EIT Retreat 2002
Reflections of a Seasoned Newcomer

by Judy Peterson

After only 19 years in Financial Management, I attended my first EIT retreat in 2002. The retreat was both less and more than I expected. It was less stressful, less exciting (“party” house had been oversold by some members) and less tiring than I anticipated. It was more valuable, more stimulating and more fun than expected. And while Pack Forest isn’t deluxe, it was reasonably comfortable.

The retreat began with dinner on a Wednesday night. However, some of us trekked down to Pack Forest early enough for a very pleasant autumn walk in the woods. We ate dinner at the same time as a noisy group of teachers and then retired to a separate building for ice-breakers led by Karen Crowder.

We spent all of the next day in diversity awareness training led by Phoenix Consulting. Some form of this training will likely be made available to Financial Management staff. I found most of the training to be, at the very least, interesting and at times quite challenging. One of my favorite concepts was “Unconsciously Incompetent” – the person who is so unaware of inappropriate language/references that they don’t even know they use them. For example, the term “gypped” comes from gypsy and, thus, is not appropriate but many of us didn’t know that. There is a progression to where one does not use inappropriate references and does not have to stop and think about it. There was much more to the training than this and I thought the EIT did a great job staying focused.

One of the outcomes from the retreat was the reformulation of the RAVE team with the focus on division wide diversity training for leaders and staff. This team has met once so far and is in the process of planning a future training session. Also, the EIT decided to survey staff members to determine how closely work climate perceptions align with broader organization findings from the diversity audit.

The evening was “free time”. It was relaxing to sit around the fire and chat about the place we all have in common: UW. The final day we talked about UW a great deal more with Harlan Patterson, Vice Provost for Planning and Budgeting. He led a fascinating discussion regarding the fiscal health of the University and his ideas to improve it. At noon, we broke for lunch and the drive home – the group of introverts I rode with was thankful it was Friday.