEngineering @DukeHospital @DukeRegional @dukeraleigh @BlackThinkTank_
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Thank you @WorkingatDuke for including us in this comprehensive article! We are so lucky at @DukeU to have so many #meditation options!
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Overcome Impostor Syndrome Duke colleagues share strategies for beating self-doubt and building confidence. duke.is/6uk5g
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