Osama's Back plus some Interesting Conversations

Sunday, February 23---From Tom:

Osama Returns: This week our friend Osama returned after about 3 weeks in Utah and Ohio. He was pretty excited although he realized it was not the best time of year to visit these areas. He was even taken ice fishing by Chris Coray on Bear Lake. Sorry but that doesn't sound fun at all. Apparently he was hosted well by lots of people and made some good connections for selling his mosaics and other artwork. Many thanks to those of you who helped him ( Bobbie and Chris ).

When he returned, he had Ronna and I over to dinner along with Brent and Margaret Strong.

Dinner at Osama's--Mensef ( rice with roasted lamb) and traditional Arabic salad. 

What's interesting is that he'll have us to dinner and fix a wonderful meal and we eat alone. He and his wife and kids join in conversation after the meal. I still haven't figured that out. We've been to dinner or lunch 5 or 6 times with him but he never sits and eats with us.

Meeting with Ronna's Dean, Dr. Issam: On Thursday Dean Issam asked me to come in and talk with him. I was concerned since I knew he was upset when we took off during Christmas. He also was somewhat upset during the two weeks between semesters when many of the faculty were not there. Often Ronna and I were one of the few.

He is a very genial, seemingly happy man but we have learned that he's somewhat passive aggressive and is also punctilious about rules and procedures.

He asked me about my ideas to bring better moral into the team, to lift their attitudes. I felt that it was a setup and proceeded cautiously. There is an attitude in the College or Faculty, mainly due to the over scripting and endless rules. I suggested that he meet with each faculty member and ask them what their greatest issue was and just listen and be supportive---have no judgement or condemnation. He looked puzzled. I told him he could build the spirit if he became more of a coach and less of a judge; to invite the creativity of the instructors instead of pushing them.

He told me he had previously worked in a bank where everyone was there from 7:45 until 3:15 and couldn't leave. They knew they had to be there. The implication was clear. I told him I started a company that grew and became quite successful and we had no rules, no required times. But staff members came in early and left late because they were excited about their work. He said that both he and the President were concerned when many of the faculty were not in their offices.

I asked him what his goal was; to have teachers in their offices or to have students that were excited about what they were learning. The faculty are very capable and interested in teaching, give them the opportunity to be creative and reward them. I told him about the "Dead Poet's Society" film with Robin Williams. It was an eye opener.

It seems that the Jordanian culture is focused on form and rules and not on creativity and motivation. The students have a very hard time thinking 'out of the box' or doing creative problem solving. I had suggested a day earlier, when I met with the President and Vice President that we ought to teach the faculty from Covey's book, "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People". Think Win-win, Begin with the End in Mind, Seek to Understand before you Seek to be Understood, etc. I never realized what a gap there was. It is so typical to start a meeting by issuing orders rather than  seeking suggestions. So here I go getting in trouble again.

My Concepts Class: It started rough--no notice that I was going to be teaching them, but we got it going and it ended on a high note. I challenged them on some projects to be extraordinarily creative and come up with ideas that hadn't been seen before. Don't worry about the presentation but show me ideas. And they were great! What is interesting is how they all came alive when they got their creative juices going.  This is the group I'm trying to get on an exchange with a college in New Hampshire, but we're still short of some funding. If they go, it will be a wonderful incubator for future classes. We'll see.

You can see the note they left on the board on the last day. It made it worth it.

Note of appreciation on the last day of the Concepts Class

I Finally Met the Guys Who Run This Place:  In the last week or so, I met two of the most significant players on the campus. Father Majdi Siriyani controls the funding for the university. He is a Catholic Priest who works under the Patriarch of Jerusalem. It was totally by coincidence but he had me come in and we talked for about an hour. He's a very bright, capable man with wonderful intentions. He is well educated and experienced. We exchanged ideas that are very helpful in understanding the culture and history of the region, the religious ties and the Catholic Church's mission here. I think I gave him some ideas that could be helpful.

On Saturday I met Alex, who happens to run the business of the AUM campus. He's Jordanian but has worked and lived in Canada for almost 20 years. He's a very savvy, well spoken man who "gets it".

I shared some of my frustrations with the systems here and he agreed that it was utter chaos. I told him I would be willing to help him by creating punch lists of items that need to be fixed, finished and attended to. It would be a very long list. He eagerly accepted my offer and said we could accomplish some significant things. He gets it. Instead of excusing things and rationalizing he wants to put the campus into good shape. He sounds like some of the wonderful contractors we worked with in Utah and is the first person that didn't just make excuses and say it was the way it was and couldn't be changed.

Spring Semester Starts: Our new semester begins tomorrow. Ronna has three classes in English Communications I. She's much relieved having three classes all the same.  She'll also set up and manage the Writing Lab. We are also now getting a laptop computer for her, finally.

The weather has been steadily getting better. Our days are up in the low 70's and 45-50 at night. Very nice. The house is not so bone chilling cold but we still put on several layers. I sleep with a hot water bottle and do quite nicely. Maybe I'm just getting old, but it feels good and we both sleep through the night very well. (It's hard to believe I'll be 70 in 3 weeks. I still feel like a kid, until I try to walk.) Actually our health has been better here than in the cold winter of Utah. I've not needed the antibiotics or prednisone here like I did every winter previously. But we haven't exercised  like I'd like to either.

We love you all!! Stay warm.