Building A Strengths-Based Campus Conference...

I'm off in the morning to Omaha Nebraska to attend the Building A Strengths-Based Campus conference at Gallup University.

The research behind the strengths-based movement is the Strengths-Finder research developed by Donald O. Clifton. Srength Finders takes a positive approach to employee (or student) success - identifying your strengths and helping you identify strengths in others to help build optimal team and collaborative expeiences.

The actual Strengths Finders 2.0 instrument is a series of questions that ask you to choose from one of two possible answers. the scored instrument then returns your top five of a total of thirty-four identified strengths. My top five strengths are:

1. Learner
2. Intellection
3. Input
4. Developer
5. Responsibility

Over the years I have taken a lot of tests to evaluate my personaity, tendencies and other aspects of my personality, aptitudes, and performance. I cam honsetly say that Strengths Finder has come the closest to describing who I think I am and who others think I am. The strengths listed here support my current job as an academic chair to a tee.

Over the three days of the conference I hope to learn how others have implemented the Strength-based approach at their institutions for both employee and learner success. We are in the process of adopting this approach at NSCC and I look forward to finding out the good, the bad, and the ugly of this success approach. I am a believer in its potential - I like its positivity and the approach of looking at strengths in people not of looking at what people do not do well. Let's focus on success...

(Photo from Strengths Finder 2.0 Web site)