Approximately two years ago, we made the exciting transition from our old facility on Saddle Creek Road to our new home at Scott Campus. While that transition was at times challenging, we now enjoy a wonderful new facility that fully meets the needs of individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
As we continue to develop and expand services, we are beginning a series of new transitions in leadership. We have benefitted from supportive and consistent leadership at the Munroe-Meyer Institute for a number of years. However, we now have a number of leadership positions to fill.
Although this may result in feelings of uncertainty, as we found from moving locations, the challenge of transitions also can lead to innovative ideas, new perspectives and new opportunities.
Our people are our greatest asset. Just as we invest in training students for their future careers, we are constantly developing our faculty and staff to help them grow. Whether it is a new clinical skill set, grant writing and research agendas or management and leadership abilities, it is inspiring to see the spark that leads to someone becoming deeply engaged in their work and passionate about their future.
Over the past couple years, MMI has ensured that we have staff engaged in leadership training across campus, such as UNMC’s iLEAD and NU DEAL programs, across Omaha through the Executive Institute and through contracted leadership training with SOLVE at MMI. We also invested in developing staff into supervisors and created leadership teams within departments.
We are thrilled when our faculty and staff develop a passion within a role that leads to continued growth for the mission of MMI. We develop new opportunities for our colleagues to step up to new challenges or step into management and leadership positions at MMI as they arise. We are equally happy for our colleagues when other institutions recognize their talents and provide them a new opportunity to grow. When we invest in our people, they are better prepared to take the lead and make transitions in leadership easier to facilitate.
We will continue to share the knowledge and resources to help our teams grow and move forward. Sometimes these calls to lead are temporary based on the needs of a department and other times that individual is selected to continue to lead them into the future.
Either way, it is important to celebrate the strengths of the team to help energize them for the next period of growth.
Amy Nordness, PhD, is the director of clinical services and the associate director of the UNMC Munroe-Meyer Institute. She is a participant in the University of Nebraska’s inaugural class for its NU DEAL (Developing Excellence in Academic Leaders) leadership development program.