They just rolled to 1202 here a second ago, so for the sake of time I'm going to get started for everybody. Thank you for those who are popping their info in the chat. Feel free to continue doing that as as we get going here. Welcome. I'll introduce myself in a moment, but District 5, Annual Conference, Case 5. We're excited. We'll be launching this here on Sunday. Some of us are coming in on Saturday, so look forward to seeing folks around the hotel. We'll be back at the good old Sheraton in downtown Chicago. We're excited. Quick agenda and share a little bit about what we're going to go through here today. Really excited for our third free conference, New to the Profession Zoom Group. We've done New to the Profession over the years. This is the third year that we're doing more of a cohort style with an opportunity that we'll share more about how you can participate after the conference. We'll just do some quick introductions of some folks that are in the Zoom room. I'll share a little bit around case overview and some acronyms, know before you go from Eleanor and Natalie. I'll talk a little about professional etiquette, real brief. Natalie and Matt is going to tell us about the Mentor Connect program. Chris is going to dig into the DISC workshop as it's a pretty big part of this New to the Profession chunk of the workshop. Be engaged. We welcome feedback, questions. If you have technical issues, there are folks from Case HQ who are on here that are happy to help troubleshoot anything, but also it's pretty casual. Feel free to unmute yourself. We are recording this. There are some folks who couldn't join us for the session today, so we want to make sure that they'll have access to that. Feel free, again, pop any questions in the chat, so welcome. My name is Courtney Baird. I use she, her pronouns. I am the chair for this New to the Profession we call Pre-Conference Workshop. I have been involved with Case V since I joined the University of Minnesota in the fall of 2012, and about three months later, I went to my first Case V conference when we used to be in December. That was many moons ago now, and I got involved in presenting. For a couple of years, I presented some sessions, and then I was interested in being more involved as a volunteer and joined the Conference Planning Committee for a few years. For the past three years, I've been working with this New to the Profession Pre-Conference Workshop and cohort, and we'll share more about that. My colleague, Billy Falk, he is going to try to pop in later. He's got a lot of stuff going on. He's at St. Norbert's in Wisconsin, and he is on the cabinet for Case V. We are a volunteer-run group, and then there are professional colleagues of ours that work mostly out of the Washington, D.C. office, which is Case headquarters for the U.S., I believe, and there's other offices, I believe, around the world. We'll share a little bit more about that as I know some of you are like, what is Case? What is this thing? Also wanted to share, and Keely, if you're on and want to pop in and say hello, Keely Ashman is the chair of this year's conference. There she is. If you want to say a few words and maybe introduce your other colleagues there. Hi, guys. Keely Ashman. I put some information about myself in the chat, but super excited to be the 2025 District V Conference Chair this year. It seems pretty crazy. I have been a part of advancement for about 10 years, but I'm actually new to my role. I just started in a new role five months ago, so it doesn't matter how long you can be a part of something. When you start a new role, it's all new. It's all overwhelming, and so I love having Case in that best practice kind of to hold me up and hold my hand through some new transitions, so super excited you guys are all here. I'm super excited that some of my conference ladies are with us today, Eleanor and Natalie, and I will let them introduce themselves. Thanks, Keely. Hi, everybody. I'm Eleanor Fortescue. I also put a little bit about myself in the chat. I work at Capital University as the Annual Giving Director here, so it's in Columbus, Ohio. This is my second time serving on the conference committee, and I was a part of the first New to the Profession cohort, which would have been December of 2022, so I was just in your shoes a couple of years back, and I'm super excited this summer that I will be joining you all for the sixth month, which I think Courtney will talk about, but you'll see more of me at the conference throughout the summer. I'm so excited to get to know you all and see you this weekend. Natalie? Hey, everybody. Natalie Farmer. I just put my role in the chat, Associate Director of Legacy and Gift Planning at St. Norbert College, so Billy, who Courtney shared, was one of my colleagues. He's now transitioned to a different role here at St. Norbert. I have been in this role at the college for eight months, but previous to that, I was a film therapic advisor for just over two years here at St. Norbert. I also was in the first cohort of NTP along with Eleanor, and I actually started at St. Norbert November 22nd, and the next weekend went to my first ever case conference, so I was really thrown into it, but I found so much value in this group and case in general. I think it was a whirlwind to start my first week and go to a case conference, but I couldn't have imagined a different way, and I'm excited to meet all of you this weekend and just get to know a little bit more about you. Awesome. Thank you. And you all will meet Matt and Chris here in a moment. Roe and Carol are also on this call and part of this group. They also participated in the first cohort of the, we say NTP, which does stand for New to the Profession, so you'll hear us say NTP 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, and we'll share more about that, but Carol and Eleanor are going to be leading the post-conference engagement opportunity that we'll share more about. Just a little, again, timeline of awesomeness, as I like to refer to it, as you all are right here at this pre-Zoom, pre-conference session, and really just a way for us to connect before we're all thrown in a room together on Sunday for three hours. It goes a little fast and furious for those three hours, but it's just another opportunity to go over things that are nice to know before we get into that room, and then when we're in the room, we can really jump into some, you know, I don't know, in Minnesota, the meat and potatoes of things. So we'll, again, share a little bit more about the 3.0, what we call the NTP 3.0 cohort, that you'll all have an opportunity to participate in after the conference. So I will share in the chat here in a couple minutes, but this was me, this was actually taken during COVID. I was thinking about how long ago I took that photo, and it was for our 2022 session. So why does Higher Ed and Advancement have all these dang acronyms? And that's probably something you've gotten into in your first, you know, day, week, month. NTP, what's NTP stand for? What's CASE stand for? You know, all those things. We laugh and we say CASE stands for copy and steal everything, or copy and share everything is maybe a nicer way to say it. So you'll hear that every once in a while, probably at least in one session, somebody will note it, because really, we want to be able to share the things that we're successful in and be able to not have to recreate the wheel for a lot of folks. So if you see a good idea, there's no reason why you can't try to use it as well. So again, coming back to these darn acronyms, why are there so many? So I want to put it out to you all. This is a little participation option that I would welcome you to either unmute yourself or share in the chat. But, you know, acronyms are different across institutions, something, you know, that, you know, Natalie talked about like legacy giving, we call it planned giving. So she might say LG, and we say PG. And, you know, all of these acronyms are different across institutions. So I'll share a kind of a basic terminology list that comes from our friends at Illinois in a minute. But what are some acronyms that you all hear? Either like you know what they are, or you're like, what does that mean? CGA. Charitable gift annuity. Yes. Anybody else? Feel free to unmute yourself too. DAF or DAF. That's a good one. Anybody know what that is? Who maybe isn't brand or is not a new person, or is a new person rather new to the profession? Donor advised fund. Awesome. What about like LIBUNT or PIBUNT? Anybody hear those ones? I still don't necessarily know what they mean, but it's like last year, but not this year. Previous year, not this year. CRAT. Liz, I have no idea what that is. A charitable remainder annuity trust. Just learned about that one. So there you go. Never called it a CRAT in my life. That's awesome. SIBUNT. Yes, that's another one too. Any other ones that you're wondering that you've been hearing and you're like, I didn't want to ask and I didn't Google it. I should ask. Anyone? It's okay. All right, we'll keep on keeping on. Again, I'll share a list here in the chat and send it out in a moment. Or I'll actually include it in our follow-up email that I'll send out. But it's a really lengthy list. I think it's like seven or eight pages of like every acronym terminology thing that you could probably imagine. So CRM, ROI, gold. We call gold as gophers of the last decade at the University of Minnesota. That's what we say. But also graduates of the last decade is probably what some other folks might say for gold. Thanks for those ones, Carol. I'm going to hand it over to my friends, Eleanor and Natalie, to share more about Know Before You Go. Again, feel free to keep any questions or comments going in the chat, or feel free to unmute yourself. Thanks, Courtney. Natalie and I serve as co-chairs of the engagement team. We're going to talk more about the overall engagement of the conference. After you go to your sessions, what there is to do to engage with, to connect with other people. So I am going to actually drop a link in the chat. This is going to take you to a sign-up genius. And if you've never seen one of these before, it kind of is like a way that you can sign up for volunteer opportunities. This one is specifically for engagement opportunities. And I'll talk a little bit more about what they are. So once I get this in the chat, I can't do multiple things at one time. It's just kind of not my brain power. All right. Is this right? That looked like a wrong. It worked. Okay, great. Perfect. Sorry, the wrong link for a second. So I want, I think this is important to know, just because you kind of think about a conference, you think about, you know, the learning opportunities, you go to the sessions, you learn from the people who talk about the things. But the other piece that, you know, we don't talk about as much is how to engage with everybody outside of those sessions and getting to know people who have been in your shoes before or who haven't been, but learning about, learning from other people, especially in a fun environment. So you can sign up for some activities. We have really cool dine-arounds, we call them. So restaurants that you can go to with a group of other case conference goers. Someone, a volunteer will be leading that. And so there'll be great conversation, good food. I think all of them are within walking distance. So you'll walk together as a group. We have some kind of silent or quiet activities. We have a Griffin Museum visit on Sunday. It's not a tour, it's just go explore the museum on your own. We also have a book bliss hour, we're calling it Silent Book Club at a really cool place, the Chicago Athletic Association. So we have a lot of things that you can check out. And I'll turn it over to Natalie. There's a very long list of round tables, which is a fun morning activity that she's been planning. So Natalie, I'll turn that over to you. Thanks. So breakfast round tables will be on Monday morning. Essentially, they're going to be either volunteer led or more specific focused discussion topics per se. So we have five that are going to be very specific that are going to be led by somebody. And then we have, I think, 12, maybe 11 more general. So you'll see the more general ones in the sign up genius. So that could be small privates or that could be a plan giving or alumni relations. And essentially, those are just a way for you to connect with individuals around that specific topic. My first case conference, I was a philanthropic advisor or major gift officer. So I sat at the frontline fundraising and just was able to share some of my questions and just get advice from individuals that are really experienced in this work. And then also, too, some people that might be new as well, which made me feel comforted in a sense that I'm not the only one. So breakfast round tables are a great way to kind of not just, and also too, if you're there alone, you don't have anyone else from your institution, it's a great way to have breakfast with individuals and have good conversation. And then another thing we're going to be doing is bingo. So when you check in, there will be bingo cards that you will receive. And essentially, that could be you attended a dine around or you did the pop a shot, which there's a opportunity to play some fun basketball at the conference. Or you met somebody that has worked in advancement for 10 plus years. So just really cool ways to try and tailor your experience a little bit and really expand your network. That's what a lot of these engagement opportunities are for. And I highly recommend, obviously, sometimes we need time to just go back to our room after a long day of a conference. So do that definitely. But I challenge you to maybe step out of your comfort zone a little bit and sign up for a couple of the things on the Signup Genius. Yeah. And I will say that there's a lot going on. nobody's thinking that everybody can do all of these things we hope that as the conference committee and engagement team that we've hopefully included something for everybody I did forget to mention that there is a second city show which is improv anybody if anybody loves improv. It's not really my thing but I know people love it. They are there are tickets available for you to purchase and go with a group of about 30 case conference goers so something to check out. Again, don't forget to bring your business cards if you have them. Make sure that you check out the engagement and just like Natalie said tailor your experience to what you want it to be there is a lot going on it's going to be a lot of information overload. But you're going to have a great time and if you find us during the conference or anyone you can always ask Hey, what can I do and how can I get involved so I think that's it Courtney. Awesome. And did you guys mentioned the volunteer opportunities as well. Did not. In that same sign up genius Thank you. There is actually at the top of it, a link to go to the volunteer page. So, um, I think it says sign up here I can actually let me just drop that link in the chat as well. And I'll follow up with links to everything so if you're like link. Yeah, I'll do that. The volunteer sign up genius, same kind of format. The session hosts the diner out or the yeah the diner rounds the roundtables you can also volunteer and I believe on Thursday in the evening time after work not evening but like right after work hours, or towards the end of the day, Steve Baker will be hosting an info session for what to do for a volunteer slot if you want to get involved with more, more on the volunteer side too. So, Oh, awesome. I'm going to mention a little bit about the case library, and the professional etiquette so this is something that I always like to make sure new folks know because I wish I would have known it existed for like the first three years that I was in higher and in advancement as part of the membership that your institution or you as an individual have with case you have access to a wealth of information white papers case studies, there will be a group of as part of the conference where like you can connect afterwards and I'm totally blanking on what that group is called and Christie or Jacob can Keeley can remind me what it is. There's just lots of opportunity to share information and to look for information. And if you can't find something in the case library they have like a professional librarian that like you could reach out to and say, I'm trying to find case studies about whatever fundraising for, you know, major gift fundraising for research in medical or something like that like, do you have any case studies about that and, you know, if you can't find it they might be able to help you find something that another institution has already published or shared or cases done research on. They do a lot of really cool, cool things so please look at all the online resources that they have, you don't have to buy a book that they, you know, a journal or something but they also have those options as well to actually purchase like more in depth items. And if you have professional development dollars that's a good way to use them as well, which I know are few and far between sometimes. Oh wow look we did a whole volunteer slide and I didn't even realize it so here's the volunteer slide that we, I knew we did this again, exactly what you know Eleanor and Natalie were talking about volunteers are needed. This is a really great way that I think almost all of us that have been engaged have just like raised our hand when somebody asked and said sure I'll try that I'll, you know, host a my own dinner session like I don't have to do anything except get the people together and help lead them to the dinner session or, you know, and then now we're all friends. So, those things are fun and it is a great way to engage with folks. And I just wanted to share because I think this is, you know, some of us are transitioning into new roles in higher ed advancement who have 2030 like Stephanie 33 years as a public librarian, thank you. I'm sad you're not a public librarian but I'm really excited that you're in higher ed as well so you know, some of you have like yeah I've been to conferences, other people might be like brand new to the working world and haven't attended a conference So, just kind of the professional etiquette things to keep in mind that are always really helpful is, you know, be prepared, be on time, engage actively but respectfully so, you know, like, if nobody else is raising their hand in the room, you know, feel free to raise your hand if you're the only person because you're the first person, you know, let's let somebody else kind of have those opportunities. And like this is kind of an interesting one because I was looking up more like cultural awareness and social, more social, I don't know socializations aren't the right word. But, you know, respecting networking boundaries or being mindful of cultural and other social sensitivities if somebody doesn't shake hands like that's okay like you know just don't need to be weird about it right or if somebody is not a hugger don't hug people don't ask somebody if you can hug them. You know, those are things that are that some people just don't think about so just being aware of those types of interactions are always really helpful and seem really basic but sometimes we forget about these things so again, like conference etiquette guidelines There was a lot around like if you're attending international conferences or conferences not located in your own home country like what do you do, you know, how do you offer, you know, gifts to people or business cards like those are really all interesting So just keep that in mind as you're doing other professional development opportunities or you're meeting with donors around the world or alumni that you're engaging with. And they're those types of tips are always helpful just to keep in mind as as we're working with a lot of different people all around the world. So, and I think the best thing to always remember is you are representing your institution. So, you know, if you do wish to partake in, you know, alcoholic beverages like just be mindful of, you know, it's, you're still representing your institutions so just be mindful of what is okay for you. And we share this because things have happened before right like so these are all just things to keep in mind and we want to make sure that we're giving you all the best experience possible as well. Yes, as Keely mentioned there will be opportunities for cocktails during the conference so if you do wish to participate. Those are just things to keep in mind so yes every once in a while there are some free drinks included so be mindful of that. Any other questions let us know we're happy to, to talk more about it. Matt going to hand this over to you if you want to introduce yourself and share a little bit about the mentor experience will be. I'm happy to Courtney Hi everybody. My name is Matt Ryan I use he him pronouns I serve as the senior associate director of affinity engagement at Denison University, which is in Granville Ohio just outside Columbus, Ohio. I just was recently the director of alumni engagement at Capital University so Eleanor and I not only were good friends but also colleagues in the Columbus area, and I was also a participant in the case 1.0 cohort so got to meet a lot of these lovely people and this experiences so that's why I want to continue to help out. So I want to share a little bit about the mentor experience so after everything in terms of the programming that you'll be experiencing on Sunday morning, we do have some specific time for you to interact with a mentor now that mentor could vary in scope that could be somebody that may be as a case cabinet member, that's maybe somebody that has been to many case conferences, it could be somebody that was just in your shoes last year that was a case 2.0 new to the profession cohort members so really a variety of experiences, and really what this opportunity is, is it's a moment in time for you to take intentional moments and get to know the person, hear from them what may be to expect in the conference answer those questions you may have. And from that point forward it's going to be kind of from 11 to noon, you can tailor that experience into what you're hoping for whether that be, you know you want to get together for coffee at those roundtables in the morning maybe you want to join them for a dine around or another engagement opportunity. And if it's like I chart my own course and I appreciate the advice and I'm going to go do my own thing. That's great too, but this is an awesome opportunity for you to have somebody kind of in your back pocket so you know you're never going to have to especially for coming from an institution where maybe you're the only person, you're never going to have to sit alone at a meal or anything like that. And, you know, to echo some of the sentiments is earlier, use that mentor to also kind of bolster you as you put yourself out there whether that be other engagement opportunities to, you know, no harm in introducing yourself as you sit down amongst the table, Courtney and some of the other folks that have been involved, I think we also can be cognizant maybe not only sitting with the people that we have as friends or people from our institutions. But I think, you know, having you all as folks that are newer to the profession are good reminders of that. So happy to answer any questions about that offline off this call so I'll drop my email in the chat. And if you have folks that you know from your institution that may be planning to attend the conference. If you think that you have a relationship with them and think they'd be a good mentor for somebody else let me know let Courtney know and we can connect with them in some form, so that they can possibly volunteer in that capacity as well, but hope you all are excited to hear about disk and I'm just excited to get to know you all this weekend. Good luck and I will chat with you also. Thanks Matt and I'll just mention as part of the follow up. You guys are going to get a really lengthy email and I apologize in advance but the two kind of action items will be to take your desk assessment so Chris will talk more about that what what that will be and then I'm also going to include a link to fill out for our mentor experience, it'll be for you as what we're calling the mentee, just so that if you're looking for a mentor who's maybe more in a frontline fundraiser because you think that might be more helpful to you, or somebody who's at a smaller institution versus a big 10 will do our best to try to match you with folks you, you might have one mentor to one mentee depending on how many mentors were able to recruit, there might be one, there may be a couple of you as mentees with a paired up with a mentor so Jeremy I just want to quickly introduce you or if you'd like to introduce yourself we didn't know we'd have such a distinguished guest on our call today so I'll let Jeremy introduce himself and then we'll hand it over here to Chris in a moment. Good afternoon everybody my name is Jeremy Mishler, I am the Deputy Chief of Advancement at Central Michigan University there's a couple of my colleagues that will be a part of your cohort and I'm so excited for that. So pleased that you and your colleagues would arrange for you to participate with this activity I think you're going to find it's going to hold a great deal of value for you both short term. You're going to break into this world of advancement that might have a bit of a median for you with alumni or maybe it's more of a mark on or maybe you're like us in the major gift world but regardless of which, there's going to be a lot of richness to the greatest degree over not just this time chatting and learning today but when you're at the conference to build on something that was said earlier, what I found in my. This will be my 26th case district five conference coming up. And what I have found and what I did early on is you'll notice that there are a lot of people discussing, regardless of whatever the topic is there's also a lot of people asking questions, so make an effort to make friends with those people from both sides because you're going to find value from folks who are asking good questions because maybe they're facing a similar challenge that might be happening at your institution, or that you're just wondering about because you're new to the career. a lot of people who are doing a lot of talking they tend to be the more seasoned professionals who can't help themselves but share people like me and Courtney and Matt and others. And we do have some stuff that we really do think is valuable that we want to see get get put out there mostly because we're so invested in this profession one and two, we like to see people succeed and start to become a part of this network that is just a great place to spend your time, supporting your institution so so nice to meet you all I will see you again coming up this weekend and next week, and in the meantime, just keep asking Courtney good questions. Have a great day. Thanks, Jeremy, I don't think you shared you're the chair of the case five cabinet Oh yes, like that is your role. Yes, sorry. When it comes to case, I am chair of the cabinet or board if you would think of it a volunteers, sort of the governance side of it for the Great Lake District so all the, all the states plus a couple of our friends that we drag along with us that touch the Great Lakes and then some so, and those are the various institutions and people that you're going to see at the conference come this weekend, but look forward to seeing them. Thank you. I'm quickly staying connected. This is something I always encourage folks to think about, you know, do you want to create a WhatsApp chat so you can stay in touch throughout the conference you can do that, you know, during breakfast or what have you. On Sunday when we meet, and also on Tuesday morning we will be doing a roundtable to share more about what we're calling that 3.0 cohort opportunity, and we'll talk more about it later but just wanted to make sure you all have that on your kind of calendar of things that you can stop by that Tuesday morning to learn more. And if you can't you have other plans that's okay too we'll share more by email. Okay, Chris you just tell me when you need me to bop to the next slide and I will do so and I'm going to hand it over to Chris. Chris if you want to just introduce yourself and we'll kick her off here for the next 25 minutes or so, and we are going to 115 but we will wrap up shortly afternoon, and I can stay on to answer and anybody else who's able to can stand and answer any kind of burning questions folks might have until about 115 central time. All right, Chris. All right, awesome. Thank you very much. Hi everyone I'm Chris Brunson, you can go ahead and advance the next slide. I'm the Assistant Director of Employee Engagement and Development for the University of Illinois in Urbana Champaign, so for the Urbana Champaign campus. I have been in the education realm curriculum development professional development realm for about 11 years. However, I am new to advancement. So I have been in this role for about 10 months, I actually went through the new to the profession 2.0 cohort and just recently finished that up so I'm really excited for you guys to experience it here coming up. I am disc certified so we're going to talk about for the next few minutes what disc is the assessment, kind of the science behind it, giving a really high level overview, so that you have a better understanding of it when you actually sit to take it. And also you will get more activity based disc workshop. When you go to the conference on Sunday. Go ahead and advance. So we will cover the six cornerstone principles of disc some science behind the assessment like I said just some very basic foundations, however we're going to start with a short video from disc, and it's going to also give a brief explanation. So, a little more in depth after the video. What if people had their needs written all over them? If you knew that this person wanted more independence, and that person wanted a bit more reassurance, would it change the way you work together? Would it make your job easier? Yeah, it probably would. But that's not the real world. Or is it? Maybe if you had the right decoder, everyone's needs would be a lot more obvious. It would be clear how to work more effectively together, to be more productive, more satisfied. All you would need is a tool to help you understand where people are coming from. This is DISC, your decoder. It gives you a way to quickly understand the needs and priorities of the people around you. It describes four basic styles, D, I, S, and C. Here's how it works. First, everyone has a dot. That dot tells you your DISC style. For instance, if you have a D, or dominant style, you probably drive toward results, insist on immediate action, and challenge the status quo. Most likely, other people with the D style share your priorities, even though you might butt heads from time to time. Different styles may find this same D approach to be blunt, intimidating, or insensitive. If you have an I, or influenced style, you probably approach work with enthusiasm, enjoy collaboration, and take quick action. Others with the I style probably find your energy exciting, even if the two of you are a little too optimistic at times. Different styles may find this sort of liveliness and fast pace to be sloppy or reckless. Or you may have an S, or steadiness style, which means you like to support people, maintain stability, and enjoy collaboration. People with the S style will probably appreciate your patient and easygoing nature, even if that means there's little sense of urgency. Different styles might see you as overly accommodating or indecisive. And finally, if you have a C, or conscientiousness style, you probably focus on accuracy, use your logic to challenge ideas, and seek stability to ensure consistent outcomes. Others with the C style will like that you prioritize getting things right, even if the two of you can get bogged down in analysis. But for people with different styles, this cautious pace may feel dry, sapping their natural energy. Now, in the real world, it's not always that simple. Your dot can be between two styles, such as in the area between I and S. You can have four or even five priorities. For example, in addition to collaboration, enthusiasm, and support, you might also share the priority of accuracy with your C coworkers. The point is, even though you need to recognize your own disc style, you also need to know where the people you work with are coming from. Whether you're simply connecting with others, solving problems, or working through conflict, you'll have to stretch from time to time. And using disc as a guide, you'll have a better sense of when and why that sort of adapting is so crucial to not only your success, but the success of everyone in your workplace. All right. Thank you for staying engaged with that. That gave a very general overview, a nice introduction to you all who may not be familiar with disc. Before I came into this position, I'd never heard of disc. But I had heard of other similar tools, perhaps Strength Finder, True Colors, things like that. They all work very similarly in that they try to give you some information to help you understand yourself and colleagues and those around you. Here's a little summary. It revolves around four primary styles, D, I, S, and C. And what this is going to help you understand is your communication, decision-making, and work style preferences. And also, after you take the assessment, it's going to give you access to a platform called Catalyst. And from there, you will be able to dive into a lot more information. And also, if you have any colleagues that also use disc, so if your institution uses disc, you might be able to find other colleagues who are in that system as well. You can go ahead and move forward. Disc has six cornerstone principles. First, understanding yourself better to become more effective with working with others, but also helping to analyze your own actions and maybe why that you feel the way that you feel, why you say the things that you do. Also, it is going to help you establish more effective relationships because when you begin to understand other people's perspectives, you can start to tweak the way that you might approach projects or approach conversations so that you can have better outcomes. Also, it's going to, again, help you learn about other people's disc styles, help you understanding their priorities, because at your workplace, we're all working towards the same goals. We just might have different ideas of expressing those goals and our ideas. The one that really we want to hit home are that all disc styles and priorities are equally valuable, and also that styles are not predictors of job success. So we really try to hit home on those two principles, because no matter who you are, what position you're in, your disc style matters, and it is not a predictor of whether you will be a success in that position. An example that we always talk about at Illinois is all of our Associate Vice Chancellors in Advancement cover the entire disc spectrum, yet they all do amazing work in the same arena. So that's just a really great example of how all styles are, again, equally valuable and not predictors of success. And then lastly, pointing out that external factors can influence your disc style. Obviously, you are a whole person, and we can't, unlike severance, we are not able to separate our innies and outies, and so everything that we do and happens in our lives is always carried with us. So barring any significant life events, external factors, you know, can play a part, but not change results drastically over time. And we'll talk a little bit more about that coming up. Again, those are the two that we really try to hit home. So I want to mention what disc isn't. So disc is not just some simple, for fun, feel-good BuzzFeed quiz. So I know these, at least I remember in college and stuff, these were huge, and I would procrastinate so much taking these ridiculous BuzzFeed quizzes because they were so funny. So this is actually, these are the results of me and my co-worker, Ro, who is also on the call, who you'll be hearing from on Sunday when you do the in-person activities. And so these are our results of taking the pancake, of which pancake order will reveal our dog breed. And so she is the Bichon Frise, if I'm saying that correctly. And I am the Golden Retriever. And I also like to point out, for those who know me, know I do not bring the Golden Retriever energy. So this just further proves how illegitimate these results are of BuzzFeed because I, yeah, childlike positivity couldn't be me, could not be me. So unlike BuzzFeed, though, disc uses actual science and to determine your working styles and your working preferences. Researchers have tested it to make sure it's reliable, which means that it has consistent results, and that it's valid, which means that it's actually measuring what it claims to measure. I'm going to talk a little bit more about the science behind it. So can we actually trust these results, unlike our BuzzFeed quizzes? So you can think about reliability like this. If you take the same test today, take it again next week, and maybe even again in three years, you would get similar results. Unless some major life event should happen, your result is not going to change that much. It may fluctuate a little bit, but it's not going to drastically change. You're never going to completely flip to an opposite disc style. And that's called test-retest reliability, and it shows that disc is stable over time, and it's something that researchers look to when they actually want to use the data from an assessment. Another part of reliability is the internal consistency, which actually checks if the questions are measuring the trait that they say they're measuring. And so through iterations of people taking these assessments and analyzing the results, it does have that internal consistency. And then also validity. So to confirm that disc is actually measuring personality traits and not something else, researchers use a few different techniques. One is intercorrelations. If all the questions in a section are measuring the same thing, they are going to be closely related. So what it's like would be checking your fitness tracker data. So you may have a fitness tracker on your phone, and maybe you also have a Fitbit, and maybe you also manually track some fitness data. And you would hope that you're getting similar, very similar data, no matter how you're collecting it. And so that is the intercorrelations of disc. So disc has that showing that there's alignment through all of the sections of disc and all the types of questions. All right. You can go ahead and move to the next. All right. So how is the disc map, which you saw in the video, how is that structured? So it's based on two axes. So you have the vertical or rather the horizontal axis splits into a top and bottom where if you fall along the top half of the circle, you are generally more fast-paced, outspoken. If you're on the bottom half of the circle, you tend to be a little more cautious, a little more reflective in the way that you approach your work. And then for the right and left, the left side, you're questioning and skeptical. I like to point out that questioning and skeptical are not seen as negatives here. Sometimes we can hear those words and think like, oh, that person is always the double sub, or that person like always, you know, the Debbie down or whatever. No, it just means that you like to have all the information. You like to have all the information. You want to know the details so that you can make best informed decisions. And then the right being more accepting and warm. You can move to the next one. Thank you. So then that breaks it down into the four styles that we have become familiar with dominance, influence, steadiness, and conscientiousness. And you can see some adjectives there that they would use to describe each of those basic four styles. I won't go through and read each one, but I'll pause here for a couple seconds that you can quickly scan them. Sorry. Can I just ask Elmira, if you can hear us, if I think you're off mute and I'm just getting some like feedback from your audio, I think. Thanks. Sorry. I didn't mean to call you out. I apologize. So taking this into account, these adjectives, these basic adjectives, we're going to do a little practice because not everyone you meet is going to, you're not going to have their disc results. Or if your institution doesn't doesn't use this widely, you may have a colleague that you were, you can't go into Catalyst and, you know, look them up and see why is this person the way they are? So there's something you can do called a cold read or a quick read. And we're going to practice that a little bit by looking at some famous people. So hopefully some people that you may recognize. So here's an example already done for us. Those of you that like the office we have, oh man, it's been a while. So I know that's Dwight, obviously a D style. He's assertive, he loves control, he hates losing. He doesn't have any problems speaking his mind. And then we have, oh man, I can't remember the manager's name. Michael. Michael Scott. Oh yeah, Michael Scott. Michael Scott, high energy. He brings the golden retriever energy. He loves to be around people. He loves to tell stories. He likes, it says there, he's seeking approval. Very much an I, a stereotypical I. And then we have Pam, who is an S. She's the caretaker, patient, supportive, doesn't like confrontation, but also likes, doesn't necessarily like surprises. Wants a nice calm environment. She's there to do her job. She doesn't want drama. And then lastly, the C, who is Angela. Yes, thank you. Thank you. Angela, who loves rules, can maybe be seen as rigid as yes, likes order, likes structure. So there we can see the four main disc styles playing out in a very stereotypical way. So I just also want to point that out, is we can easily look at some of these characters and maybe associate bad qualities with these disc styles. And I don't want you to necessarily go down that road, because for me, if I were to associate every D I meet with Dwight, that might be an issue. But don't see it as that black and white. Not every D you meet is going to feel like Dwight. Not every C you meet is going to come across as an Angela. Here we are with friends. Monica loving that assertiveness. Chandler loves to be around people. I would even say like if they included Joey, I could even see Joey very much being an I as well. Rachel, caretaker, more patient, more kind. She's sensitive to others. And then we have Ross, kind of that more scientific mind. He's that paleontologist. Wants to know the details, very analytical. So now I'm gonna have you guys practice this. So in the chat, in the chat, I would like you to put down what disc style you think our good friend Dolly Parton would be. All right, I'm seeing D, I, some I, some S's, an I, S. You can have a mix. We're gonna talk about that, that you can have actually more than one letter in your disc style. Some D's and I's. So we're definitely thinking she's in that top. I'm seeing most answers in that top half of the circle, which is that more fast-paced half of the circle. All right, you can go ahead and click. So according to the website that I got this off of, now, I do not know if Dolly Parton has actually taken a disc assessment, but according to a disc-associated website where I helped source some of this, they have the belief that she would be in the I category. But I wanna point out, notice that her dot is not just smack dab. So it's kind of living on an edge, near an edge, in the middle. So just keep that in mind because we're gonna bring that up later. All right, let's go to our next one. We have our chef, Gordon Ramsay. Okay. Those of you familiar with Gordon. D's eyes, some C's, C, D. All right, let's see where he falls. D, so they had him listed as a D, which is that more dominant personality, assertive. Clearly, he is not afraid to share his very strong opinions. All right, and this one was really for me. I am obsessed with Bob's Burgers. I love Bob's Burgers. So those of, hopefully, hopefully you are too so that you can have an idea of where do you think Bob Belcher from Bob's Burgers would fall? If we think about some of his characteristics, how do you think I'm seeing? Okay, some D, C, S, I, S, D. We're kind of all over the board with Bob here. Let's see what he is. A C. Why do you think, I'm curious, so either in the chat or if someone's brave enough to unmute, why might Bob be a C? The burgers have to be perfect. He does seek perfection, absolutely. Any other ideas? He seems to always, he likes consistency. Yes, he does. I would say he's not necessarily one to want to quickly act out of a spur of the moment. He likes to think about things more. His wife, Linda, is always wanting to, yeah, he's no Linda. Linda would probably definitely fall on, I would say an I or an S, maybe an I, S, because she is a people person. She is a go-getter. She is enthusiastic. She's also very supportive of her family. So I could see some S coming out in her as well. All right, we can move on to the next one. We don't have to talk about Bob's Burger. I could talk about Bob's Burgers all day. So here we have, again, the basic four disc styles. Go ahead and advance once for me. But you can actually, your results can be more than one letter. So if we think about where, for example, Dolly Parton, she was more along the edge. So she might actually come out as an I, S, where her dominant letter is still an I. She still has all of those I qualities. She's very enthusiastic, outgoing, lively, but also important to her are some of those S qualities as well, as being accepting and warm, caring, supporting others. So you can have more than one letter in your disc style. You can move to the next. Here's the example of three different types of maps that you might see. So these are from my results. I am a very strong C. You can see how my dot is right on the edge of C. So what that means is I exhibit those characteristics of a C very strongly. You can also then in the second map see that the shading reaches into all four. So everyone is a mix of all four styles. I was just, we were just doing a session with a group on campus and their leader had a really great term for like your dot is kind of your, I think you call it your resting space or your, and so like that's where you feel most comfortable, but you have the ability when necessary, when needed to flex into those other spaces. So if, for example, for me as a C, I'm more of an introvert, but because of my job, like right now, talking to strangers, I have to really flex into that I part of me where I may not want to live all the time. Like my supervisor, Ro, who is very much an I, she loves this sort of stuff and could be around people all day long where, for example, at the conference for me, I'm probably gonna have to escape at some point and have some quiet time. Yes, humans energize her, whereas they drain me. Here again, slight, moderate, strong. So depending on where your dot is plotted, you will exhibit some slight variance in your attributes. So your DISC profile on Catalyst. I mentioned Catalyst. Catalyst is the platform used by DISC where you can go in and see a lot of information, great resources for projects, communication, feedback, roadblocks, tension points. You can compare yourself to a colleague. If you have multiple people in your organization that use this, you can build groups. You can get advice for different situations, both for just internal, just reflection, but also information about others as well. So definitely use Catalyst. Take some time when you can after you take your assessment to dive in there a little bit, see what's there. I'm still discovering new little pockets of information that they have once you click on a few different things. So it's definitely worth your time to look around at Catalyst. And last but not least, your DISC assessment. So you are gonna get an email. So look for an email that is gonna say DISC Admin. It's gonna have a unique code. It doesn't take too long. Block off some quiet time, 30 to 45 minutes, because you're gonna wanna do it in one sitting. If you don't see an email come through, I think this evening, correct? Yes, okay. Come through this evening. You can reach out to Ro George and there is her email address. So you might wanna jot that down. I'll also follow up with an email with some of this information. So if folks don't receive it, they can reply directly to Ro and I and we can make sure that they get it. We'll want you to fill it out. I think, did we say the end of the day Friday? That was our desire? Yeah. Okay. And we'll put that in the email as well. Right, yeah. So look for that email, make some time in these next couple of days to get that. So that way they have it, cause you're gonna need to know and have completed that before the session on Sunday. Great. Well, thank you, Chris. Really appreciate all of that great information. As Chris mentioned, Ro, her name is, this is Roberta here. Ro is gonna be presenting some fun breakout session activities for us in person Sunday morning. And so we'll have an agenda of a few things. Carol's also gonna be presenting and doing some engaging activities with us in the morning. So do know that we'll have some engagement and then we'll have some presentations, some engagement. We are trying to hit everybody's learning styles as best as we can. So, and like Ro commented on my comment, you don't get, I mean, you're probably not gonna get a lot of sleep at CASE. Like if you wanna be engaged, you're probably gonna get a good six hours, but also understand there's a lot going on in the world right now. So we're gonna wrap it up here. And so I thank you all for joining us for the last hour plus. And as I mentioned, we are going to have a six month long virtual, fully virtual cohort after the conference that everybody who's registered for this pre-conference workshop will get an opportunity to participate in. Carol and Eleanor are gonna be leading that. They will be one hour virtual sessions each month on different topics and we'll have guests and all those fun things going on. And we do have dates scheduled as well. So we'll share those with you in full on Sunday, but there is information there. If you wanna zoom into that QR code, you're more than welcome to do that. We do ask for a separate application just so we know that you plan to participate in the six month long cohort is completely free. This is part of the volunteer work that all of us are doing that we all have a passion to support you all ongoing because we know there's a lot of information thrown at us. A lot of you are less than three, six months in your roles. Like I always tell people when they come to the University of Minnesota, I'm like, if you've never worked in higher ed before, you've never been at the U of M. I said, you get at least a year, at least a year to try to figure out just the basic information. I've been in my role for 12 years. I'm still learning new stuff every day. So, that's okay. You're never gonna know it all, but you'll get there. You'll get to what you need to know. So Sunday morning, we will look in your app when it'll tell you the room location and where we're gonna be. We'll have breakfast for everybody from 7.30 to 8 a.m. And you'll be able to pick up, you'll be able to check in at registration, get your name tag and things, come to breakfast, and we'll be ready to kick off right at 8 a.m. So, if you want something to eat or drink, you know, a little coffee, we'll probably have coffee throughout the morning. They usually keep some of that around. Please make sure to show up a little bit early to grab some goodies and we'll get started right at 8 a.m. on Sunday. Yay. I'm happy to hang out and answer any questions that folks might have. If you've got to go on with your day, please do so. And we thank you all. And thank you to my amazing colleagues and friends for chiming in and chipping in today. We look forward to seeing you all on Sunday. Thanks all. See you Sunday.

District 5 Annual Conference

higher education advancement

networking

DISC assessment

Mentor Connect program

professional development

Sheraton Chicago

conference engagement

workplace interactions

virtual cohort program